Re: EU Constitution not compatible with democracy

[richard(at)cyberjournal.org]

25/05/2005, Leopoldo Salgui wrote:

> > But I am NOT ready to fight against the European treaty if
> > such an approach
> > leads to maintain our national regimes. Yes, today the
> > national parliaments
> > are slightly more accountable but I am NOT ready to fight
> > to defend this tiny
> > difference of accountability.
> >
> >
> > The correct direction is forward, not back; ; I want to
> > claim for
> > European referendums and real popular
> > initiatives

Dear Leo,

I understand your viewpoint here. But is opposing a bad initiative really the same as endorsing the status quo? And suppose the constitution is not a step forward for democracy, but rather a step forward for corporate neoliberalism?

As I've watched the unification process, from EC days, through Maastricht, etc., my perception has been of a neoliberal program being sold to a social-democrat public mentality by lies and deceit. What Thatcher and Reagan accomplished through the front door, Maastricht et seq is accomplishing through the back door. Who talks about subsidiarity now? Each year the nature of the public debate is shifted, and always the next step turns out to be greater centralization of power under an increasingly less responsive Brussels bureaucracy.

It is important to keep in mind that the same officials who may try to look Green and Progressive in their domestic  EU agendas are at the same time ardent supporters of the free-trade, WTO process. They are well aware that the WTO regime will ultimately undo whatever temporary social progress has been granted to European populations.

Here in Ireland the process of 'undoing' is becoming increasingly blatant. At the same time as we have a crisis in education and health care, both being grossly under-supported, we have a government committed to cutting hundreds of thousands of jobs in both sectors. And we have Halliburton, the same folks who are looting the American taxpayer in Iraq, being offered a contract to begin converting Irish highways into corporate toll roads. Tanaiste Mary Harney says, "I don't want public money being spent for anything if private investment is available."

What I find most annoying is that the 'public debate' around policy decisions is always framed in terms of domestic politics. The extent to which the direction taken is due to Brussels directives or WTO rulings is always ignored. Alternative health cares are under attack, but nobody talks about CODEX.

EU governments are selling out their populations to corporate neoliberalism, and the new constitution is simply the next step in that process. Certainly collaborating with them cannot be the right path for anyone with aspirations toward a democratic society.

[RichardMoore]