Nosemonkey's EUtopia

September 11, 2009
by Nosemonkey
25 Comments

A cost-benefit analysis of the EU and the Lisbon Treaty?

A comment I left over at The Devil’s Kitchen a couple of months back that I recently stumbled upon bears resuscitating as a quick post in its own right, as debates about the EU resurface ahead of the re-run Irish Lisbon Treaty referendum:

It’s impossible to do a cost/benefit analysis of *all* EU laws – that doesn’t mean you can’t do a cost/benefit analysis of individual new laws before passing them.

You can, after all, work out the likely impact of a law liberalising the market for product category x on related industries a, b, c, (etc.) and even make an educated guess about the overall impact that this law may have on the economy as a whole.

But when it comes to the economy you can never understand everything – if we’ve learned nothing else in the last 12 months, we’ve learned that. Hell, with something as complex as a continent-wide economic system, there are so many other factors at play, though it may be possible to make an educated guess about the impact of a piece of legislation (enough to judge if it’s going to be beneficial, at any rate), you’ll never be able to track *all* of its effects – countless other things will be affecting individual parts of the economy in countless different ways, from other bits of EU and national legislation (which still often overlap) through local levels of trades unionism, consumer spending patterns, passing fashions, local infrastructure, and so on and so on.

In other words, to be able to put an actual monetary figure on the costs/benefits of EU legislation *as a whole*, you’d first need to work out a system for tracking all the workings of the entire European economy (or, at the very least, the entire economy of the individual member state you want to study). Because without complete understanding how an economy works both at macro- and micro- levels, it is impossible to judge how introducing variable x might affect it – because who’s to say it’s not actually variable b, h or z instead if you haven’t also studied their influence?.

So *any* claims about the costs OR benefits of the EU must be nonsense. Because the only way we could actually tell is if a) we understood the economy of Europe inside-out (which we don’t), and b) we had a control sample of a Europe in which the EU never came into being to which we could compare our findings.

So although I feel that the EU has done more good than harm to both the British economy and the economy of Europe as a whole, there is no way that I can prove that. There’s also no way that anyone of a more eurosceptic bent can prove that the opposite is true. I could point to individual benefits, they could point to individual costs – we could add up more and more of each until we have a wealth of evidence and can start chucking around figures like 200 or 600 billion. But we’d still have only scratched the surface.

This is not a flaw in the way the EU works, it is just a consequence of the EU’s continent-spanning economy (which exists in a world that has become increasingly globalised, and so increasingly economically complex and volatile over the last fifty years) being an incredibly, vastly, inconceivably complicated system that no one can ever fully understand.

The Lisbon Treaty, of course, is not one single new bit of legislation (unlike its predecessor, the Constitution a sprawling mess of a document, but at least a relatively coherent one) – it is instead a vast number of often tiny, minor amendments to a whole array of earlier treaties and bits of legislation, affecting almost all areas in which the EU currently functions.

This makes doing a cost-benefit analysis of the Lisbon Treaty (both economic and social costs/benefits) just about as impossible as it is to do one of the EU as a whole. And as so much of what Lisbon does is kept in deliberately vague terms (it is a compromise document drawn up by 27 governments, after all), and as parts of it are arguably self-contradictory, the task is made even harder.

In other words, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Lisbon’s effect on the EU and on individual EU member states will be determined by how it is interpreted by the Commission, Council, Parliament and member states after it comes into force far more than it will be by what it actually says. Unlike the Constitution, which attempted to lay down hard and fast rules, the Lisbon Treaty (foolishly, in my books) pretends to be laying down rules, but is actually more like a series of guidelines, to be solidified or modified over the coming years.

However, one major shift is the greater emphasis on the power of the European Parliament and of the parliaments of the member states to have a say in future EU legislation. Pass the Lisbon Treaty, and this ongoing process of interpretation and modification will have far more input from elected representatives than the alternative – which is not to make do and carry on, as some have suggested, but yet *another* round of negotiations for new EU frameworks. Another round of negotiations that will, once again, be dominated by input from the unelected bureaucrats, government officials and pressure-groups that have so dominated all previous such processes.

Is it undemocratic to force Ireland to vote again on a Treaty that they’ve already rejected? Well, yes. But through this bit of undemocratic second-chancing, the people of Europe as a whole may end up with far more ability to have a say in the inevitable future rounds of EU reform and, just perhaps, begin to shift the thing closer towards what they actually want.

So, is the Lisbon Treaty a bit rubbish? Yes. But it’s better than what we’ve got, and better than the likely alternative. Hard to be enthusiastic about, hard to actively support – but necessary if you want an EU that more closely matches the wishes of the people, even if it might come into force by forcing the people of Ireland to think again.

September 7, 2009
by Nosemonkey
Comments Off on Apologies for absence…

Apologies for absence…

All kinds of real-world excitement of late, including some very good news on the job front just this morning, has kept me off blogging for a bit.

However, I’ve been informed that if anyone fancied leaving comments in support of what I’ve been doing online with this blog and elsewhere over the last few years over at the EurActiv Awards site, then I’ll have a better chance of winning something or other.

And while I’m blegging support, you may also fancy putting in a positive comment or two to my suggestion to the excellent public-spirited chaps at MySociety that they develop an EU version of the invaluable democratic-accountability-boosting website TheyWorkForYou. This could do more for EU accountability than any number of actual Commission initiatives in one swoop – without any kind of public funding – and so should be in the interest of anyone who wants more EU transparency, both europhiles and eurosceptics alike.

August 22, 2009
by Nosemonkey
1 Comment

EU regionalism on the decline?

Following my recent posts on national vs European identity and regionalism and the EU (as part of a vague attempt to get an idea of the nature and importance of geographical/cultural identity), this may be of interest – Why the end is nigh for regionalism in Europe, from The Lobby. Quick excerpt:

Up until recently this was very much not the case. The Scottish National Party had just won power in their (regional) Parliament in Scotland, the Basque terrorists ETA continue to plant bombs in Spanish coastal resorts, and Belgium was in danger of being torn asunder by its perennial north-south divide. In the Balkans the newly independent states of Kosovo and Montenegro demonstrate that similar regional aspirations have led successfully to self-determination (although Kosovo is still very much a work in progress).

“This apparently contradictory trend of both centralisation towards Brussels and devolution towards the regions looked to be the way forward – until along comes the biggest financial meltdown since the 1930s. Now it’s all about strength in numbers.”

Worth a look – though it’s worth noting that now that France and Germany are out of recession (with the Eurozone’s economy declining by just 0.1% in the last quarter), it looks like all the doomsday scenarios predicted by the economic experts (the self-same experts who failed to predict the economic collapse) may not be quite so catastrophically inevitable after all. If the economy starts to revive again, I’d expect a swift return to business as usual – because there’s nothing the EU does better than the same thing it’s always done…

I’m sure there’s more to be said here about how the first port of call for Catalonia is the national machinery of Spain (the example used in the post linked above) rather than the supranational machinery of the EU.

But I’m not sure how much that would necessarily say about the strength of regional identity in Catalonia – it’s more a comment on the relatively tiny amounts of cash the EU has at its disposal. (The EU’s budget? 139bn euros; Spain’s budget? 374bn euros.)

This tiny EU budget, of course, is something set by the member states. Because it’s not in their interests to give the EU too much cash to spread around – not only might they not be able to control where it goes, but it could also (as if the EU, rather than Spain, came to Catalonia’s aid) help bolster regional nationalist movements and undermine the power of the governments of the member states.

At the risk of annoying a second nationalist movement in a week, this is why – in the present circumstances – I can’t see Scottish independence as being a viable option: the EU simply can’t afford to fill the void that would be left by the withdrawal of UK/English funds.

August 20, 2009
by Nosemonkey
23 Comments

British citizenship vs European citizenship

A point that arose in the comments to the National identity vs European identity post the other day was that of citizenship, commenter Anoldun noting that

“We were informed we were now “Europeans” when the Treaty of Maastricht was ratified, but the people had nothing to do with wanting to be EU Citizens. They were not asked if they wanted this extra ‘identity’, they did not apply for any such forms to make them citizen’s of Europe and did not even ask for or want them. None of the Commonwealth Countries that fight and die with the British, have British identities or been made British citizens, if THEY wanted to become so they would have to fill forms in etc and if we wanted to give them different identities there would be much form filling and asking of questions. No such things took place when we were made EU Citizens, asked for Passports or have to have an Identity card to prove who we are. I have absolutely no sense of belonging to “Europe” Nosemonkey and certainly none with the EU.”

Citizenship is, of course, effectively a legal codification of a certain form of identity, usually based around the notion of a nation state. EU citizenship is unusual in this regard, to be sure – because despite having certain characteristics of a state, the EU is not one. (For more on the EU as a state, and the perennial fear that it may become a superstate, please see my series of posts on the subject from earlier this year: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.)

Citizenship as imposition

Citizen Smith The complaint that EU citizenship has been forced upon us without our say is understandable, but if you think about it for a moment it’s also illogical. After all, the vast majority of us have had no say in what nationality we are, our citizenship having been determined by where we were born (or, in some cases, by that of our parents). I had no more say in being British than I did in being male, or having blond hair and green eyes.

The sudden creation of a new layer of citizenship over and above a national/state one is not a new idea, of course. It happened in the United States back after the American Revolution (the comparison that those who fear an EU superstate are likely to fear), but also rather more recently, with the British Nationality Act 1948. This oft-forgotten Act of Parliament made *every single person* in the British Empire a British citizen, whether they wanted to be or not – and considering this was the year after Indian independence, and shortly before the Empire disintegrated, it’s a safe bet that many had little interest in British citizenship, and if anything would have taken this as a patronising insult.

When it comes to EU citizenship, you may not identify yourself as European; you may not want to be European; but if you are a citizen of an EU member state then you are an EU citizen whether you like it or not – just as (in most cases) you are a citizen of that state whether you like it or not.

British citizen or British subject?

It’s also worth noting that the very concept of citizenship is continental European in origin (in the modern sense mostly via the French Revolution, though the idea does pre-date it) – and a very recent introduction to Britain. It’s a word that entered English via the Old French citeain, itself derived from the Latin civitatem.

Indeed, until the aforementioned 1948 British Nationality Act, there was no such thing as a British citizen – we were all merely subjects of the crown.

This, in effect, meant that we – as British subjects – had obligations to the state, but few rights.

This is because, contrary to popular belief in the power of the likes of Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights, the one constant in British constitutional law over the last three centuries has been that no parliament can bind another. This includes binding future parliaments by legislation granting rights to the people – because, again contrary to popular belief, in Britain the people have never been sovereign – first sovereignty lay with the crown, now it lies with parliament.

This means that the “right” of the people of Britain to vote, to a fair trial – even to life – are all down to the whim of parliament, and can be withdrawn at any time. (For more on this, see this post on the nature of sovereignty, this post on the nature of the English/British constitution and how “rights” fit into it, and this Wikipedia article on the concept of parliamentary sovereignty.)

The benefits of EU citizenship

In contrast, EU citizenship has conferred rights with no obligations.

With the introduction of EU citizenship, for the first time in Britain’s history, British citizens/subjects have the right to vote, to free movement, and so on, rather than just the privilege – we are no longer dependant upon the whim of parliament.

In return, the EU asks nothing of us. We are not directly taxed by the EU, nor does the EU directly pass any laws that we have to obey – all go via the governments of the member states, all of whom can challenge every stage of the process. Nothing the EU does is done without the approval of the (elected) governments of the member states – and therefore our obligations remain to the member states we are citizens of, and not to the EU as an entity. This may sound like pedantry, but in a legal sense it is a vital distinction.

It is the ongoing power that the British parliament has to abolish any and all freedoms it so desires that is one of the key reasons why I became in favour of some form of supranational body that could, for the first time in the country’s history*, serve to guarantee the freedoms that we have all come to assume are our right.

EU citizenship being layered on top of national citizenship finally guarantees all British citizens the right to appeal to a court that lies beyond the British government’s jurisdiction, whereas before we were stuck with the House of Lords as the highest court of appeal – a House of Lords and a justice system presided over by the Lord Chancellor, a member of the same government against whose abuses we would have been appealing.

Because the trouble with the concept of sovereignty is that is implies *absolute freedom of action*. In a state where the people are sovereign – as in the US with its “We the people” opening to the Constitution and specific clarification of the people’s rights in the 9th Amendment – this means that the people are (legally) secure from governmental abuses of power. In a state like Britain, where parliament is sovereign, it means that the people have no guarantees about anything – no rights, only privileges, and no legal recourse if those privileges are withdrawn. (The same problem faced parliament in the 17th century – they wanted certain guaranteed rights, but the monarch was sovereign. The problem was only solved by a series of bloody civil wars, the constitutional shift finalised by a foreign invasion.)

The concept of EU citizenship rectifies that historical/legal/constitutional anomaly – this time without a drop of blood shed.

* The UN’s Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948) and the Council of Europe’s European Convention on Human Rights (1950) were steps in the right direction, but the former is not legally binding, and the latter’s failings are made clear by the fact that the likes of Russia and Georgia are signatories, despite routinely breaching their citizens’ declared rights under the Convention.

August 18, 2009
by Nosemonkey
34 Comments

On an English Parliament

My last post has been hijacked by the rather fervent supporters of the concept of an English Parliament to the extent that it’s impossible to discuss what it was really about – i.e. local/regional vs national identities.

For non-Brits, a quick overview…

The Campaign for an English Parliament and its political offshoot the English Democrats Party are English nationalist organisations that have arisen since devolution and the creation of the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and Northern Ireland Assembly.

The argument is fair enough – Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland now have sole control over various areas of domestic policy (e.g. health, education), but in those same areas, England is still governed by the parliament of the United Kingdom in Westminster – which contains Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish MPs. This means that we have a situation whereby a majority of English MPs could oppose a policy (to do with, say, health) that would affect *only* England – yet the government could pass that policy anyway with the assistance of MPs from other parts of the United Kingdom, even though it would not take effect in their own constituencies.

It is a problem that has long been acknowledged in British politics, that should have been more adequately dealt with before devolution took place, and that has come to be known as “the West Lothian Question” after a 1977 speech by Scottish Labour MP for West Lothian, Tam Dalyell:

For how long will English constituencies and English Honourable members tolerate… Honourable Members from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland exercising an important, and probably often decisive, effect on English politics while they themselves have no say in the same matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?

As such – to keep the English Parliament lot happy (though I’m not sure why I should bother considering their wild hostility in my last post and decision to libel me with unfounded accusations) – here’s a dedicated post for them to rant at. (Which will probably be of little interest to anyone else…)
Continue Reading →

August 17, 2009
by Nosemonkey
44 Comments

Nation states, regionalism and the EU

In the comments to my National identity vs European identity post, where I’ve been arguing that it’s perfectly possibly to have a sense of belonging to multiple different groups, and thus to have multiple different identities, commenter WG notes:

I don’t see the point in this multi-ID thing.

One other point. The break up of Britain may well be a result of belonging to the EU. Wales, Scotland, and yes, even places such as Cornwall, may well decide that they will be better off under the EU and free of England. Whether this was intentional or no people such as myself have resigned ourselves to the ‘regionalization’ of England and expect other regions to break away. There is a growing sense that we are returning to the Essex/Mercia/Northumberland scenario.

As a Devonian, a Dumonii, I am afraid that I and many friends will never submit to EU rule. You see what a can of worms we have opened here. We are back to fighting Imperial Rome.

I’d agree that the EU makes such things possible (regional development funds and the like being able to fill the cash gap previously provided by nation state apparatus), I don’t necessarily see this as entirely down to the EU.
Continue Reading →

August 15, 2009
by Nosemonkey
67 Comments

National identity vs European identity

The debate continues to rage in the comments to my history: starting assumptions post, much of it coming from EUtopia regular Robin, a man firmly convinced of the superiority of national identities over any “European” one:

your national identity comes readily to you but this EUropean identity seems manufactured by those who are stakeholders in this EU project or its supporters.I also pointed out that Europeans may not, depending on their nationality, have that much in common with other Europeans, and many will have more in common with nations outside of Europe

Some fair points there, for sure. But what about the claim that “your national identity comes readily to you” contrasted with “this European identity seems manufactured” – the implication seems to be that national identities are somehow organically-formed.

This certainly can be the case – true national identities are usually based on a closely-shared culture and language. Think the Basques or Celts or Roma – not confined within the borders of any one country, but with a definite sense of nationhood.

The rise of national identities

Nation states, however, are entirely different beasts. The histories of France and Germany – two of the Great Powers of Europe, and key personifications of the nation state concept – are dominated prior to the last couple of hundred years by centuries of internal conflict and power struggles as their various constituent parts battled for control. People in the 16th century may have felt “French” or “German” – but only AFTER they felt themselves Angevin, Bavarian, and so on. The same goes for Spain, Italy, Poland, Austria, Switzerland – pretty much every European state. Even England was formed from constituent parts, albeit rather earlier than many other future European nation states.

In every case, a “national” identity had to be superimposed over the smaller-scale, pre-existing identities of the units that were brought together to make up the new, larger nation state, to forge a sense of shared identity between Angevins and Provencals, Bavarians and Saxons, Catalonians and Andalucians, where previously there was not just none, but also frequently a sense of hostility and rivalry.

Much of the time this has been due to the perception of some external threat, either real or fictional – in the case of 16th/17th century France, the rise of the Habsburgs in Spain, the Spanish Netherlands, Austria, Northern Italy and the Holy Roman Empire; in the case of 19th century Germany, the perceived threat from Austria-Hungary to the south and Denmark to the north; in 1930s Germany, the perceived threat was the Great Depression, communism and “the Jews”. The reason for forging a new sense of unity is aimed both internally – to promote loyalty to the state in a time of crisis – and externally – to demonstrate that unity to your enemies, and make clear that your constituent parts are no longer potential allies.

As Robin is so keen on his English/British identity, let’s take that as a more detailed case study.

The rise of the British and English national identities

The British national identity has only been created during the last 3-400 years (first under James VI/I to try to mesh his Scottish/English subjects together – something that didn’t work – then after the Act of Union of 1707, mostly in response to the rise of France under Louis XIV to prevent the revival of the old Franco-Scottish anti-England alliance). Yet this British identity *still* hasn’t fully taken hold, with sizable chunks of the population still feeling Scottish/Welsh/English/Cornish/Irish/whatever far more than they feel British – a feeling heightened by the different cultures and traditions, languages and religions and even (in the case of Scotland) legal systems still in place in the various constituent states of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Just as the British national identity rose in response to a threat, so too did the English. The Danish/Viking invasions of the 9th/10th centuries first led to concerted efforts at defence, then to alliances, finally to the expansion of the old Kingdom of Wessex as the Anglo-Saxons fought back against the Danes. The Heptarchy – the old kingdoms of Wessex, East Anglia, Mercia, Northumberland, Kent, Sussex and Essex (not to mention smaller kingdoms like Bernicia, Deira, Surrey, Lindsey, the Isle of Wight, Hwicce, Magonsaete, Pecsaetan, Wreocensae, Tomsaete, Haestingas, the Middle Angles, and Cornwall which were mostly sucked into the major seven during the course of the Dark Ages) – was united as England not due to any inherent feeling of shared identity, but thanks to the Viking threat and Alfred the Great’s realisation that the best bet was safety in numbers. (A very similar idea to that which led to the European Union, in fact.)

But that’s just the creation of England as an entity – not Englishness as an identity. As Robin rightly notes, just because you can identify a geographical area with some common features (like England back in the 9th century, or Europe today), doesn’t mean that there is any sense of shared identity among the people of that area.

English national identity took several centuries to emerge after England’s unification – there were early hints under Edward I as he battled the Welsh, Scots and French (again, the threat of war being a the key), though most historians now agreeing that it was first fully conceived during the reign of Henry VII as a more or less entirely political, top-down attempt to reunify the kingdom after the Wars of the Roses. (One of the key manifestations of this new “English” identity was Henry’s entirely PR-driven decision to name his first-born son Arthur, after the legendary English King, made newly popular by Thomas Mallory’s Le Mort d’Arthur, published the very year that Henry seized the throne and brought the long-running civil wars of York vs Lancaster to a close. How much better a symbol of England’s unity could there have been than for a new King Arthur to take the throne? Shame he died, really…)

“Englishness” was maintained as an idea by Henry VIII, first to secure his throne and then (almost by accident) during his dispute with the Papacy and subsequent Reformation. It was further solidified under Elizabeth I as she tried to unite her religiously-divided country in the face of the constant threat of Spanish and French Catholic invasions (trying to create a sense of national identity that could override the Catholic identities of some of her subjects). But even that didn’t work – witness the Civil War that erupted 40 years after her death.

Local vs national identities

Even today, there are sub-categories beneath “Englishness” that many people within England will pick as their primary “identity”: Scouse; Geordie; Brummie; Yorkshireman; Northerner – and so on. (Some of the pre-English kingdoms have retained some sense of identity remain – notably in Cornwall (mostly due to the older Celtic national identity that pre-dates Cornwall as an entity); others have been entirely forgotten – how many people in modern-day Lincolnshire perceive themselves to be Lindseyans?)

All of these local identities are far more natural in origin than the “English” or “British” “national” identites that lie above them as a broader unifying concept – and such smaller-scale identities will always exist – because before both English and British identities arose, the most important identities were (quite naturally) local – the village, the town, and at a push the county.

And little wonder – until the 19th century, let’s not forget, it would take at least a week to travel from London to Edinburgh or Penzance. The only other “Englishmen” you’d be likely to meet – unless you were a politician or noble – would be at the local market or the county fair. Why should someone from Devon feel any kinship with someone from Yorkshire? They would never meet, and even if they did they would speak differently, have different customs and traditions – and after the Reformation sometimes even different religions. (The conversion to Protestantism was a decidedly localised affair in England, despite being a top-down, state-ordained decision – there are even records of neighbouring villages in early 17th century Somerset, less than five miles apart, where one was Catholic, one was Protestant – they went on to join different sides in the Civil War, one supporting Parliament, the other the King…)

This argument about not meeting people from far away and having little in common with them when you do, of course, you could use against the concept of a “European” identity today – what does a Yorkshireman have in common with a Romanian?, etc.

Only today we are far more likely to encounter people from other EU member states than our forebears ever were to meet a fellow Englishman from the other side of the country. You can drive to Romania in a couple of days – a journey time that, when the English national identity was being formed, wouldn’t have got you even a quarter of the way from Cornwall to London. It’s quicker to fly from London to Romania today than it would have been, back in the 16th/17th/18th centuries when national identities were forming, to ride to the next town.

An attempt at a conclusion

All this, of course, goes to explain my belief that that broad, higher-level senses of belonging – at national or European level – are less important than lower-level, “primary” identites.

Yet even this isn’t entirely true – because senses of identity are entirely personal things. You can pick a bunch of people who were all born and raised in the same village, and yet there will still be a wide range of opinions among them as to what their primary identity (or identities) may be. Some may pick their national identity as most important, others that of their local area, still others their religion or their class.

Because if the case study of the manufacture of Britishness and Englishness has proved anything, it shows that the top-down imposition of a broad identity will only ever meet with limited success.

A broad identity can be a positive unifying force – the creation of a sense of “Britishness” in particular has prevented war within the island of Great Britain for the last three hundred years – though it can also cause conflict – as in Northern Ireland, where the imposition of the concept of Britishness continues to meet with violent resistance.

As such, although I don’t see a “European” identity as a threat to my own sense of identity or place, I can see how others might. And although I agree with Robin that there have been efforts to artificially create such a European identity – just as the English and British and French and German and Spanish and Italian (and so on) identities were artificially created before it – I don’t agree entirely. The growth of a European identity is also partially natural and organic as the economies and societies of Europe grow closer together, and as improvements in technology and transportation bring Europeans from different countries into more regular contact with each other – just as a sense of “Britishness” grew organically during the course of the last few hundred years as Britain’s infrastructure improved and people from Devon and Yorkshire and Scotland encountered each other more regularly, and grew to see the things that they had in common as well as those things that were different.

Some pre-English and pre-British identities have been lost; others have survived. The same will doubtless be the case in Europe if the European identity takes hold. But the process will be a long one. More than a thousand years after the formation of England, the Cornish still feel Cornish; seven hundred years after the conquest of Wales, the Welsh still feel Welsh; three hundred years after the Act of Union, the Scots still feel Scottish.

And so, in short, while I have no wish to impose a European identity on anyone who doesn’t wish it, I honestly can’t see how it can be seen as a threat. And likewise, I can’t see how any attempt to break down the perceived barriers between peoples of different identities in pursuit of a common good can be a bad thing. The creation of a European identity is not an aggressive movement, like the creation of a German identity was in the late 19th through to the mid-20th century – it is a positive attempt to bring together a continent whose entire history has been marked by warfare and conflict.

I can only see this as a good thing.

August 14, 2009
by Nosemonkey
20 Comments

The NHS under attack

There’s a big row going on about President Obama’s proposed healthcare reforms in the US at the moment. It’s US politics, so holds little interest for me.

But then the Republicans – taking hyperbole and wilful disinformation to whole new levels – started bringing the British National Health Service into the debate (despite the NHS being nothing like what Obama’s proposing for the US). Sarah Palin (remember her?) has described the health service that my grandfather helped set up – turning down a very lucrative job in the private sector in the process – as “evil”. Various US right-wing rabble-rousers have repeated her hyperbolic description of the decision-making process of what drugs and treatments to offer on the NHS as being “death panels”, implying that the NHS is little more than a National Euthanasia Service – all in the name of smearing Obama’s planned reforms. It’s all sparked a major internet outcry from Brits disgusted at the sheer ignorance of some of these comments, slagging off a service that is, in more ways than one, a national institution.

I still didn’t really care, to be honest. It’s America. They do things differently there, and what they do has been up to them pretty much ever since that incident with the tea in Boston Harbour. (Well, bar us burning down the White House in 1814, but sssshhh…)

But then up stepped our old favourite Dan Hannan, blogging Tory MEP for South East England, and one of the most Eurosceptic (and, seemingly, out-of-touch) Conservative politicians going. He’s repeatedly been going on Fox News to slate the NHS in the most ridiculous terms – revealing either a complete ignorance of its services and functions or a desire to fellate the American right’s prejudices in a desperate attempt to revive his surprise YouTube success of earlier this year, which went down a storm in the States.

And so I got interested – because I’m increasingly coming to the opinion that Hannan (whom I previously regarded as intelligent and articulate, though with a disappointing tendency to play to the gallery) is a dangerous moron.

I’ve always slagged off the NHS as being wasteful, over-managed and unreliable – while still, please note, never for a moment thinking that it would be a good idea to get rid of it. But Hannan’s hyperbole, backed up with hugely out-of-date statistics, was just ridiculous – even more so than his bullshit claim that 84% of laws come from the EU.

So, over at Liberal Conspiracy, I’ve done a post in the only language right-wingers seem to understand: a US healthcare vs UK NHS cost/benefit analysis.

The results surprised me enough that I’m considering revising my previous preference for part-privatisation of the NHS…

August 5, 2009
by Nosemonkey
24 Comments

Nosemonkey on history: Some starting assumptions

With a new(ish) emphasis on history, it’s probably an idea to outline where I’m coming from.

My approach to history is not coherent enough to be defined by any one term, but has probably most been influenced by the French Annales School, most notably the work of Fernand Braudel and the concept of the longue durée (first developed by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre). To boil a complex concept down to its fundamentals, this means that to understand both past and present, I believe that a long, wide view is necessary – one that takes into account as much as is feasibly possible of what might influence a society/culture. In short, while the minutiae of history can be fascinating, they cannot be understood without the wider context.

Taking this approach, nation states can be seen as little more than recent developments within a far larger entity, emerging over the course of the last thousand or so years (though only crystallising firmly during the last few hundred) of a Western/European civilisation that can more or less coherently be traced back to Ancient Greece. They are interesting, but not fully understandable without looking at the wider picture – not even the most powerful and oldest of them.

As Arnold Toynbee noted in his masterly A Study of History,

English history does not become intelligible until we view it as the history of a wider society of which Great Britain is a member in company with other nation states, each of which reacts, though each in its own way, to the common experiences of the society as a whole. Similarly, Venetian history has to be viewed as the history of a temporary sub-society including Milan, Genoa, Florence, and the other ‘medieval’ city-states in Northern Italy; Athenian history as the history of a society including Thebes, Corinth, Sparta, and the other city-states of Greece in the Hellenic Age.”

Would Britain be what she is today without the Anglo-Saxon, Viking and then Norman invasions? Without the impact of the Roman Catholic Church? Without the medieval revival of classical learning and introduction of advanced mathematics and algebra via European contact with Arab scholars? Without the centuries of warfare with France? Without the huge upheaval sparked by Italian Renaissance thought and the German/Swiss ideas that shaped the English and Scottish Reformations? Without the proximity of the Dutch Republic in the 17th century, offering sanctuary and a base for dissidents and propagandists? Without the Glorious Revolution, itself a Dutch invasion that was part of a wider European unease about the rise of France’s Louis XIV? Without the competition for global trade and territories with the other European imperial powers? Without the upheavals of the French and American Revolutions and the Napoleonic Wars? Without the rise of truly global trade and increasingly powerful economic competitors through the 19th century? Without the vast upheavals of the First World War, Great Depression, Second World War and Cold War?

In this approach, Europe can be seen as a more or less coherent entity for much of the last two thousand years – albeit an entity whose borders have shifted and remain ill-defined – and Western/European society/culture as something distinct from that of its near neighbours in North Africa, Asia and the Middle East (even while, thanks to such close proximity, sharing some elements and – on the borders – some overlap). Meanwhile, the borders of Europe’s constituent states have been in constant flux – even those of Britain (first the heptarchy, then Wessex, then England, then England and Wales, also taking in much of Northern France until the loss of Calais in 1558, then the merger with Scotland, the addition of Ireland, the loss of Eire and addition of Northern Ireland to the United Kingdom – not to mention the various far-scattered overseas territories like Gibraltar and the Falklands).

The defining influences on this Western/European society/culture have been (to massively over-simplify) Ancient Greece (especially Athens), the Roman Empire, Judeo-Christian religion, French courtly life, and British parliamentary democracy. Its influence in turn has spread worldwide via the various European empires, so that aspects of Western/European society/culture have embedded themselves around the world – most obviously in the Anglosphere, but also in Latin America, India/Pakistan/Bangladesh, and various parts of Africa and South East Asia.

Within Europe, its influence roughly coincides with the continent’s geographic borders – halting more or less with the Mediterranean to the South, and fading to the East over the Russian Steppes, where it slowly merges with other societies/cultures both on the Russian fringe and within Russia itself.

In short, you can understand pretty much any European country without knowing anything much about the history of China; you cannot understand pretty much any European country without knowing something of the history of its neighbours. Not even the big beasts of Britain and France, long the two most influential European states (with apologies to Spain), and certainly not the more recent arrivals on the European scene.

This is why I find Europe – however ill-defined that term might still be – a worthwhile and coherent unit of study.

July 30, 2009
by Nosemonkey
11 Comments

A bit of historical context

Two articles from the Washington Post have, over the last few days, finalised a new content idea I’ve been having for a while for this place.

First up came a quick overview of the ongoing dispute between Greece and Macedonia over who “owns” Alexander the Great, and then today up pops an article about yesterday’s elections in Moldova, describing the failure of the Communist Party to win as a victory for “Pro-West parties”.

Of course, it’s all a lot more complicated than that – not just the present-day politics, but also the history, in both cases stretching back centuries. And the press, with precious little interest in “foreign” news at the best of times, rarely manages to give much historical context beyond the superficial. (“Oh yeah, Moldova – that used to be Communist, right? Or is it still Communist? God knows – but it’s probably something to do with the Cold War. That’ll do.”)

But, let’s face it, few of us – even those of us who studied history at university – have a solid enough grasp of Europe’s past to know the basic backstory to *every* ongoing dispute. We can always make guesses – neighbours are always likely to come into conflict, after all – but the specifics are often lost. Hell, there’s a good chance that – thanks to the usually national-focus of most history teaching in schools and universities – that large chunks of European history are entirely unknown by many readers, be it the Early Modern big beasts of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Spanish Netherlands, or the lost realms of Europe, the Venices, Savoys, Anjous, Brandenburgs, Wallachias, Achaeas, Trebizonds and the rest.

With all the politicians off on holiday for the next few weeks – and being, as I am, bored rigid with all the petty political squabbles – this looks like a good time to start adding to this site’s long-neglected “Culture” and “History” sections with a few (hopefully) handy introductory articles providing a slightly more coherent and considered bit of context to current events than you’ll find on Wikipedia. Plus, just for fun, the odd look at more obscure and forgotten bits of Europe’s history and culture, like my piece on wannabe European states from a while back. A good excuse to expand my knowledge and justify sitting back with a few books – expanding my knowledge was the whole point of starting to blog, after all.

Sound good to you? Or should I stick to politics?

July 29, 2009
by Nosemonkey
17 Comments

Introducing Ideas on Europe

I’ve been a bit quiet over the last few weeks, largely thanks to the real world getting in the way.

One of the major projects I’ve been working on, however, is now in a pre-launch beta phase, and so can be officially revealed: Ideas on Europe – a new group blog that I’ve been developing in partnership with UACES, the University Association for Contemporary University Studies.

Describing itself as a place for “informed analysis, comment, dialogue and debate on all things European”, Ideas on Europe is intended as a non-partisan, multi-national, not exclusively political portal for academics working in the field of European Studies – taking in politics, economics, history, sociology, public policy, culture, geography and more – to engage with those of us outside the ivory towers as well as those within.

At the moment we’ve got nearly 40 contributors on board – a number that’s set to rise considerably – ranging from postgrad students to named chairs at high-profile universities. Some of them have begun to make their first forays into blogging, with posts from Jaani Kaerne (from the University of Tartu in Estonia), EUoplocephalus (from the University of Surrey in the UK), and (in German) Vanessa Buth – as well as a few from me – leading the way.

Among even this initial contributor base, there is a broad range of expertise and experience – with blogs dedicated to subjects like welfare, migration, security, energy, north Africa, and education, as well as more generalist contributors. Now that the site is going public, we should start to see a bit more activity from these early adopters.

Many of the areas we aim to end up covering are currently sorely under-represented in the world of Euroblogging – not to mention the relative lack of academic contributors to the various online debates, most of which are currently dominated by a combination of enthusiastic amateurs and professional political types – so I very much hope that those of us who’ve been active in this section of the internet give the site and its contributors our support, encouragement and advice as it starts to get off the ground over the next few months. Not least because the vast majority of our contributors have never blogged before – nor, indeed, taken part in online discussions.

I’ve already answered some questions about Ideas on Europe’s aims and intentions over at Kosmopolito (which now has its own presence on the new site) and also at Blogactiv, but naturally enough, I’m happy to answer any more that anyone may have here.

July 7, 2009
by Nosemonkey
4 Comments

7/7 attacks, four years on

If you haven’t, read the liveblog from the day, have a look at the one year on post, much of which still stands (though, thankfully, this country seems to be rather less hysterical about terrorism these days), and flick through the London Terror Attacks archive.

It’s important not to forget those that died. But although a memorial is being unveiled later today, the thing about terrorism remains that it exists to terrorise.

Four years on, the level of fear in London is back to what it was on 6th July 2005. People carry on their lives quite happily. The underground is packed with people not even giving a thought to the possibility of being blown up on the way to work. The majority of commuters this morning will not even remember that today is the anniversary of those deeply unpleasant events.

This is the best memorial.

Despite the best efforts of the terrorists – and the tabloid-whipped politicians scrabbling around in their wake with plans for detention without trial, stifling protest, DNA databases and countless other pointless draconian measures – our way of life has not been changed.

We, the people of London, were attacked – not the politicians, and not the innumerable armchair warmongers from around the world. The politicians and sabre-rattlers could do well to learn from our response – we dusted ourselves down, had a quick look around, and carried on with our lives.

The terrorists, hoping to have a major impact on the lives of everyone in this country, managed merely to kill and maim a few score innocents. They hoped to become heroes – they ended up little better than animals. And, four years on, they have been all but forgotten.

This is how it should be. If terrorists attack us to scare us and make us change our way of life, what better response is there than to carry on as if nothing has happened?

July 2, 2009
by Nosemonkey
13 Comments

UKIP’s new Europe of Freedom and Democracy group

The old eurosceptic Independence/Democracy group in the European Parliament was kept more or less respectable largely thanks to the influence of its former joint leader Jens-Peter Bonde, who stemmed from the relatively moderate lefty side of euroscepticism. Now, however, Bonde has retired and his old June Movement was wiped out at the European elections – along with its Polish equivalent – and the Ind/Dem group died with them.

But now, from the ashes, UKIP leader Nigel Farage (the former joint leader of Ind/Dem) has managed to salvage an alliance – with 30 MEPs from 8 countries (where the EP requires 25 MEPs from 7 countries for an official group to qualify for funding and committee places). But where the old Ind/Dem group was confined largely to criticising the EU and calling for repatriation of powers to the member states by the restraining influence of the left-wing anti-EU parties, this new group appears to be taking a decidedly more hardline nationalist approach, characterised primarily by strongly anti-immigration rhetoric.

UKIP dominates the new group with 13 MEPs, and for this we should be grateful – because they seem to be one of the most moderate parties in the thing.

Their major partners are Italy’s Lega Nord, with 9 representatives. What do these chaps – part of Berlusconi’s broad church right-wing governing coalition – believe? Well, let’s ask Wikipedia…

The party is often described as “xenophobic” and “anti-immigrant”. [Leader] Umberto Bossi himself, described African immigrants as Bingo-bongos, in an interview suggested opening fire on the boats of illegal immigrants who would disembark in Italy.

In 2002 Erminio Boso, a Lega Nord politician from the Province of Trento, proposed a separate train for immigrants and Italians. In 2003 he former Mayor of Treviso, Giancarlo Gentilini, while in office, spoke about those he called “immigrant slackers”, saying, “We should dress them up like hares and bang-bang-bang”.

Add to that the call by one of the party’s deputy mayors for “an ethnic cleansing of faggots”, and I’m sure you’ll agree that UKIP have chosen some regular charmers. But it doesn’t end there…

There’s also a couple of MEPs from the anti-immigration Dansk Folkeparti, whose leader, Pia Kjærsgaard, lost a 2003 libel action against a political opponent who accused the party of having “racist policies” – making the DPP an officially racist organisation. DPP politicians have also come under fire for comparing the Qu-ran to Hitler’s Mein Kampf (evidently unaware of Godwin’s Law), while others are on record as saying “In many ways, we are anti-Muslims”.

Slightly less mad is the MEP from the Dutch Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij – they just want the Netherlands to be reformed along strict Calvinist lines, with all laws to be derived from the Bible.

There’s also a couple of True Finns (Perussuomalaiset), who have also been involved with the Tories’ new centre-right eurosceptic grouping, one of whose party members is currently facing two years in jail on race hate charges for describing all foreigners as “criminals”, and asylum-seekers as “gang-rapists” and “parasites”.

Then there’s a couple of MEPs from the delightful Greek Laïkós Orthódoxos Synagermós – former members of Ind/Dem who have been repeatedly accused of anti-semitism (including their founder/leader, who is alleged to have called for a debate on “the Auschwitz and Dachau myth”, claimed the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are a reality, and blamed “the Jews” for the September 11th 2001 attacks.

The new group has already been described as being “far-right lite” – with UKIP accused of hoping to tone down some of the more overtly racist/fascist rhetoric of their new partners and repackaging the strongly anti-immigration stance that is the new group’s one binding ideology into a more friendly, populist package.

But will it last? The last racist group in the European Parliament, the short-lived Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty soon fell apart when its members all realised that the other members were, well, filthy foreigners. Could the same happen to UKIP’s new group? And is UKIP – a party that has striven hard in the last few years to shake off its past image as being xenophobic and anti-foreigner – really going to be prepared to be associated with parties with such unpleasant associations?

Yet here’s some confusion… While UKIP refuse to back the Conservative party in the UK thanks to the Tories being centre-right eurosceptics but – crucially – not withdrawalist like UKIP, they seem quite happy to do business with all these parties in their new group in the European Parliament – none of whom, bar UKIP themselves, advocate withdrawing from the EU.

So what is it that makes UKIP think that they have more in common with these European parties than they do with the Tories in the UK? Because the only thing I can see that ties these parties together beyond the standard centre-right euroscepticism that would see them as good fits for the Tories own new group is precisely the hardline, frequently (allegedly) racist approach to immigration.

June 30, 2009
by Nosemonkey
44 Comments

German Constitutional Court Lisbon Treaty ruling

Another small hurdle for the much-beleaguered treaty to overcome:

the Act Extending and Strengthening the Rights of the Bundestag and the Bundesrat in European Union Matters (Gesetz über die Ausweitung und Stärkung der Rechte des Bundestages und des Bundesrates in Angelegenheiten der Europäischen Union) infringes Article 38.1 in conjunction with Article 23.1 of the Basic Law (Grundgesetz – GG) insofar as the Bundestag and the Bundesrat have not been accorded sufficient rights of participation in European lawmaking procedures and treaty amendment procedures. The Federal Republic of Germany’s instrument of ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon may not be deposited as long as the constitutionally required legal elaboration of the parliamentary rights of participation has not entered into force.

And so the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty is to be yet further delayed while Germany rejigs a few bits and pieces of its own constitution to accommodate it. Which, depending on how long Germany takes to sort this out, could mean that the treaty is delayed long enough for there to be a Conservative government in the UK before Lisbon has been fully ratified, which would mean a UK referendum, which would mean Lisbon’s rejection by Britain and yet another crisis for the EU. Fun fun fun.

There’s lots more in this genuinely fascinating ruling that is pretty much guaranteed to be seized upon by those of an anti-EU persuasion – even though the real issue here is as much Germany’s strict constitution as any problems with the expansion of EU powers. The ruling also helps clarify a number of issues, as well as point to more issues of the EU’s structure and identity that really need to be clarified by the EU itself.

First up, the EU’s crisis of identity and purpose – as I’ve noted many times, the EU itself doesn’t know what it is for, so little wonder it’s got a rather confused structure:

The structural problem of the European Union is at the centre of the review of constitutionality. The extent of the Union’s freedom of action has steadily and considerably increased, not least by the Treaty of Lisbon, so that meanwhile in some fields of policy, the European Union has a shape that corresponds to that of a federal state, i.e. is analogous to that of a state. In contrast, the internal decision-making and appointment procedures remain predominantly committed to the pattern of an international organisation, i.e. are analogous to international law; as before, the structure of the European Union essentially follows the principle of the equality of states.

Note, dear eurosceptic friends, that “analogous to a state” does not mean “is a state” – and note also that “a shape that corresponds to that of a federal state” does also not mean “is a state” (and also that federal states can take many forms – their defining characteristic being the importance placed on devolved, state/regional levels of governance over that of a central authority).

Indeed, this ruling seems to utterly preclude the creation of a European superstate – at least, not without a fundamental change to the German constitution, ratified by referendum (that’s how I read this, anyway):

As long as, consequently, no uniform European people, as the subject of legitimisation, can express its majority will in a politically effective manner that takes due account of equality in the context of the foundation of a European federal state, the peoples of the European Union, which are constituted in their Member States, remain the decisive holders of public authority, including Union authority. In Germany, accession to a European federal state would require the creation of a new constitution, which would go along with the declared waiver of the sovereign statehood safeguarded by the Basic Law.

…The peoples of the Member States are the holders of the constituent power. The Basic Law does not permit the special bodies of the legislative, executive and judicial power to dispose of the essential elements of the constitution.

…The authorisation to transfer sovereign powers to the European Union pursuant to Article 23.1 GG is, however, granted under the condition that the sovereign statehood of a constitutional state is maintained on the basis of a responsible integration programme according to the principle of conferral and respecting the Member States’ constitutional identity, and that at the same time the Federal Republic of Germany does not lose its ability to politically and socially shape the living conditions on its own responsibility.

That, to me, pretty much categorically rules out any EU superstate – while allowing for further integration, up to an indeterminate level (yet to be defined, but before the stage at which Germany’s ability to “politically and socially shape the living conditions” of its people is lost) at which a popular vote and alteration of the German Constitution would become necessary. Later, the EU’s current nature is more clearly defined:

With the present status of integration, the European Union does, even upon the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, not yet attain a shape that corresponds to the level of legitimisation of a democracy constituted as a state. It is not a federal state but remains an association of sovereign states to which the principle of conferral applies…

With the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, the Federal Republic of Germany will remain a sovereign state. In particular, the substance of German state authority is protected.

There we have it – fairly categorical, that. And if anti-EU types are happy to use German politicians to claim that 84% of laws stem from the EU, I think it’s only fair for those of us of a less vehemently anti-EU persuasion be allowed to quote these German judges repeatedly when countering claims that the EU is becoming a superstate.

Moving on, the European Parliament also comes in for some stick, largely for still being ineffective, under-developed, and uninfluential – though this is seen as a good thing, as too powerful a European Parliament, runs the logic, could claim greater democratic legitimacy within the EU decision-making process than the governments of the member states working together behind the scenes via the Council and Commission, and thus reduce their freedom of action (the EU’s “democratic deficit”, in other words, is actually preserving the sovereignty of the member states…):

Neither as regards its composition nor its position in the European competence structure is the European Parliament sufficiently prepared to take representative and assignable majority decisions as uniform decisions on political direction. Measured against requirements placed on democracy in states, its election does not take due account of equality, and it is not competent to take authoritative decisions on political direction in the context of the supranational balancing of interest between the states. It therefore cannot support a parliamentary government and organise itself with regard to party politics in the system of government and opposition in such a way that a decision on political direction taken by the European electorate could have a politically decisive effect. Due to this structural democratic deficit, which cannot be resolved in a Staatenverbund, further steps of integration that go beyond the status quo may undermine neither the States’ political power of action nor the principle of conferral.

And, just to underline yet further how an EU superstate is not on the cards:

The European Union must comply with democratic principles as regards its nature and extent and also as regards its own organisational and procedural elaboration (Article 23.1, Article 20.1 and 20.2 in conjunction with Article 79.3 of the Basic Law). This means firstly that European integration may not result in the system of democratic rule in Germany being undermined. This does not mean that a number of sovereign powers which can be determined from the outset or specific types of sovereign powers must remain in the hands of the state. European unification on the basis of a union of sovereign states under the Treaties may, however, not be realised in such a way that the Member States do not retain sufficient room for the political formation of the economic, cultural and social circumstances of life. This applies in particular to areas which shape the citizens’ circumstances of life, in particular the private space of their own responsibility and of political and social security, which is protected by the fundamental rights, and to political decisions that particularly depend on previous understanding as regards culture, history and language and which unfold in discourses in the space of a political public that is organised by party politics and Parliament. To the extent
that in these areas, which are of particular importance for democracy, a transfer of sovereign powers is permitted at all, a narrow interpretation is required. This concerns in particular the administration of criminal law, the civil and the military monopoly on the use of force, fundamental fiscal decisions on revenue and expenditure, the shaping of the circumstances of life by social policy and important decisions on cultural issues such as the school and education system, the provisions governing the media, and dealing with religious communities.

Oh, and we’ve also got a categorical rejection of that myth that the Lisbon Treaty has the potential to become a self-amending enabling act – for this would be against German constitutional law:

The Basic Law does not grant the German state bodies powers to transfer sovereign powers in such a way that their exercise can independently establish other competences for the European Union. It prohibits the transfer of competence to decide on its own competence (Kompetenz-Kompetenz). The act approving a treaty amending a European Treaty and the national accompanying laws must therefore be such that European integration continues to take place according to the principle of conferral without the possibility for the European Union of taking possession of Kompetenz-Kompetenz or to violate the Member States’ constitutional identity.

There’s lots more of interest there – though precise interpretations of the significance of many of the details are a tad tricky for me to provide with my, *ahem*, less than perfect knowledge of German constitutional law. Nonetheless, it’s a bit of EU geek heaven – and, I’m sure you’ll agree, a lot of those definitions of what the EU’s competences are and should be (as well as the implicit restrictions made on certain aspects of future European integration) are likely to prove invaluable in the years to come as the EU continues to try and work out its purpose and direction.

Because, lest we forget, Lisbon actually is really little more than the tidying-up exercise that it has been claimed as. Yes, it introduces a few new aspects that some may see as worrying – but it still hasn’t solved the fundamental problems of EU governance and the relationships between the member states that have arisen since the expansion to 25 (now 27 – and soon likely to be 29). Almost as soon as Lisbon is ratified, work will have to begin on its successor – and these rulings by the German Constituional Court will, with any luck, provide useful guidelines for the next batch of EU reformers.