Back to democracy ! E-Book

Heinz Duthel

• Herausgeber: neobooks
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Deutsch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 91

Beschreibung

The Constitution without the people technocratic utopianism Europe without the States The democratic illusion Since 1986, the date of the signing of the Single Act, European construction has been engaged in a permanent movement of revision of the institutional features, a chaotic movement which alone illustrates both the instability and the fragility of the European Union. Thus, after the signing of the Treaty of Maastricht in February 1992 then the conclusion of the Treaty of Amsterdam in June 1997, the Cologne European Council had to convene a new Intergovernmental Conference (IGC), the third in less than ten years, which finally resulted in the Treaty of Nice (December 2000). Finally, faced with the failure of this new treaty, a failure symbolized by its rejection in June 2001 during the referendum organized in Ireland, a Convention on the future of the Union has been meeting regularly since March 2002 in order, in accordance with Declaration No. 23 annexed to the #Treaty of #Nice and to the #Laeken Declaration on the future of the European Union of 15 December 2001, to prepare, as broadly and transparently as possible, a new reform of the Community institutions going beyond tinkering done so far. #

Leseprobe

Back to democracy !

End the EU

A technocratic utopianism

Heinz Duthel

The Constitution without the people

technocratic utopianism

Europe without the States

The democratic illusion

Introduction

The work of the institutional reform of the European Union

Since 1986, the date of the signing of the Single Act, European construction has been engaged in a permanent movement of revision of the institutional features, a chaotic movement which alone illustrates both the instability and the fragility of the European Union. Thus, after the signing of the Treaty of Maastricht in February 1992 then the conclusion of the Treaty of Amsterdam in June 1997, the Cologne European Council had to convene a new Intergovernmental Conference (IGC), the third in less than ten years, which finally resulted in the Treaty of Nice (December 2000). Finally, faced with the failure of this new treaty, a failure symbolized by its rejection in June 2001 during the referendum organized in Ireland, a Convention on the future of the Union has been meeting regularly since March 2002 in order, in accordance with Declaration No. 23 annexed to the Treaty of Nice and to the Laeken Declaration on the future of the European Union of 15 December 2001, to prepare, as broadly and transparently as possible, a new reform of the Community institutions going beyond tinkering done so far.

Reflection on the institutional future of the European Union has gone far beyond the strictly Community framework. Everyone remembers the thunderous initiative of the German Minister for Foreign Affairs, Joschka Fischer, pleading, on 12 May 2000 at Humboldt University in Berlin, for the transformation of the European Union into a Federation, an intervention which prompted the head of the French State to take a position, a few days before the start of the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union, in favor of a European Constitution. Since then, the debate has been enriched by many laudatory contributions - from both the political world and various academic institutions - evoking the drafting of a fundamental Treaty (Report of the Jean Monnet Chairs), of a founding Pact (Report of the group of the General Planning Commission chaired by Professor Jean-Louis Quermonne) or a gradual constitutionalisation of the features (Duhamel Report adopted by the European Parliament in October 2001).

Why a new institutional reform?

In principle, no one disputes the fact that it is urgent to redraw the institutional architecture of the European Union. On the one hand, in failure of political project and disavowed by the peoples, the Union European does not reach still not to reconcile broadening and deepening . In this respect, we must rejoice without detour at the end of the illusion which consisted in slowing down the opening of the Union to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe in order to preserve the Community acquis and to keep intact the principle of 'integration. The long-delayed accession of the candidate States (with the exception of Turkey) represents a moral devotion, constitutes an economic necessity and falls within the perspective of the defense of the cultural values of Europe.

However, apart from future enlargements, several other factors also militate for a large-scale institutional reform. The collective resignation of the European Commission in March 1999 alone attests to this: the Community political system is in crisis; a crisis which, as demonstrated by the attitude of the ever-increasing number of voters abstaining from the European elections, seriously affects the legitimacy of the construction of Europe itself through an ever more opaque and technocratic decision-making process, the normative corpus Community imposes more and more unbearable constraints on the peoples of Europe.

Finally, as a direct consequence of what precedes, the European Union multiplies hazardous experiments, such as the diplomatic sanctions inflicted on Austria in 2000 or these manifestations of interference in the French electoral process in the spring of 2002, initiatives taken in total violation as well both of Community law and of the demands of democracy, but which illustrate the loss of meaning of the European project in no better way.

Which model for which reform?

It must therefore be recognized that the time has come to lay the foundations for a new organization of Europe and, for this, to find the appropriate institutional model. Specifically, we note that, in their vast majority, the proposals formulated until then all refer, without exception, to the integrationist model, which models behind the appearance of a grand design, conceals the reality of a project at the end of its tether. soufflé.

technocratic utopianism

Admittedly, the Monnet method is more contested than ever. In itself, the establishment of a Convention on the future of the Union to introduce more transparency into the process of reforming the features reflects, at least implicitly, a desire to break with both the elitist functionalism advocated by Jean Monne and Robert Schuman Europe will not happen all at once, nor in an overall construction. It will be done by concrete realizations creating de facto solidarity. Only with the ditd policy of small steps which, in the 1980s, led to profound revisions of the letter of the features. But if the method appears to be obsolete, the community model, on the other hand, remains a first-rate reference. From Christian-Democrats to Social-Democrats via Liberal-Libertarians, everyone seems convinced that, subject to the laws of globalization, the nations of the old continent will have to give up their political autonomy, which is more fictitious than real, draw a line under the principle of sovereignty which no longer exists in the world because, precisely, it is no longer the principle which orders a world and creates it, and this to the benefit of a supranational structure within which they will no longer exercise their the political decision itself. At the time of the post-national, we repeat to satiety, there is no longer any alternative to the withdrawal of the States, a withdrawal that the Community model, by continually transferring the competences of the States to the European Union, operates with efficiency.

Organizing empiricism

Contrary to this Orwellian model, intergovernmentalism aims to promote in a voluntary, realistic and pragmatic way a close collaboration between the States, while respecting their identity, their integrity and their sovereignty. The intergovernmental model puts the States in a position to cooperate freely with each other within the framework of a confederation which guarantees each its autonomy and its independence. Today, the European Union still presents elements specific to this extremely dual system – the main intergovernmental structure being the European Council, a body to which must be added the Council of Ministers of the European Union (when the ministers of the Member States have right of veto). But, often caricatured, systematically presented as outdated, archaic, even reactionary, by the proponents of single thought and benevolent conformism for whom there is no other possible way than that of supranationality (a way like any other of removing the question from democratic debate…), the “Europe of nations” is a concept that is still too little known, despite its founding fathers, in the forefront of which is General de Gaulle. The only credible response to this federal, centralizing and bureaucratic Europe which mortgages the European idea. The Europe of the nations is nevertheless the bearer of a project for the future for the peoples in that it harmoniously reconciles the essential guarantee of the rights and freedoms of the States with the necessary organization of their concert.

Precisely, since the debate on the agenda in the European Union is that of the reform of the traits, I present here, without claiming to be exhaustive, the main axes of a revision of the Community institutions drawing its inspiration from the intergovernmental model. In this case, two points seem essential: to recognize and protect the fundamental rights of European nations in a declaration setting the guiding principles of the new Union; reorient the European institutional system on the path of democracy.

A declaration of the fundamental rights of European nations

The debate relating to the constitutionalisation of the founding traits raises a crucial question: on what values is the construction of Europe based? However, to this question the supporters of a European Constitution provide an inappropriate answer .

Rather than give in to the chimeras of constitutionalism, it would be preferable to integrate into the revised Treaty on European Union, in the form of a first title, a Declaration of the European nations – a veritable antithesis of the European Constitution – whose the content would guarantee each of the components of the Union, and in all circumstances. His independence.

A reply to the European Constitution

The convening of the Convention on the future of the Union, in December 2001, is a major event in the history of Community construction. In the minds of the federalists, this Convention should pave the way for further integration and, of course, for the definitive rejection of the intergovernmental model of cooperation between Member States.

Back to the Convention on the future of the Union

An unidentified institutional body, the Convention above all realizes an old federalist fantasy: to provide Europe with a Constitution; a proposal which, as Paul Magnette observes, resurfaces at each key moment in the history of European integration.

The myth of constitutionalization

The genesis of the Convention could no doubt be traced back to the year 1949 and the Hague Congress, or even to the process which should have led to the entry into force of the European Defense Community (EDC) – a process marked by setting up an ad hoc committee within the ECSC Assembly responsible for preparing a plan for political union. However, it was at the start of the 1980s, even as European construction was getting bogged down, that the idea behind the current Convention crystallized.

Following the abandonment of the Spinelli project adopted by the European Parliament in 1984, some MEPs questioned the political will of governments to pursue the path of supranationality further. And one of the main criticisms addressed to the governments of the Member States already focused on the procedure for revising the Community treaties, a procedure which the European federalists denounced as exclusively intergovernmental.

After Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice, the majority of European parliamentarians, and behind them the choir of federalist organizations funded by the European Commission, have regularly relaunched the offensive by denouncing the inertia of national governments; inertia resulting, according to them, from the fact that the Intergovernmental Conferences are negotiating bodies built on the traditional diplomatic model, respectful as such of the sovereignty of States, in which national egoisms confront and neutralize each other perpetually to the detriment of the interest… of the community.

Relying on the flagrant failure of the Amsterdam and Nice treaties, which in any case did not solve the equation of institutional reform, an essential prerequisite for enlargement, the supporters of integration invoked again the urgency of reforming the procedure for revising the treaties – the new procedure obviously being called upon to replace the Intergovernmental Conferences.

Europe without the States