why europeans are mermering about the EU law?

[dyaoko]

can someobody tell me whats wrong whit the EU law that dutch and french ppl are vetoing it ?

[Tim]

Medya,

Here is an opinion article in today's Wall Street Journal. The article addresses a few of the reasons why both France and the Netherlands voted overwhelmingly against the EU Constitution. In short, the Constitution is too complex, and allows far too many un-elected bureaucrats far too much power to control peoples' lives.

As an example of how complex and out of touch the Constitution appears to voters is the following quote from the article.

It seems almost too heavy-handedly symbolic that while the U.S. Constitution opens with the resounding words, "We the People of the United States," the first words of the EU Constitution are: "His Majesty the King of the Belgians . . ."

Constitutions need to be simple to understand or people will not believe in them. Enjoy the article, Medya.

Tim McDonnell


http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111757682502647509,00.html?mod=opinion%5Fmain%5Fcommentaries

The Title of the Column:
Marianne Unfaithful

By JEFFREY CIMBALO and DAVID FRUM
June 1, 2005; Page A20

French democracy has blundered its way to the right result. Most of the arguments advanced by the "non" side in Sunday's referendum on the European Union Constitution were exaggerated, misleading, or outright falsehoods. And yet beneath those arguments was a larger truth that will likely also be recognized and acted upon by Dutch voters in their balloting today.

The French, the Dutch, and other Europeans have lost patience with political systems that seem increasingly remote and political elites that seem increasingly disdainful of the interests and values of the people they claim to represent. If the French voted "non," because they sensed that the EU Constitution would aggravate those problems, then they voted very shrewdly. Indeed, only a political system as seemingly remote and disdainful as the EU has become could have produced a document like the EU Constitution: interminably long, confusingly organized, obscure in its effects, and in many crucial spots almost deceptive in its purposes. It seems almost too heavy-handedly symbolic that while the U.S. Constitution opens with the resounding words, "We the People of the United States," the first words of the EU Constitution are: "His Majesty the King of the Belgians . . ."

French opponents of the EU Constitution charge that it is an "Anglo-Saxon" document that would impose a harsh "neo-liberal" free-market regime. In truth, the EU Constitution owes little or nothing to the constitutional traditions of the English-speaking world. It would establish a legislature that cannot write laws, a judiciary that can act even when no law has been broken, and an executive that is not elected by and is barely accountable to anyone or anything. As for accusations of "neo-liberalism," they miss the point. The Constitution vastly expands the powers of the unelected and largely unaccountable European Commission and the unelected and wholly unaccountable European Court of Justice (ECJ).

It's possible that court and commission might push unwilling countries to open markets to more competition. It's equally possible that the newly empowered commission and court might impose burdensome rules and regulation. Or they might do a little of one and a little of the other. Who knows? The only thing we can say for sure is that large areas of decision-making have been removed from governments elected by Europe's peoples and entrusted to bureaucracies carefully insulated from democratic control.

This "democratic deficit" is often cited by European elites as a malady to be cured. The EU Constitution adds to this democratic deficit in four major ways. First, it moves important powers away from the elected governments of the 25 member states to the Commission in Brussels. National vetoes are eliminated as areas from health care to defense are transferred from national to Union jurisdiction. Second, within that centralized EU, the constitution shifts power from the elected heads of government who together make up the European Council to the unelected bureaucrats who staff the Commission and the unelected judges of the ECJ.

Third, while the constitution speaks glowingly of the "democratic life of the Union," in fact the Commission has been carefully protected from interference by elected officials. Although the constitution declares that the Commission is "responsible to" the European Parliament, that parliament remains in practical fact as powerless relative to the commission as ever. Unlike Congress, the parliament cannot initiate legislation. Unlike the British Parliament, it cannot ask questions of the members of the executive. Theoretically, the European Parliament can force the commission to resign, but it must do so by means that look much more like an impeachment than like a vote of non-confidence: by a vote of censure passed by a two-thirds majority.

Fourth, the constitution greatly expands the power of the only European institution even less representative than the commission: the ECJ. To call this body a "court" is really a misnomer. A court exists to adjudicate disputes between parties according to law. The ECJ has vastly larger powers, some deliberately granted, others that will arise from the imprecision and indecision of the European Constitution's authors. For example, the court is called upon to enforce the EU's charter of rights. But that charter is written in a strange way. Sometimes it expresses itself in ways that sound like law: "Everyone has the right of access to a free placement service." (Art. II-89.) Almost as often, it makes sweeping declarations that seem intended as something less than law: "The Union recognizes and respects the rights of the elderly to lead a life of dignity and independence and to participate in social and cultural life."(Art. II-85)

The constitution seems aware of this ambiguity: Art. II-107 declares that anyone suffering any violation of those "rights and freedoms guaranteed by the law of the Union" is entitled to "an effective remedy before a tribunal." That holds open the possibility that some of the charter's "rights and freedoms" are not guaranteed by the law of the Union -- and invites future European courts to decide for themselves which rights and freedoms they would like to enforce and which they will forget.

* * *
For almost five decades, American administrations of both parties have taken it as axiomatic that ever-closer European integration is in America's national interest. Even the Bush administration, which has overthrown so many outdated shibboleths, has not yet liberated itself from this one. The European Constitution explicitly subordinates nearly all the member states' old obligations to NATO to their new obligations to the EU. That alone should be reason enough to disturb any Alliance-minded European or American. Yet many inside the administration keep pushing the president to support and endorse the European Constitution. Indeed, on the eve of President Bush's February trip to Europe, sources within the National Security Council leaked to the New York Times an early draft of a speech that would, in the words of reporter Elisabeth Bumiller, "make clear that the United States welcomes the drive toward European unity." That enthusiastic language was cut before the speech was finally delivered. But the thinking that produced the language survives inside the Bush State Department and NSC.

All can agree that a strong Europe -- a secure, prosperous, and self-confident Europe -- is in America's interest. There is nobody over here who fears European strength: Indeed, the only people who see a united Europe as a rival to the U.S. are overheated Eurocrats. Americans should fear European weakness -- and this constitution weakens Europe by diminishing democracy, alienating voters, and discrediting the legitimacy of necessary economic reforms.

Messrs. Cimbalo and Frum are members of the European Constitution study group at the American Enterprise Institute.

[dyaoko]

oh thank you tim , so nice article -(and welcome to this forum )

[Tim]

Medya,

Below is another article from today's Wall Street Journal. The problem in France is that the Socialist Welfare State is not providing jobs for the citizens of France. Many are worried that putting more power in the hands of the EU may exacerbate that problem. Ironically, the Socialists worry that the EU will bring down the Welfare State. So both extremes of the electorate voted against the EU Constitution. The only people who voted for it are bureaucrats in Paris who view it as lifetime employment at the public trough.

Here is something I got off Publius Pundit:
http://www.publiuspundit.com/?p=1144

- Le Monde provides a really cool interactive electoral map of France, showing province by province which ones voted for “oui” or “non” and by what percentages. You do not need to be able to read French to understand it.

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/vi/0,47-0@2-631760,54-655042@51-656094,0.html

Enjoy,
Tim McDonnell

http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1117 ... ories%5Fhs

The End of an Age in Europe

By BIJAN KHEZRI
June 1, 2005

London -- During the months leading to Sunday's vote on the EU Constitution in France and the Dutch vote today, little was said about the constitution itself as governments have been paternalistically hijacking the debate as a matter of embracing or rejecting Europe altogether.

But in the heat of the debate ahead of this week's referendums, it has gone unnoticed that they have given birth to a "Silent Spring" revolution, irrevocably redefining the relationship between the electorates and their governments. This revolution is transforming for the better, more than any "no" or "yes" vote, Europe's political agenda and, hence, future shape. It would not be the first time for the electorates to be proven more rational than the very governments that purport to lead them.

An age in which grand European political designs are implemented with little debate and citizens increasingly regress into infancy is coming to an end. Unless Europe's leaders, in politics as well as business, embrace this awakening consciousness among Europeans and radically rethink the meaning of progress, their very apocalyptic predictions of the consequence of the "no" vote will materialize.

It must have escaped the attention of Europe's leaders that the EU, in particular since last year's enlargement to 25 member states, can no longer credibly attempt to serve its founding members' electorate as a source of political identity. Misleadingly, the power-consolidating constitution has been packaged as a pull-of-the-future remedy addressing the unmistakable devolution of democracy into a self-aggrandizing Brussels bureaucracy. Instead, as other projects of European integration before, the constitution has been another push of the past, alienating Europeans' desire to embrace their future with a fresh look.

For the founding members, the driving rationale of the European integration process was to make Continental peace irreversible. For all subsequently joining states, it was, more or less, a matter of economic calculus. Regarding all prospective candidates, in particular Turkey and Ukraine, EU membership has degenerated to a political lever, strongly embraced by the U.S. out of geopolitical considerations. Rightly or wrongly, Europeans take peace and the free movement of goods and people for granted and consider it irreversible.

While last year's enlargement has irrevocably eroded the EU's political cause, the introduction of the euro has undermined any credibility of deeper economic integration. The euro, a politically motivated undertaking that defied economic sense from the start, continues to rob its economically ailing members of a badly needed monetary-adjustment tool. Simply put, Europeans are tired of rubber-stamping grand political designs that are not only irreversible and, once realized, beyond any legislator's control, but, most importantly, surpass even the political leaders' ability to fully grasp the very dynamics they set free.

The debate around the EU Constitution, however, is symptomatic of deeper forces that mark the end of an age. That debate reflects Europeans' increasing political detachment and evolving consciousness as they question their identity and course within the path of history.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Europe's relative weight in the world has been steadfastly declining in economic terms. Europe's governing elite has dedicated all of its political capital to the integration process as an end in its own right. Overdue structural reforms of national economies have been defied. Instead, grand political designs such as EMU, enlargement and lately the constitution have been sold to the electorate as a golden egg that shelters its peoples from economic sacrifices while establishing a counterweight to the U.S. The EU, independently of whether one considers it too neoliberal or too socialist, has become the epitome of Europe's decline.

The British historian Mark Mazower once wrote, "If the West turns out to have been an idea that shielded Europeans from the consciousness of their own decline, the disappearance of the West may not be a bad thing." Analogously, the European integration process has blinded Europeans' consciousness of their own decline. This is now changing.

The "no" vote, deep down, is a quest for political enlightenment against decades of political indoctrination that deeper EU integration is synonymous with progress. Politicians and commentators, misguidedly, have been quick to catchily frame, and consequently belittle, this deep-seated need for reflection as a "social-versus-neoliberal" debate. The real power of the referendums is not their respective outcomes, but the awakening of Europe's electorate to critically reflect upon their very destiny.

A real opportunity has arisen to reconcile Europe's politically alienated electorate with the governments they elect. For this to happen, however, any debate about the future of Europe has to be detached from the erroneous premise that there is no economic progress without ever-accelerating enlargement and integration.

As this age comes to an end, the first contours of a new one will slowly emerge. Rather than being inspired by the past in terms of Europe's wars, divisions and an outdated Gaullist obsession with countering the U.S., Europe's future must entail as little political integration as needed, put to an end the senile ambition to serve as a "humanizing" political counterweight on the global stage, dismiss the lowest common EU-denominator as an acceptable benchmark, and commit itself uncompromisingly to the creation -- not merely the protection -- of employment in light of fierce competition with Asia, the world's future epicenter and ultimate economic benchmark.

This is not about "closing time in the gardens of the West," to paraphrase Cyril Connolly's memorable phrase of 1949. Europe must fundamentally rethink progress, neither as a matter of political grandeur nor as a matter of protecting outdated institutions of social welfare, but as economic competitiveness simply measured by job creation. Silently, this spring, the electorate has emerged as a political force in shaping Europe's future destiny. And this is more powerful than any "yes" or "no."

Mr. Khezri is co-founder of Saphire Finance LLP, a London-based merchant banking partnership. In 1991, Mr. Khezri was the chairman of the European Youth Conference in the European Parliament.

[Vladimir]

- There will be one minister of foreign affairs...
- The countries joining the EU goes to fast. We already have enough countries in the EU.. SORRY KASSEM
- Netherlands looses power
etc