The sovereign state of Europe: burying democracy

Jens-Peter Bonde: Now we have a draft Constitution. The most important articles, the first sixteen, are now on the table. Most of the rest will be technical in comparison. The skeleton of the Constitution has been approved. We’re discussing the first sixteen articles today. What will happen, I simply don’t know. Delegates have so far put forward 1038 amendments, having only a week to do so. There might be significant opposition.

It is clear that the skeleton has been approved by the vast majority. The word “Constitution” is mentioned 32 times in the first 16 articles, and there is no real opposition to that. So the vast majority in the Convention are opting for a Constitution for a unitary state of Europe, and it has no chance to get support in the streets.

The State of Europe in law

openDemocracy: Do you think calling it a Constitution makes all the difference?

J-PB: It is very symbolic. As for that other phrase, “on a federal basis” – I guess this will be taken away in the end, as the great concession. That’s how you cheat people, saying that it will not be a federal Europe.

The reality is completely the opposite. The architecture they are proposing now is not a federal Europe: it’s the equivalent of the French unitary state! Federalism, which they’re taking out, would be an improvement. The word “federal” means a division of powers between two levels of government, in principle equal. Here, the national level is subordinated to the European level.

So we are in fact talking about a unitary state like France, within which you can decentralise tasks, such as education and health. But on the important questions, if there’s a conflict between British law and European law, which prevails? Always EU law.

Article Nine is the key one. It constitutionally establishes the primacy of Community law. If you have a conflict between the EU rule and, say, the British unwritten constitution or the 14 other member states’ written constitutions, you have to drop your national constitution. The principle that the Westminster parliament can overrule previous Westminster parliaments is at the core of British constitutional thinking, and it would be scrapped by Article Nine. It would no longer exist.

People argue that this is nothing new: the primacy of community law was invented in 1964. But countries have not really accepted it. Now they will have to, through the principle of loyalty.

It’s not so in the United States: they have a division of power between the two levels, and it’s not the case that the local high courts are subordinated under the federal courts. They are independent systems.

openDemocracy: But the Supreme Court and the federal system provide the overall framework for appeals in the US, don’t they?

J-PB: Not in principle. It’s clear that the Supreme Court has won a lot of power in reality, but the Constitution establishes two independent court systems, formally without relationship. This also shows how things slide. The US was set up first as a confederation, and ended up as a federation. In the Swiss constitution there are also guarantees for the participating states, but in reality things have developed so that the federal court can decide much more than is set down in the letter of the constitution.

PM Aznar, Foreign Minister Fischer, President Blair

openDemocracy: So, do you think that many of the decision-making structures will remain intergovernmental?

J-PB: I think the compromise in the end will be that Justice and Home Affairs will be supranational, run from the Commission in Brussels by Jose Maria Aznar, who will be the European Prime Minister – he is very keen on the police.

Foreign policy and defence will never be supranational; they will be directed by the three or four big states. Blair will be the first President, and Joschka Fischer will be the first Foreign Minister. They will share out the posts between them in that way. The Presidents in the European Council will dictate foreign policy, security and defence.

You can’t imagine that France and the UK will put their nuclear weapons and Security Council vetoes at the disposal of the European Commission – at least, not in the years to come. So that will be the division. As in France, you have a prime minister to run all the internal policies (who will be the President of the Commission), and then a presidential function for international affairs, run by a directorate of the biggest states through the Council and its president.

This is not federalist, not democratic at all. This model puts the power in the hands of the executives: the governments of the member states and the European Commission. According to the Franco–German proposals, the member states will have to approve the President of the Commission by qualified majority vote (more than a simple majority), and he will have to pick his “ministers” (the present Commissioners) also on condition of qualified majority support in the Council. So what will remain to the electors? To applaud.

The European Parliament can applaud the Council’s choice, but cannot make the choice. Our own proposal is that the national parliaments should appoint the Commission, but the executives will never give that power to national parliaments.

There are no voters in this system. It’s a corporate way of governing, strengthening the executive at the cost of the voters. It’s not intergovernmental, nor is it federal. It invites the big nations to push their interests through.

openDemocracy: So in your view, far from the national executives being likely to pull this thing apart in the Inter-Governmental Conference (IGC), they are likely to support it whole-heartedly?

J-PB: It’s very nice for executives to meet other executives and share powers with them. Much easier than asking their own voters. When you do that, there are always human problems, and you risk not being re-elected. Here, at the European level, you can establish a system where you can remain in power if you are elected or not, and where what you have done cannot be changed by the voters in any country. You can make laws for all time.

An alternative: bottom-up from the democracies?

openDemocracy: You recommended a year ago that the Convention come up with two or three options, rather than a single Constitution. Is it still possible that you or someone else is going to propose an alternative?

J-PB: We have now done so. You can get the draft. It’s not a complete treaty, but a complete structure of fifteen alternative articles, which answers all the difficult questions. And this is a democratic treaty, where you can find the voters having their say. In Giscard’s Constitution they have none. I think also a lot of good federalists might come in on the No side.

openDemocracy: What are the key differences between the Praesidium’s draft and yours?

J-PB: Ours is bottom-up and theirs is top-down. Ours starts with the voters in every member state, electing a national parliament, who appoint a commissioner. So the commissioner from Denmark will be the commissioner we want, the best candidate, not the person the government wants to get rid of. It’s an election from below and not an appointment from the executive on high.

Then we say the catalogue of laws has to be decided by the national parliaments. The national parliaments decide where they can’t legislate efficiently on their own; where we need proper legislation for cross-border areas. And they invite the commission to propose that legislation. Presently, the commission takes power from the member states to itself, in conjunction with the Court of Luxembourg, instead of being delegated tasks from the nation-states.

We also propose parliamentary scrutiny on all levels. You’ll be amazed to see what we accept in supranational legislation. Strong opponents of European integration agree, in our common text, on supranational legislation in a limited area around the Common Market. They agree that a qualified majority vote – a 75% vote in the Council – is a legitimate basis for making European law. It’s a big step forward for a lot of people. Our group includes British Conservatives and Finnish left socialists and socialists from Malta: people from all across the political spectrum.

Vetoes galore

Then we propose a national veto in vital issues, if the prime minister is prepared to take it to the Council and defend it. And we allow the European Parliament to read every law from a European perspective, and veto every law as well. And we say the same for national parliaments, because they are closer to their voters: they shall be able to read the laws in parallel, and veto them.

Our system would be much, much easier to run, and much more transparent. No complicated procedures: one procedure for everything, not thirty.

openDemocracy: Would you say this is one of the things that distinguishes your “Euro-realist” perspective from a “Euro-sceptic” perspective: you think there is a place for delegating democratic and accountable power to the supranational level?

J-PB: Yes. There’s a Common Market, and we need common rules for state competition, for competition between multinationals. If we’re looking toward a Europe of thirty members in future, these rules have to be set by qualified majority vote: we have accepted that principle.

When it comes to real cross-frontier issues, you have nothing to lose. Since you can’t legislate efficiently on your own, there’s nothing to be afraid of: you can’t lose democracy, you can only win democracy. We ourselves don’t believe in a federal democracy; but we believe in winning a co-influencing role, and co-influence is better than no influence in cross-frontier issues.

But where you can govern efficiently from the national parliament, why then leave the decision to a higher level? You can coordinate and cooperate and do a lot of other good things together internationally. But as much legislation as possible should rest with the democracies, with the voters.

openDemocracy: Do you think federalists are now faced with a choice between giving more power to Europe, and their democratic principles?

J-PB: In all the years gone by, whenever they had a choice between centralisation and democracy, most federalists chose centralisation. The last time was the Nice Treaty, which a lot of them came out against, like Jo Leinen.

The Brussels process

openDemocracy: I understand there’s some ambiguity in the Copenhagen text as to whether the existing member states will have to wait until next May, when the accession countries become full members with voting rights, to ratify a new constitutional treaty?

J-PB: I think the commitment from Copenhagen is clear, but people disagree about it. The official time schedule is to deliver the Convention’s report by June – which is not technically possible, we will have to speed up – and to start the IGC in September.

openDemocracy: Is serious deliberation actually possible in a body of the Convention’s size at this kind of pace?

J-PB: No. You need a combination of working groups, where you sit with colleagues and work on the details before a wider discussion in the plenary. That might work. But now we have started the process of discussing the articles in all their detail in the plenary, and it’s simply not possible. There is no dialogue, no possibility for improvement. This is how they want to manipulate it. The only real negotiations take place in the praesidium, chaired by Giscard: they discuss article by article in detail. But this is no way to make democratic decisions.

openDemocracy: You’ve been very critical of the Brussels institutions in general, in particular of the Commission and its accounting scandals. Can Brussels be fixed?

J-PB: Will it be fixed? No. When the Commission was forced to step aside, 15 March 1999, we won for a moment. But nothing has changed since. I can’t get the information on how the Commission spend their money, The Court of Auditors can’t, the Budget Control Committee can’t, the Ombudsman can’t. It’s a monster. And Prodi can’t govern his own Commission.

We need a revolution at the voters’ level to change things. Or to make these institutions accountable to the national parliaments; then it would be impossible to say, “You can’t have those figures.” They would be kicked out!

The invisible prime minister

openDemocracy: Do you think there could ever be a European demos (people), a European identity, and if there were, would that change the appropriate structures for governance?

J-PB: When I am in debate with the federalists, I say: “We can discuss giving the European Parliament real powers the day voter turnout is higher for MEPs than for national parliaments.”

I’m a Euro-realist. I’m not anti-federalist. I think federalism is a very good way of governing Canada, the US, Germany, Switzerland. But it’s the demos that is missing today. I’m the most-quoted European parliamentarian in Britain. When I go to London, I’m completely anonymous. No one knows me. The day after I’m on the BBC in a one-hour debate programme, I’m completely anonymous. In my own country, when I arrive on the train or plane from Brussels, everyone will be talking to me.

Once Prodi was walking through the airport in front of me – Prodi, our European Prime Minister, who is seen very often on television – and no one greeted him. Only some other civil servant. There was no connection at all between the ordinary voters in the airport and our incumbent prime minister.

This doesn’t work. And I can’t see it working. That’s the reason I will stick to what works, the national democracies. Although there’s a lot of mistakes at the national level also: scrutiny should be more efficient, parties have too much influence, there are problems of finance. But in the end, the voters have the power to change the government.

Referenda: storms brewing

openDemocracy: Do you think that some leaders will mount arguments against putting this European Constitution to the voters in referenda?

J-PB: I’m not sure. Giscard himself has decided in favour of a referendum. France has decided for a referendum. The Netherlands may do. Ireland and Denmark must hold referenda for constitutional reasons. I think when so many are having referenda, this will raise questions in other countries: why them, and not us? We’ve set up a campaign together with the federalists calling for a referendum on the constitution on the same day in all European countries, with the same wording, so that it cannot be manipulated.

openDemocracy: You don’t think the national governments might see what you see coming, that they are going to lose referenda on this Constitution?

J-PB: The federalists really support a constitution where the voters have no say. So it’s difficult. As for all the new reborn democracies of Eastern Europe, they have established their own structures of national democracy now; should they be prepared to kill them? I don’t think so.

openDemocracy: Is there any way the Danes are going to say yes to a Giscard constitution if it gets put to them in a referendum?

J-PB: As it is now, I can’t see it. Except – if we were the only country to oppose it, then would come the question of whether or not to withdraw from the Union. I think by the end of the day the Danes might say, well, we’ll have to say yes.

Democracy was born 500 years before Christ’s birth. Now we bury it.