FOLLOWING THE EUROPEAN UNION

Walter,

I recognize that it isn't just Germany. France, as you indicated, is over the limits too, and, I suspect that Italy, the Netherlands and others aren't far behind. Indeed the limits themselves were the work of the Germans, who, before reunification, had greater financial reserves and fewer demands on the public purse. However the (largely German) concerns that originally motivated the limits remain valid. With a single currency and central bank and all the other factors I noted above, the potential for trouble in managing what will remain as distinct national economies and national government fiscal policy will be very great.

I agree Germany's and Frances fiscal policies are a bad thing, but I don't think the problems you mention are the reason for it. Here's why:

There is a reasonably free market for loanable funds in Europe. When governments on a borrowing binge drive up the demand for them, their price -- in other words, the interest rate -- will go up as in every other market. This punishes every country that is indebted, but it punishes countries with high debt more than countries with low debt.

So I'm pretty confident that even without the "stability and growth pact", fiscal policies will police themselves via the bond market. It's the bad precedent of arbitrary, unilateral contract violation that makes my government's policies so irresponsible. I worry about that a lot.

Thomas,

I have no particular criticism to offer with respect to the fiscal policies of France or Germany, or even the merits of the Stability & Growth Pact. (I do have the impression that some modification to enable more flexibility in its terms may be a result of the present situation. ) My interest had more to do with the problem of maintaining economic (and other) policies that make sense both locally (nationally) and across an European Union with a single currency and a growing political structure. Failing to live up to a contract with the other members of the union with respect to the current deficit in the midst of a recession is a fault, but hardly a grievous one in this troubled world.

My opinion is that the so far quite remarkable success of the EU must at some point politically confront the inevitable contradictions between local (national) interests and those of the larger union. It is impressive that so much has been done so far with so little of that, but given the economic and demographic stresses of the current era in Western Europe, and the relatively different situations among the new and candidate members in Central Europe, I find it hard to believe that the core political issues can be evaded much longer. I truly wish you every success in this remarkable effort, and hope that the "boring" (to use your word) incrementalism of recent years can continue to meet your goals, however I am skeptical.

Thomas, I believe your assessment of the situation in Germany and France is the correct one; those with high deficits will pay the price for their irresponsible national deficit. However, I don't know how Germany will be able to correct their problems any time soon with unemployment near the ten percent level and the overly-ambitious social programs. It would be my guess that France might be in a little better state of affairs.

It is also interesting to note that West Germany and East Germany have their own economic problems. How they will attend to these internal problems seems to highlight how difficult it will be for the EU countries to reconcile their differences.

True enough, and it is the cost of the economic assimilation of the East that has raised German public debt levels above EU averages. Before the reunification they were well below those averages.

Well, I would differ this to east and west, since some of the old states aren't doing well as well and some of the new states are doing fairly good.

I bet that in any country there are states, province, regions, departements, which are doing better than some others.

I agree. East Germany is to West Germany just like the mezzogiorno is to the rest of Itally -- only without the dolce vita.

Walter, True enough. However, I think the difference in unemployment between west and east Germany are dramatic compared to other countries - something on the scale of 14 percent unemployment in East Germany vs 7 percent in West Germany. Is the problem in Italy about the same?

Oh for sure there is ever accumulating real power emanating from the growth of EU law etc (and that public response is lagging in that respect) - its just that the European Parliament has relatively little say about it all.

It might be true (referring to Walters post) that as MEP you still have more influence than as an opposition MP in the House of Commons (but then you have pretty damn little influence as an opposition MP in the House of Commons) - but the real power, both in establishing and implementing & enforcing EU laws and programmes, lies with the European Commision and the European Council - the EP is still struggling to become more than an advisory organ.

Nimh,

Interesting. To what extent can and does the Commission act independently of the expressed desires of the member nations? How might the accession of the several candidate nations affect all this? How will the EU balance the interests of large and small nations? I can readily imagine that the national governments would not like to see legislative power move to the EU parliament, which would then diminish theirs. Will subsequent steps toward increased political union then wait several more decades until the new states are fully assimilated, or will it proceed more quickly?

Thats an awful lot of fairly Big Questions ... <grins>
... and I gotta go sleep. I'm sure Walter will follow up.

One thing I'd like to start off with, though, is that there is this complex tension going on between two separate pushes for more democratic control over EU politics - both reasonable, but in contradiction with each other.

Most everyone seems to agree nowadays that the EC wields too much power, or at least wields it with too little outside control. After all, the Commissioners are unelected officials (delegated by the national member states instead, sometimes as a form of political retirement), each with a huge bureaucracy at their disposal, endowed with an authority overriding that of national government, yet only moderately forced to account to the EP.

Dont get me wrong - I think they're often doing a lot better a job than any of the national governments are. But fiercely democratic it is not. And in that lies the seed of a potential future public backlash against these anonymous bureaucrats.

But the push to change - or contain - this, goes in two opposite directions.

First, there's the push for more democratic accountability. Increase the authorities of the EP. Give it the right to vote out individual Commisioners, for example. Implied in this push is a future drive to democraticise the EC itself.

Problem with that (for some) is that each move in that direction also makes the EC more like a European government, and increases its standing vis-a-vis the national governments. Whereas others see the solution of defending European democracy in increasing national control over those European administrators.

Their reasoning is that only the national governments have a true democratic legitimacy (b/c of the weakness of the democratic process and identification on EU level), and that the EU administrators should therefore not be allowed to become more than the representatives of delegated national authority.

That's the irony. Strengthening the democratic processes at EU level makes the EC more of an entity with its own democratic legitimacy - and thus turns the bottom-up logic of delegation by national states into more of a top-down logic of European politicians exercising their own mandate - which many see as a threat to (national) democracy. So there's always the push and pull.

This comes back in pretty much every issue. Redefinition of how much seats every country gets in the EP, now that the new member states accede? From the perspective of promoting a representative European democracy, it would need to go strictly by population ratio - i.e., more seats for Germany. From a perspective of defending national democracies against the thus far quite undemocratic EU moloch, one would need to prevent the big countries like Germany from getting an overwhelming share of votes.

How many Commissioners? (At the moment, each Member State gets its own Commisioner. But there'll be twice as many Member States soon.) A permanent President of the Commission, accountable to Parliament, or a per-year rotating Presidency, ensuring that each Member State will get its turn? All of the controversial questions involve the same questions.

It's necessary to strengthen democratic institutions and accountability at EU-level - but as long as those are weak, people are justifiably wary of ceding too much of an autonomous mandate to the EU-level apparatus - even though continuing purely by the logic of delegated authority by definition constraints the EU-level apparatus to merely indirect democratic legitimacy - et cetera. Its a hard one to solve.

I had a thread up that focused on basically this dilemma ... it had interesting posts, which was good, because all in all I am definitely no expert on the matter: "How should the EU be governed? Eur Council vs Eur Commission".

I'm no expert as well - just know our local Member of European Parliament (personally) :wink: .

I agree with nimh's response.

Influence of members/member states is always a question. (Is every region of a country well represented in any country's government?)

The commission is, indeed, a mixture of "civil servants partly elected" (or something like that).
The structure of the EU is only partly democratic -the way we know it country-wise- and certainly for most people a little part "in the dark".

But, things are on the way to change that - I hope so :wink:

Nimh, Walter,

Thanks. Very interesting. You have outlined a basic tension which I have long presumed must be present in some form: the inescapable struggle between national sovereignty, and the sovereignty of the union.

The original structure of the post revolutionary union in America was a 'confederation' of essentially sovereign states, under the 'Articles of Confederation. It didn't work well, mostly because of differing internal practices, tariffs, trade and the like - issues which Europe has already worked out. A few years later, under our constitution, a stronger Federal Government was created, but with specifically delineated and limited powers. The constitution provides that powers not specifically assigned to the Federal government in the constitution are "reserved to the people and the several states". Since then practice and actions of the Supreme court have stretched the interpretation of the powers of the Federal Government well beyond what was likely originally intended. Some of this is practical necessity in a changed world: other elements are disputable. Even with all this we later fought a very bloody civil war over the same question of state sovereignty.

All this occurred in a new land with independent state governments and histories, but united by a common language and culture. I suspect the problem for Europe must of necessity be more difficult.

As long as the EC can be counted on to act in conformity with the desires (or at least limits of toleration) of the member governments, the EU can progress in more or less its present form. If, owing to the addition of several new members with different outlooks, that relationship becomes strained, there will likely be problems. I assume the immediate economic benefits of membership are sufficient inducement for new members to go along with the prevailing practices of a union, initially dominated by France and Germany. However it will be interesting to see how long that lasts. At the same time it will be interesting to see how France, Germany, the UK, Italy and other large EU states react to the dilution of their power on a commission with a single vote for each member .

Thanks, George.

I know that you dislike copying and pasting from online sources.
But I think, the first part of the following quotation might be a kind of answer to your above - and all of it, an actual résumé for other readers (of whom some don't like opening links and read then :wink: )


source: Deutsche Welle (dw-world)

Walter,

Thanks for the interesting piece. (I dislike such stuff only when I am not interested in it). :wink: (first time ever I have used one of those faces).

I take it the question before the Commission now is a new formula for proportional voting, applicable after the accession of new members, and that the present form gives exactly the same voting power on the commission to each member. Is this correct?

Frankly, in view of the disparity in populations 29 to 27 isn't much of an advantage. However, I suspect the real drivers here are the different views of the large and smaller states, the dominant old members and the new, less wealthy ones, etc. on issues they see before them. It isn't clear to me that a lasting solution to this issue can be found within the commission.

America was not able to solve this question in the formulation of the executive power. Instead we moved it to the legislature with two houses; one in which all states have equal representation; and another in which representation is proportional to population. Apparently Europe is trying to delay the big step of the creation of a truly sovereign union, while, at the same time, trying to work out an acceptable compromise within the present context. I had not fully understood that.

I know you are a ready source of links in this and just about anything. If you have any suggestions for further reading I would be interested.

[quote="georgeob1]
Thanks for the interesting piece. (I dislike such stuff only when I am not interested in it). :wink: (first time ever I have used one of those faces).

I take it the question before the Commission now is a new formula for proportional voting, applicable after the accession of new members, and that the present form gives exactly the same voting power on the commission to each member. Is this correct?
[/quote]

Thanks for being the reason of this premiere

You are correct - nearly: we now have 20 commissioners.

From the EU website (at The European Union online ):
The term "Commission" is used in two senses. First, it refers to the "Members of the Commission" - i.e. the team of 20 men and women appointed by the member states and Parliament to run the institution and take its decisions. Secondly, the term "Commission" refers to the institution itself and to its staff.

Informally, the Members of the Commission are known as "commissioners". They have all held political positions in their countries of origin, and many have been government ministers, but as Members of the Commission they are committed to acting in the interests of the Union as a whole and not taking instructions from national governments.
A new Commission is appointed every five years, within six months of the elections to the European Parliament. The procedure is as follows:

The member state governments agree together on who to designate as the new Commission President.
The Commission President-designate, in discussion with the member state governments, chooses the other 19 Members of the Commission.
The new Parliament then interviews all 20 members and gives its opinion on the entire "college". If approved, the new Commission can officially start work the following January.

There have always been two commissioners from each of the most heavily populated member states and one commissioner from each of the other EU countries. However, if this system were maintained after EU enlargement, the Commission would become too large to be workable. There will already be ten new commissioners (bringing the total to 30) on 1 May 2004, when ten new member states join the EU.


Will come back to the second half of your response later.

George

Well, I really think that the BBC has got on it's websites the most balanced responses about the constitution (and the EU in general as well - after having looked some other [English] sites).

What the EU constitution says

On the right, especially in "THE BLUEPRINT", you'll find some more interesting reports.

I'm copying a post from georgeob1 on the Democratic Candidates 2004 thread to here ... because I answered him quite extensively (as you'll see in the next post), and the discussion is better at home here than there!

Eh - yes, I should clarify. Dogmatic communism of the old Marxist-Leninist type is out, obviously. Gone and away, dead and buried. Even in France the PCF is down to 3-5%. Only in Italy is there still a vibrant orthodox communist party, the "Refounded Communists", which have been polling 5+% since they split away from their old comrades, when those turned the Italian Communist Party into a pragmatic-moderate "Party of the Democratic Left" (now good for some 17%).

But that doesnt mean there's not still a political niche left of Labour/the Socialdemocrats elsewhere, too. Its just that now we have populist leftist parties filling that void. They've mostly unlocked from any previous ideological dogma, propagating instead a program much like what Labour was putting forward in the seventies. But their style characterises itself by the more-people-for-the-money anti-establishment rhetorics that made the communists big.

Thus, in Holland we have the Socialist Party (6% last elections, 9% in the polls), in Germany you have the Democratic Socialists (former communists, 4% in the last elections), in Denmark the Socialist People's Party (6%), in Sweden the Left Party (8%). In other countries the old communists have submerged into "left blocs" like the IU in Spain (6%) and the CDU and Left Bloc in Portugal (7% and 3%).

France is the only country where the Trotskyites have succeeded in taking over the flag from the moribund post-Brezhnevites, plugging into the antiglobalist protest movement with an activist strategy targeting the young. Two separate candidates (from "Workers Struggle" and the "Revolutionary Communist League") together polled a baffling 10% of the vote in last year's presidential elections. But that's the exception. Elsewhere, the far left has postmodernized itself into pragmatic populism.



Reports of the death of socialdemocracy have been wildly exaggerated (or what was that Twain quip?). Its been announced as often as bad weather since the late sixties, and yet the socialdemocrats are still here, in ever new appearances. In Holland the Labour Party dropped to a lousy 15% of the vote last year when Fortuyn came up, only to rebound to 28% early this year. We had our brand of Thatcher in the 80s who kept the left out of government for a decade or longer, but the tables turned again. In fact, just as long as the socialdemocrats keep moving, they have a bright future.

It is true that their effort to keep their old base is a hopeless struggle, alas. The Socialdemocrats' grip on the working class has eroded consistently since the 60s everywhere in Europe, while at the same time that working class itself dwindled in numbers. But as those workers or their children morphed into the flexible, pragmatic floating-voter middle class ranks, it turned out that those new middleclasses dont necessarily share the dogged loyalty to free-market, low-taxes liberalism of the old shopkeepers and business-owners. All those administrative and IT types value education and health care and emotionally lean ever so slightly left. Its not just the hard left thats been postmodernized out of existence, the traditionalist hard right has had the same fate (unlike in America). The result is what we've seen: New Labour won elections, Schroeder's Neue Mitte chased Kohl out of power, Jospin momentarily chased out the conservative sleaze in France, and here Labour pragmatism paid off in eight years of socialdemocrat-liberal government and record- economic growth.

Now some of that list doesnt look so good right now, with Schroeder and Blair in trouble and Chirac and Berlusconi entrenched in power. But the conservatives hardly have better prospects to show for themselves. Socialdemocrats like Blair and Kok have shown they could modernize the economy better than their conservative counterparts had. Thanks to the Christian-Democrats being kicked out of power, Holland and Germany finally had their liberalisation of shop opening hours - and the resulting boost for retail economics. The Belgian Christian-Democrats were again passed over by the voters in the last elections as those opted for renewing the left-right government co-operation of socialists and free-market-liberals exactly because it seemed so much better prepared for dynamic reform than those conservatives with their cosy patronage systems and traditional family loyalties. Even Schroeders Red-Green victory in Germany, though shored up with distinctly more traditionalist left rhetorics than back in '98, was ultimately helped by a relative image of dynamic reform that left his opponent Stoiber looking a tad too anachronistic - e.g. on womens position, gay rights, minority citizenship, etc.

Now someone like Kok here may have gone too far in "technocratising" the Labour party, losing its heart. But if the Socialdemocrats around Europe can pick up on the German Green Party's Joschka Fischer's role model and emanate an image that - here you have a party that is able to reform and modernise the economy as well as any zealot free-market liberal, but will keep the modern citizen's "soft" interest in education, health, environment and "modern families" foremost in mind and show a heart - then they're safe for a long time to come. Because it helps them to occupy center-ground in politics in a way that old Labour hardly succeeded in doing. Look at Belgium's Steve Stevaert or Kok's successor Wouter Bos here - young Socialdemocrat leaders that are as moderate as their predecessors but have flair and zest. They are perfectly poised to profit from the sociological changes that may have halved the working class, but boosted a decidedly progressive-minded middle class.

The really good thing here is, in the long term, that - faced with these rightward shifting Socialdemocrats - the conservatives are forced into resorting to rather far-right rhetorics to deck out its counter-attack. By capitalising on the fear of asylum-seekers and Muslims and the resentment about law & order and social security fraud, Christian-Democrats and right-wing liberals here and in Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Austria succeed in plugging into the voter pool usually accessed by the populist far right - and in so doing, manage to take over part of the Left's original (working class) electorate. But the more they do that, the more they alienate swathes of their original MOR suburban middle-class constituencies, which are moving over to the Socialdemocrats as "the reasonable alternative".

Its a huge exchange of electorates, hardly evidenced by opinion polls in which the flows sometimes net each other out. In Holland the shifts have been among the sharpest, and you can see how chunks of former Labour support have flowed, via the xenophobia of the List Fortuyn, to the maintsream right - but how Labour has won back a chunk of even bigger size of moderate, middle-class Christian-Democrats and right-wing liberals who felt their parties were becoming too 'crass'. I keep up with opinion polls here quite closely, and Labour is now well into a middle-ground territory that for decades was the Christian-Democrats' prerogative.



True but not necessarily to the disadvantage of the Socialdemocrats. They have unscrupulously co-opted the ex-communist parties that cleansed and reformed themselves most convincingly as 'sister parties', and those are doing quite well indeed. It's the Right's own fault - and I'm thinking of Lithuania, Poland, Hungary and Slovenia in particular - if it hadnt regressed into regressive catholicism and nationalism and incessant inter-party personality feuds in the early and mid-nineties, the ex-communists would have been dead in the water and the conservatives' main opponents would still have been those liberal free-market intellectuals of the Freedom Union and Alliance of Free Democrats. But now in half of these countries it's the left governing, and not looking much worse for the wear than their right-wing opponents. A free-market, relatively America-friendly left, for sure - but Socialdemocratic is what it calls itself, and it alignes itself with Schroeder rather than Berlusconi or Aznar.

As for Italy and Spain, I don't really see what you mean with them being different in terms of left-right proportions? I think its pretty much the same ... the Italian and Spanish right-wing prime ministers would fit nicely into the Republican mainstream in the US, but are considered quite "daring" in the extent to which they've veered right in their home countries; the Italian and Spanish left meanwhile is definitely to the left of the mainstream Democrats, which is not considered all too radical. And in both cases the two camps can each count on almost half of the vote. So how's that very different from other EU countries? The only real difference with the rest of continental Europe is on Iraq - but on that count you have to remember that, accoridng to the polls, Aznar and Berlusconi are basically out on a limb - 60%-80% of their own populations dont support them.