Europe's elites have crossed a political line by reviving the EU Constitution under the guise of the Lisbon Treaty and ramming it through without referendums, after it had already been rejected by French and Dutch voters. To continue a second time after rejection by the Irish – alone in voting – amounts to a putsch. Without rehashing the Lisbon debate, remember that this text transforms the European Court (ECJ) into a fully-fledged supreme court, with jurisdiction over the rights charter and the broad reach of "Union Law" rather than just the narrow (Pillar 1) fiefdom of commercial law it holds today. This is a quantum leap. Euro-judges will have the last say on areas of social policy, macro-economics, home affairs, justice, and arguably diplomacy. I might add – apologies to law professors – that the crude difference between core Europe and Britain/Ireland is that Napoleonic law forbids unless specifically allowed, while Common Law allows unless specifically forbidden. This is the legal foundation of Anglo-Saxon scientific and commercial creativity, and perhaps the reason democracy has bedded better in the Anglo-sphere. It is obvious that a text creating a full-time EU president and an EU justice department, and which gives Euro-MPs power of the purse for the first time, is an attempt to establish a unitary state. This is no longer a treaty club. Personally, I will register my protest by voting for the UKIP, knowing that the number two on their list in my South East region is Marta Andreasen – sacked as the Commission's chief accountant for calling the EU budget "an open till waiting to be robbed". A strong showing for UKIP should be enough to put her on to the EU's Budget Control Committee, where she can exact revenge for all of us. We know from an internal memo by the head of the Internal Audit Service what was done to her. "I would for no money have wanted to be in Ms Andreasen's shoes," it said, "recognising the unforgiving inclination of a bureaucracy once one is declared taboo by the powers that be, considering the collective firepower it can marshal to trash an individual singled out." The Budget Directorate was in "persistent denial of the real nature and depth of problems". It had failed to sort out the "chronically sordid state of quality accounting", and rewarded staff if "they managed not to discover financial malfeasance". As the memo admitted, the EU relies on an intimidation culture where "might makes right". So Marta has my vote. It is a nice twist that UKIP has enlisted a Catalan-Argentine, albeit one educated at an English girls school in Buenos Aires. Yes, our own Parliament is mired in squalor too, but the expense scams of MPs have at least been brought to light, and the worst offenders are being driven from the Commons. We have democratic catharsis. Nothing is ever really exposed in the EU system, where press coverage is tribal, and segmented by languages. MEP expense abuse runs even deeper, and involves greater sums. An Open Europe study found that MEPs garner £363,000 in expenses, including a £261 daily subsistence allowance and £45,648 in office cash (no receipts needed), and £41,641 in "transitional" payments. A quarter employ spouses as aides. Nordics, Balts, and Club Meds can make a tidy sum booking travel at business rates per mile but flying discount, though this is at last being reformed. Jens Holm, a Swedish Left Party MEP, said that he been receiving €2,000 for each fare from Stockholm to Brussels though it costs €500. He gives away the difference. "The vast majority keep the money for themselves," he said. There are different kinds of Eurosceptics. Some think the EU has been a Vichy stitch-up from the start. That is not my view. The Project was a triumph of joint US and European statecraft in the early days, bringing Germany back into the fold to help contain Soviet power. Nor do I think that British membership has been wholly bad. The Single European Act, signed in 1986, owed as much to Margaret Thatcher as any other leader, and the EU's Competition Directorate is the spearhead of free market ideology – which is why France's Nicolas Sarkozy went to such lengths to the gut the competition clause in the Lisbon Treaty. The risk of leaving in a petulant fit is that Holland, Denmark, Poland and others often on our side in an evenly-balanced power structure will tuck in behind the Franco-German axis, causing Europe to become what we wish to avoid. But geo-strategic sophistry leads to paralysis in the end. Lisbon is not yet EU law. Irish voters may balk again, but it would take a brave nation to persist in defiance as they succumb to savage (EMU-induced) debt deflation. Sadly, I think we must start planning to extract ourselves as gracefully as we can from this Project before it has the chance to abolish referendums for ever.If the EU seems intent on a putsch then UKIP should give it a shove
The European Union has slipped the leash of democratic control. It is one thing to advance the Monnet Project by treaty creep and stealth directives. It is another to put questions of sovereignty to a popular vote and then refuse to abide by the outcome.
Monday, 1 June 2009
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