The Shape Of The New EU
Tony Blair's Last Hurrah, Nicolas Sarkozy's First One, And Yet Another Hammer Blow Landed By Protectionism
By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in Featured Stories | Foreign Affairs — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
It would appear that the European Union has inched ever closer to the status of superstate with the latest summit now having been concluded. In his final appearance at an EU summit as British Prime Minister, Tony Blair consented to granting the EU great power and authority--at the expense of national sovereignty:
Tony Blair emerged from tense negotiations today claiming to have secured a new European treaty which protects Britain's interests but which opponents say hands vast swathes of power to Brussels.
The Prime Minister won a legal exemption from a new Charter of Fundamental Rights, one of four "red lines" fought over during days of acrimonious negotiations.
But he surrendered Britain's right to veto EU decisions in more than 40 other areas of policy including energy, tourism, space policy, transport, civil protection and migration.
The visibly-tired Prime Minister said the most important thing about the deal was that it allowed European nations to focus on the issues that concerned their citizens: "The truth is we've been arguing now for many years about the constitutional question.
"This deal gives us a chance to move on. It was important to get out of this bind into which we'd got with the constitutional treaty: to go back to making simple changes in our rules that allow us to operate more effectively now we are in a large European Union."
The outgoing Prime Minister, who hands over to Gordon Brown on Wednesday, said his work on Europe was a key part of his legacy.
He told reporters as the negotiations came to an end shortly before 4am (GMT): "My position throughout the course of my time as Prime Minister has been to get out of this endless destructive negativity and realise that actually Britain has a lot to offer Europe and Europe has a lot to offer Britain."
However, critics were keen to point out that the deal secured by Mr Blair was not as watertight as he claimed. An opt-out for Britain on a common foreign policy, another of his "red lines", is included in a mere "declaration" by the 27 members states and not in a legally binding protocol.
An analysis of the deal suggests that almost all of the key elements of the EU Constitution are to be reintroduced including an EU diplomatic service and EU foreign minister.
The Conservatives immediately called for the British people to be given a referendum.
Shadow Foreign Secretary, William Hague said: "Not all the details are clear or finalised but we now know the basis of the new EU Treaty and it is clear that large parts of the EU Constitution are repackaged but back.
Read on . . .
Nicolas Sarkozy emerged as the big winner from the summit:
French president Nicolas Sarkozy emerged the clear winner of the EU summit.
Turning the rejected constitution into a "mini-treaty" had originally been his idea, floated long before his thumping election victory last month.
Not only did he see that become reality, he then secured a diplomatic coup by "reorienting" the whole direction of the EU, demoting its commitment to "undistorted" competition to a means to an end, not a goal in itself.
To complete his triumph, Mr Sarkozy was instrumental in overcoming Polish resistance to the new double-majority voting system.
He claimed afterwards that Europe had been saved from stagnation, and it was clear from his recounting of the last-minute talks that he felt France should be thanked.
Leaders including Tony Blair came to the French bunker, in the Council of Ministers building, to strike deals, he pointed out.
When pressure needed to be applied on the Poland's recalcitrant Kaczynski twins, it was Mr Sarkozy who led the charge, personally telephoning Warsaw and, at one point, offering to travel to the Polish parliament, the Diet, to explain the new treaty.
Deleting the reference to competition would "send a signal" to the European commission to protect Europe's citizens, he said afterwards.
It was for France a "red line," designed to show that the government was listening to voters worried that Brussels' laissez-faire policies would cost them their jobs.
Likewise, the Netherlands gained new powers for national parliaments - a ruse of little practical significance, designed to show it had also been listening to those who voted "no" to the constitution.
While playing to the gallery, the deal conserves the essence of the rejected constitution.
"Tell me what we have ceded?" the French president asked journalists, rhetorically.
Probably not all that much. Recall, of course, that the EU constitution was rejected by the French people two years ago in a referendum. Now, it has been imposed by fiat thanks to its conversion into a treaty. A pretty impressive feat of diplomacy, even if the policy consequences may be less than desirable. I continue to wonder--as I have for the longest time--what the point of the European Union is. A looser organization of European states would probably be easier to assemble and would do about as much to safeguard European interests and allow Europe to balance against American and Chinese power.
And finally, let it be noted that Gordon Brown, the incoming British Prime Minister, is less than pleased:
The attempt by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown to choreograph a peaceful handover of power disintegrated last night as they were involved in furious exchanges over an apparent cave-in by the Prime Minister to the French at the European summit.
The Daily Telegraph has learned that the Chancellor went "ballistic" when he discovered that Mr Blair and other European leaders were ready to bow to French demands by watering down the EU's 50-year-old commitment to "undistorted competition".
Mr Brown, who is due to take over as prime minister next Wednesday, phoned Mr Blair at least three times to insist that the move - which had been demanded by Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president - be reversed.
Mr Brown was not in Brussels, but, aware that he will have to defend any deal done by Mr Blair, he was following reports of progress closely.
He consulted Treasury lawyers after hearing of the plan and refused to accept reassurances from Mr Blair's aides that the commitment to competition would be protected in other parts of the EU Treaty.
Mr Brown insisted instead that a separate protocol be added to reiterate that the EU's historic and core commitment to advancing competition be fully safeguarded.
Last night the Chancellor's allies said they believed he had won the battle and that Mr Blair had restored the commitment to the text via a protocol after convincing fellow leaders to reconsider.
As Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown designed the famous "five tests" that ultimately served to prevent Britain from joining the European Monetary Union. Brown is a Euroskeptic relative to Blair's Europhilia. The Prime Minister's negotiating stance was a thumb in the eye of his successor and given the rivalry between Blair and Brown, one can be forgiven for thinking that Blair might have found it at least mildly delightful to help make the EU treaty the skunk at Brown's garden party.
In any event, Brown has the better of the argument in supporting an "undistorted competition" standard in the EU treaty. With the amount of dirigisme inherent in European socioeconomic policymaking--much of it supported, of course, by Sarkozy--Europe could use all of the incentives and spurs for competition that it can get.
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...is to achieve what 1000 years' worth of strongmen from Barbarossa to Napoleon to Hitler tried and failed to do: fully integrate the Germanic tribes into the Holy Roman Empire.
If you talk with well-educated Europeans, this is the view that (strikingly) always seems to come out sooner or later. We Anglophones naturally tend to think that political and social arrangements are made in order to facilitate commerce and to protect freedom.
But non-English speakers don't have those chips in their heads. In addition, the historical context in which they see their current world includes constellations of power going back to Roman days. They're looking for stability.
That's why the French took it in stride when their government canceled their Euro-referendum after they realized it would be voted down. This completely amazes Americans, because we wouldn't stand for that in a million years. And from what I've been able to see, the Brits are mad as wet hens over what lame-duck Tony is doing now.
I'll partially answer the obvious objections I'll get to this by pointing out that the ECB (European Central Bank) is taking a much more modern view of both their own role and the role of Europe. They're probably the most competent central bankers in the world today. The currency union, originally contrived to address political concerns, is growing up rapidly and will make the Eurozone increasingly strong in global commerce.
And ironically, everyone's concern has always been with controlling aggression from Germany. But the Germans are turning out to be the weak sisters in the new Europe, while the French are very much on the ascendant.
of Europe, from a Belgian point of view written in a German prison camp in 1916-18. The great tug of war between the original German heartland and the German-ruled French was originally over Lotharingia, the third of the three states in the Treaty of Verdun in 839AD. While the Germans were fighting off Slavs, Magyars, and others from the steppes, they were still, in Pirenne's view, strong enough to make the fight for Belgium, Lorraine, Alsace, Burgundy, Dauphine and other states/lands between the French and the more powerful, but less centralized German heartland.
This French-German impasse is an oversimplification, but it allowed border areas and outliers like the Dutch, English, Spanish to flourish by switching sides and intervening in the great bilateral struggle which ended finally, perhaps, in the Two World Wars of the last century and the rollback of the steppes once more with the fall of Communism.
Okay, there are a lot of different ways to look at Europe, but the chief underlying tectonic fault might now be frozen as the French/German Dual Hegemony with centrist-right leaders could herd the cats [Stalin famously compared controlling Poland to "riding a cow"] and mini-states into some sort of UberEuropa.
Of course, the Czechs and Poles and Estonians et al are going to employ the US as a counter to the Steppes to the East. The EU has no military credibility compared to the US and Russia [though Russia is in decline]. And Sarkozy with his Hungarian/Jewish cosmopolitan background is a good match for the Germans, who have many ties to most of Eastern Europe for a millenium---chiefly as ruler/protector from the Ottomans and Russians, et. al. Jacques Chirac could never have pulled off this mini-coup.
But the UK is the biggest short-term loser, and will not be able to keep the French Agricultural subventions under control. And other countries might find ways to gang up and keep the Franco-German Hegemony from overweening power.
Also, I don't think the ECB Central Banking system ranks yet with the Fed as far as sustaining prosperity---IMHO.
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Taunted by a Liberal in Parliament that he was going to die "on the gallows or of a vicious social disease," Disraeli replied "That depends on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."
From where I sit, they are in a dangerous and precipitous decline. I think it's instructive that so much English-language commentary hyperventilates about demographic suicide in Europe and the "inevitable" descent into domination by Muslims. But all of that is true only for the UK.
About the ECB: they are not the only force that is bringing about an economic resurgence in Europe. Sarko will rightfully get a lot of credit for bringing more rational taxation to France, but the moves to lower, flatter income taxes have been in the works now for several years. My business contacts in Italy are expecting a good year for the first time since the currency conversion (which was handled to the Italians' great disadvantage). Only Germany looks to remain in permanent distress. They know very very well that they need to reform their welfare state, but they lack the will.
of those countries who voted down their referendum and then people like to call those who believe that something untoward is going on with the North American Union and I again say that really up until about a few months ago I was one of those people however all of the little crap tucked in the Amensty bill has me rethinking my position and I really hope that people will stop just dismissing it at hand and take a second or maybe a third look.