Posted on 05/29/2005 1:31:01 AM PDT by ex-Texan
TODAY the electorate of France votes in its national referendum on the proposed EU constitution; it will be followed by voters in the Netherlands giving their verdict on Wednesday. The stakes could not be higher for the European Union, its ruling elite and the citizens of its member states, including Britain, whose own referendum on the constitution is now being subjected to a cynical game of political brinkmanship.
Despite the consistency of poll findings showing the No vote ahead in both France and Holland, the large proportion of undecided voters makes it hazardous - as well as presumptuous - to forecast the result. However, that has not inhibited the frustrated and outraged of Brussels from making plans, in anticipation of defeat, to move the goalposts. Their pessimism is probably justified: their blatant contempt for their own electorates and the democratic process most emphatically is not.
Disillusionment with the European project is spreading across the continent with good reason. Like weeds, interventionist, statist policies have, over the past three decades, taken firm root in the once-powerhouse economies of the European Union. The consequences - from high unemployment to weak economic growth - are now all too evident in the largest countries such as France and Germany and are the cause of the increasingly rejectionist stance being taken by their electorates.
The key issue of interventionism versus free market is central to today's vote in France. That country's voters, whipped up by trades unions and hard-left politicians whose mentality corresponds to British militancy in the era of the Winter of Discontent, have reached the irrational conclusion that the proposed constitution is an 'Anglo-Saxon', Thatcherite attack on their cherished leisure hours, holidays, work practices and dirigisme. In fact, the document was designed for the reverse purpose - to protect this culture of non-competitive inertia and extend it to Britain.
We are witnessing the spectacle of one of the most educated electorates in the developed world voting by superstition: it is as if the Labour Party had abolished Clause Four on the grounds it was not sufficiently socialist. This is the climax to the process of welfare creep that has progressively eviscerated the formerly strong economies of the core EU member states. They began with a social market economy that was meant to combine the best of US wealth-creating capitalism with the healthcare and welfare safety nets of the post-war European Christian Democrat model. Europeans would not become so rich, so fast, as Americans; but they would enjoy greater security.
Then the rot set in: Between 1985 and 1994, annual US economic growth was 0.7% higher than in the Eurozone; between 1995 and 2004 the gap widened to 1.2%. In that latter period, growth of output per worker in America rose to 2.1% per annum; in the Eurozone, it slumped from 1.9% to 1%. In 1960, when the European Economic Community (EEC) was just three years old, US employment stood at 36% of the population; today it has risen to slightly under 48%. In Europe, the figure has stagnated at 43%, but even that is a false prospectus since much of it is due to expansion in public sector employment.
Beyond that, the tax burden in the United States is the same as 30 years ago, at 25% of national income. In Europe over the same three decades the burden has risen from 33% to above 40%, the heaviest rates being in the core economies of France, Germany and Italy. And Europe's so-called centre-right parties have bought into the statist consensus: even the British Tories displayed a timidity over tax cuts in the recent election that suggests the contagion is spreading.
The European Union, for all its strutting geopolitical pretensions at the time of the Iraq war and similar crises, is actually in decline, driven by the gravitational pull of its failing economic model. Forty-eight years after the Treaty of Rome, the EU is now a project unnecessarily risking meltdown. How did we get from there to here?
The EEC was supposed to be the reverse of the protectionist ethos that now prevails in Europe. Yet, from the first, it was intended to have a political dimension. That aim was institutionalised from 1967, with the creation of the single Commission, Council of Ministers and European parliament. The Treaty of Maastricht in 1992 was a crossing of the Rubicon, seriously eroding national sovereignty, most notably in 'justice and home affairs' issues.
We have now reached the stage where Britain, still a net contributor to the EU budget, has its parliament bypassed by some 25,000 European regulations a year. Our economy is spectacularly outperforming the Eurozone, so it would be folly to allow our wealth-creators to be hobbled by oppressive regulations. Since when did insolvents have the right to impose their failed prescriptions on flourishing entrepreneurs? Now a constitution has been drafted, as the charter for a European superstate. You do not have to be a UKIP refusenik to recognise that these tensions are becoming intolerable. It has become clear that euroscepticism is no longer the sole preserve of the right.
Regardless of whether today's vote turns out to be Yes or No, the whole European project needs to be revisited, with radical intent. It is imperative that a referendum be held in Britain too. The public in this country must have the right to express its will, as other EU citizens are doing. Only by this means can the British government negotiate with its EU partners coherently and with an irrefutable mandate.
Already, and unwisely, the EU is preparing to sideline any democratic vote that does not conform to its project. It is time to confront it with the demands of democracy.
The Prime Minister must not be allowed to shelve, for his political convenience, the crucial consultation he has promised the public - the first vote on Europe in this country for 30 years. Let the voters speak.
I was talking about general news items that gave me that impression.
Why do we pity the Europeans for this when the Summit of the Americas and the Organization of American States will become the same supra-national structure without any vote at all?
Any bets on how the average Dim would answer that one?
Let me guess, your age, mod ten, is two. ;-)
So far so good, it seems, but what will the EU do to help after another million unsocialized savages stream across the border?
Pity that Greeks could not get Athens to address their own problems without the costs of outside help. EU aid to the villages, and the like, will turn out to be the Trojan horse!
The same could have been said with respect to Germany in the 1930's. Let us hope the outcome this time will be different.
"So far so good, it seems, but what will the EU do to help after another million unsocialized savages stream across the border?"
Its a HUGE problem, HB! The EU will do nothing and the Greeks, eventually, will have to do what Greeks do in such situations...and the foreigners will leave, I hope. The entire discussion was interesting since I heard many of the same comments about the immigrants as I hear in the States about the Mexicans, with a couple of exceptions. The Greeks accept and like the Eastern European Orthodox migrants. They seem to fit in quite well. They want the African and South Asian Mohammadens gone and soon, though they seem to like the Kurds. The Albanians...well they simply and intensely loath them.
"Pity that Greeks could not get Athens to address their own problems without the costs of outside help."
You're absolutely right.
"EU aid to the villages, and the like, will turn out to be the Trojan horse!"
I'm not so sure about that. The Greeks have never been any good at "circle time" and when push does come to shove, Greece will do damn well as it pleases, EU or no EU.
Excellent Editorial!
A couple of years ago, I stumbled upon a forum with Greeks discussing immigration. It was a translated page. They sounded just like us. They were getting fed the same lines we were, like, 'they're just coming to do the jobs the greeks won't do', etc. Strange. It just shows the immigration shifts worldwide are UN driven.
I wish I could remember the treaty name, but many nations signed it, and we see these results. The un wants to destroy nationalism, to build their global villlage.
Actually, it was helpful to Spain, too, initially. But now Spain is being forced to give up some of its traditional exports in favor of products from places like Morocco, which have entered into trade agreements with the EU. Some Spaniards have become quite rich, but most of them simply see the EU as guaranteeing their level of government handouts in perpetuity. Unfortunately, the Aznar government, which coincided with Spain's cash inflow under the EU and was very instrumental in liberalizing the economy enough so Spain could actually take advantage of it, has been replaced with a relentlessly statist Socialist government that is only going to make things worse, and stagnation is already becoming evident.
Furthermore, Spain has been an EU member long enough now for people to realize that they are losing control of their country, losing their way of life and distinctive outlook, etc., and there are many who are very uneasy about it. The socialists have gotten people behind the EU by portraying opposition to it as "right wing," which is something your average media-led Spaniard would consider a fate worse than death. Even then, while Spain passed the EU constitution (narrowly), it had an incredibly low voter turn-out, because most people didn't want it but were afraid to vote no.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.