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Irish thoughts
Henry writes:
In particular, German parliamentarian Axel Schäfer’s comment that “With all respect for the Irish vote, we cannot allow the huge majority of Europe to be duped by a minority of a minority of a minority,” would have a bit more credibility if, you know, the majority of the majority of the majority had been given a chance to vote on the Treaty themselves.
I can imagine a few other lessons:
1. Give people a referendum on a big question and they will use it as a chance to voice their general displeasure with many other matters. New Zealand made that mistake on electoral reform. The Irish vote was strongly divided among rich-poor lines.
2. According to polls, the Irish are not especially Euroskeptical. I guess that is "Eurosceptical". In any case multilateralism has limits.
3. The option under consideration *was* Plan B. There is no obvious Plan C.
4. It worked last time (2002) to ask them to vote again. Few people think that gambit can be played a second time.
5. One Irishman opined: ""We're told we can vote no, that the system requires unanimity. But when (a `no' vote) actually happens, every time, the EU tells us: You really only have a right to vote yes," said Dublin travel agent Paul Brady, who voted against the treaty.
6. Some deluded soul in the EU read a copy of John Calhoun instead of Buchanan and Tullock's Calculus of Consent. Hadn't they remembered the history of 17th and 18th century Poland and decided that a unanimity rule is a bad idea?
7. If European nations demand a unanimity rule (which I can well imagine), is that not a sign that they have a free trade area but nothing close to a real political union?
Posted by Tyler Cowen on June 15, 2008 at 07:12 AM in Political Science | Permalink
Comments
The unanimity rule goes back to the Treaty of Rome (of which this is an amendment to an amendment . . .), which was between only six states: France, (West) Germany, Italy and Benelux; three big and three little. In the circumstances, unanimity was the only workable rule.
Posted by: jim at Jun 15, 2008 8:18:38 AM
It's clear that the European Union will not become a political union any time soon, and quite possibly never.
This has implications for the future of the euro: as the four-decade-long Scandinavian Monetary Union showed, a common currency can persist a long time but ultimately fails in the absence of political union.
Posted by: at Jun 15, 2008 9:49:50 AM
II don't get comment no. 6. I imagine you might think that the world revolves around the US, but I can assure that very, very few souls in Europe have ever heard about John Calhoun.
The unanimity rule is simply the effect of the political form of the UE - that of an international organization of integration where the voice of every government (and in case of essential reforms the voice of the people, either through parliaments or referendum) must be taken into account.
The EU is not a federation, not even a confederation - so Buchanan doesn't really apply.
There was nothing wrong about the Polish liberum votum (the King already had enough power before the unanimity legislature was established, where not all the aristocrats - circa 1/4 of country's population - came anyway; - and there is nothing catastrophic about the Irish vote..
Posted by: European at Jun 15, 2008 10:25:36 AM
The motivations behind the No vote were complicated, I agree. But one widely held justification for a "no" was inarguable: quite simply no-one could understand a single word of the treaty on which they were supposed to be voting. Under the circumstances (where few had read the treaty and where those few who had found it incomprehensible) it is a disgrace that anyone felt able to vote "Yes".
Posted by: Rory Sutherland at Jun 15, 2008 10:28:59 AM
The Irish did a great thing by rejecting the treaty (which, as pointed above, is a masterpiece of pompous incomprehensible wording); this will help keep in check for now the calls for more centralization, bureaucracy, regulation, tax harmonization, corporatism, maybe even a Commission with fiscal powers and so on.
Posted by: European at Jun 15, 2008 10:39:03 AM
The EU as written before is not a Union and not a confederation, its real acid test is yet to come through economics.
There will be few members threatening to depart, but not to forget as designed by its fathers it did not foresee so many members.
Posted by: Monet at Jun 15, 2008 11:08:58 AM
My bet is that quite a number of the Irish read all or some of the Treaty of Lisbon. The Irish value style in the use of language, as listening to any Irish pub conversation will tell you. Nobody who appreciates style could possibly bring themselves to vote for the wording of that Treaty.
(As for the substance, what there was of it in the Lisbon Treaty was no more than a very marginal improvement on the mess left by the preceding Treaties).
Posted by: David Heigham at Jun 15, 2008 11:22:12 AM
My bet is that quite a number of the Irish read all or some of the Treaty of Lisbon. The Irish value style in the use of language, as listening to any Irish pub conversation will tell you. Nobody who appreciates style could possibly bring themselves to vote for the wording of that Treaty.
(As for the substance, what there was of it in the Lisbon Treaty was no more than a very marginal improvement on the mess left by the preceding Treaties).
Posted by: David Heigham at Jun 15, 2008 11:22:33 AM
Quite frankly I don't understand the hysteria of those who are lambasting the irish "No" vote. Why is Lisbon supposedly so much better than the status quo?
It is worthnoting that the No vote isn't a vote against the EU, it is a vote against an incomprehensible treaty that even top politicians admit they haven't read. How can you ask someone to be so credulous as to vote yes on something so turgid?
Posted by: happyjuggler0 at Jun 15, 2008 11:27:54 AM
"7. If European nations demand a unanimity rule (which I can well imagine), is that not a sign that they have a free trade area but nothing close to a real political union?" --- Tyler Cowen
No, the EU is definitely more than a free-trade area. NAFTA is that. The EU, even as it exists, is far more integrated regionally: it has 1) a common currency covering most of its members, 2) a common Central Bank policy (with control over interest rates), 3) rules --- admittedly easy to flout for a while --- on the limits of fiscal deficits (this rule adopted when the eurozone went into effect in 1999, 4) free movement of labor among the member-states across all borders, with commitments to equal treatment as citizens in the member states, and 5) generally, with some exceptions, no border controls for the populations of member states.
It also has a complex, often incomprehensible, network of regional institutions --- including, alas, a huge centralized bureaucracy in Brussels that is in constant contact with its counterparts in the member-states. Alas, too, it has a large budget and operates according to French-German norms of legality . . . which means it produces very long, detailed tomes full of legal regulations of comic-opera extravaganza: such as, to take just one of thousands of examples, the first volume of a two-volume set of regulations, over 130 pages long, on the design of bus interiors for safety in all the member-states. The EU Commission, now clumsy with Commissioners from all the member-states --- it was to be trimmed with rotating members for a certain period in the Lisbon treaty --- also has an independent budget of several hundred billion dollars, raised from tariffs on agricultural goods and contributions from its member states. It also dispenses contested regional subsidies to the poorer areas of the EU, which sets East European and Mediterranean countries against one another to line up at the trough for such subsidies. There is little effective budgetary control or monitoring of any EU policies in the European Parliament at Strasbourg; and elections of MP's to that parliament are normally regarded by the citizenry in the EU member states as approval or disapproval of their existing governmental party majority . . . on the Continent, virtually always a coalition.
...
Something else. There are regular summit meetings of the EU heads of government --- and from France, not just the Premier but the President (the only one in Europe elected by direct popular vote) --- that always issue hot-air proclamations about this urgent world matter or that, full of sententious moral humbug and with about as much impact on Iranian or Russian or Chinese or Syrian or North Korean behavior as a small gas-stove for campers in the wilds of the Canadian Rockies has in emitting hot air to ward off a charging Grizzly.
What, alas, most EU citizens want, it seems, is to continue cultivating their vacation-minded way-of-life --- in Germany and France, 6-8 weeks of legal vacation (plus sick leave), not to mention well over two dozen holidays. Never mind a hard-work ethos; never mind entrepreneurial start-ups (lots and lots of hot-air reports and proclamations here); never mind risk-taking of any sort --- in any case, failure of any sort (even in the school system) is well-nigh fatal, with little chance of forgiveness (the same is true of a failed start-up; never mind ever larger numbers of university professors who live the good-life of bohemian artists with little hard-work or rigorous scholarship visible on their part too (with, fortunately, some welcome exceptions in the hard sciences). And never mind the growth of right-wing extremist and ultra-nationalist parties, even in neutral Switzerland --- all signs, as mindless rhetoric pours out from Paris, Berlin, Stockholm, and other capitols --- as more and more EU citizens, frightened by bursting violent crime (far worse almost everywhere in Europe, according to crime victim-surveys published by the UN since 1989, than in the US) and the ever growing numbers of hard-to-integrate Muslim communities, look for some savior movement to deal with the problems that the governments themselves seem unable or unwilling to tackle . . . beyond more hot-air projects (the French government, whichever the party coalition in charge, making another comic-opera speciality of such projects).
.....
Oh, don't forget the bitterness in public opinion about anything from the US or Israel --- Jews, in some European public opinion surveys, controlling both --- that disturbs their media's and mainstream intellectuals' dreams of world-peace, world environmentalism that slays or tames capitalism, UN solidarity, and this or that UN resolution that salves European consciences when genocidal slaughter occurs in this or that African country by funding corrupt and usually brutal UN peace-keeping forces . . . in any case, ineffectual to boot.
And, on a cultural level, we have the dismal sight --- which I, an ardent admirer of French cultural achievements in the 19th and early 20th centuries, regret --- of seeing only Britain, among the big European countries, continuing after 1945 to be a center of impressive artistic, cinematic, musical, theatrical, and literary creativity. Which isn't to say that the fast-talking British politically correct professoriat and media-types are any different from their Continental counterparts in losing their moral bearings in favor of their dreamworld pc- and identity politics-laden and radical anti-capitalist, anti-American nostrums, packed to the rafters in their minds. (As for France, it seems to have settled into a kind of Middle-Kingdom naval-gazing about its impressive but now long-in-the-past achievements of earlier centuries.)
Fortunately, as the Pew Global Attitudes survey shows, British (and Polish) public opinion seems to be growing weary of this raw rippling anti-American, anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli, anti-capitalist groupthink that is otherwise rife in Europe these days.
-- Michael Gordon, AKA, the buggy professor: http://www.thebuggyprofessor.org
Posted by: michael gordon at Jun 15, 2008 12:21:41 PM
Michael Gordon:
The French is not the only European president elected by popular vote. The Finnish, Romanian, and Austrian presidents although the semi-presidential regime in this countries is not as strong as the "French model" and this is why only the heads of governments in these countries normally participate in the European Council's meetings.
The EU budget amounts on average to 120 billion euros, 40% of the money goes to agricultural subsidies (most of them in the richer Western part of the EU, and especially France, which has the biggest farm sector), some 30% goes to so-called structural cohesion funds designed to provide financial aid for infrastructure in the less developed parts of the EU (again, 60% of the money goes to the richer Western Europe), the rest goes to "internal policies", "foreign policies" and maintaining the Brussels bureaucracy. Thus, it's hardly the case that the East-European countries line up for financial aid. There isn't as much as it was when the EU had only 15 or less members and Spain, Greece, Portugal or Ireland received substantial development funds. By the way, this year a reform of the EU budget will be discussed.
The European Central Bank (ECB) doesn't cover the whole EU, but only the European Monetary Union which consists of only 15 of the 27 EU member states. The European Systems of Central Banks consists of the ECB and the central banks in member countries that have adopted the euro (the non-euro countries are just observers in the ECB General Council.
The European Defense Foreign Policy is also not unitary and in its infancy. Among the EU members there are neutral states such as Sweden and Austria who don't want to be part of Eurocorp, the nucleus of the future European Army.
The European Parliament, on the other hand, is not really a parliament science it doesn't have the initiative to legislate. That belongs to the European Commission, which is made up of a weighted number representatives of each member state, selected by the nominated Commission president and validated by the EU parliament. The bills proposed by the European Co mission, however, normally have to get a green light from the European Council of Ministers which is formed by the ministers of each Government of the member states depending on the domain of deliberation (agriculture, finance, defense etc).
The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg acts as an arbiter between the EU institutions and the member states, while the European Court of Human Rights in Strassbourg upholds the European Charta of Human Rights for all citizens across the EU and can invalidate member country's legislation, including constitutional provision.
Then there are several dozen eurobureaucratic agencies in charged of consumer protection, food protection, anti-trust, financial regulation, a small European police (Europa, more recently a EU border defense force is being discussed and the list can go on.
The treatise of the three European Community(which became the European Union after the Maastrich Treaty in 1992) build on top of each other, starting with the Treaty of Rome which gave birth to the European Economic Community (the other two that exist or exists are the European Nuclear Energy Community or Euroatom and the European Steal and Coal Community, both essentially created with the goal of supervising German industrial development so as to preclude the possibility of becoming again a world power that might start another world war). And so, the Lisbon Treaty is but a face lift of the now defunct European Constitutional Treaty. The main novelties of this treaties is that it would extend majority vote within the European institutions, reinforce the role of the European Parliament, establish the germs of a common EU defense and foreign policy, create a EU foreign minister, a EU rotating, and a system of EU embassies overseas. All these will be done (and have started to be implemented) even if the Irish voted no (as the French and the Dutch before with the Constitutional Treaty).
Posted by: European at Jun 15, 2008 1:26:43 PM
Michael Gordon
Why not look at a map of Europe as a guide to a conclusion.They are only few countries in absence of which there is no Europe(Mittel Europe or middle naval gazing kingdom)and they are many countries in absence of which there is still a European community
Posted by: Monet at Jun 15, 2008 2:30:25 PM
My first reaction was that the Irish were just doing their bit for global warming :-). The Treaty of Lisbon is 155 typeset pages of impenetrable prose. (For a contrast, the US Constitution started as four large handwritten pages. The bill of rights added two more.) Think of all the trees that were saved.
More seriously, the European ruling aristocracy still has difficulty coming to grips with their conflicts with the lower classes, and the conflicts between the different countries general expectations. The feeling that the EU decision makers are out of touch is much stronger in the working class of Europe than the similar distaste for the beltway that you find in the US. Unlike the US, this kind of vote is one of the few ways that this opinion can be expressed.
Posted by: rjh at Jun 15, 2008 3:37:15 PM
The Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth worked fine for a couple centuries, in spite of its unanimity rule, which goes to show that if the members of a parliament want it to work, they will find ways to compensate for even the most exploitable of procedural rules. The problem comes when some members of the parliament have an interest in the parliament not working.
Posted by: Cyrus at Jun 15, 2008 3:47:30 PM
Cyrus: amend that to Lithuanian-Polish-Ukrainian (in alphabetical order), because that's what it was in practice.
Posted by: A Tykhyy at Jun 15, 2008 4:38:17 PM
Cyrus,
The Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth fell apart after decades of gridlock because external powers (Russia in particular) bribed, bullied and bought legislators to exercise their veto and paralyze all meaningful legislation.
Today of course, things are very different: there is no external power who would seek to exploit the unanimity rule to weaken the European Union. Russia is a friendly benevolent neighbor who doesn't feel threatened by having NATO on its doorstep and doesn't harbor any grudges about the collapse of its own former "Union". Pious Islamists value diversity, liberal Western values, and freedom of cartoon expression. China's peaceful rise will be much less lonely if a new politically united superpower emerges to keep it company.
Posted by: at Jun 15, 2008 6:29:41 PM
Michael Gordon,
it would be refreshing to read a comment from you that does not mention Muslims in Europe when that's not really the topic at hand. Also, reading your comments one gets the impression that (Western) European societies are falling apart rapidly. They're not.
Posted by: LemmusLemmus at Jun 15, 2008 6:57:17 PM
Michael - in re: your claim that there is a "huge centralized bureaucracy in Brussels," a bit of Googling reveals that substantially fewer people work at the Commission than work for the UK civil service in Scotland. A number of your other empirical claims seem unlikely or exaggerated to me, as someone who works regularly on this set of topics. From your website, you appear to have done some research on the EU, although I'm not sure how recently - it may be worthwhile doing a bit of updating of data etc.
Posted by: Henry Farrell at Jun 15, 2008 7:12:00 PM
Michael Gordon AKA BuggyProfessor, the ignorance and stupidity of your comment is just astonishing. I think the educational system of your country must have endured a huge blow the day you were made a professor. Do something good for humanity and resign.
Posted by: flo at Jun 15, 2008 8:47:39 PM
flo,
How about constructively refuting his message instead of destructively attacking the messenger?
Posted by: happyjuggler0 at Jun 15, 2008 9:53:01 PM
Like I said, so "breathtaking" I don't even know where to start. Also most of the time ignorance of that kind is unlikely to be open to constructive criticism. And, yes, I do realize that this may be an ignorant statement too to some degree.
Posted by: flo at Jun 15, 2008 10:22:51 PM
Flo,
Do your best. There are people reading who are not experts and will take away Michael's points if they are not refuted. Whatever he lied about, he included enough truth in there to make the whole thing plausible.
Posted by: jb at Jun 15, 2008 11:18:53 PM
The Irish got to vote on the EU only because an economist and farmer named Raymond Crotty went to court as a private citizen in 1986 and insisted that the Republic of Ireland couldn't give up sovereignty to the EU just on a majority vote of the legislature. The High Court of Ireland agreed, and required a referendum on each treaty.
So, raise a pint to the memory of Ray Crotty, who died in 1994.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Jun 16, 2008 12:38:16 AM
A couple of points:
1) The Treaty is a legal document that must be precise since it sets out how the EU will be run. It's not some wishy-washy statement of guiding principles. It is not in any way comparable to the US constitution and neither should it be.
2) It's very easy for people to discover what the major innovations are in the Treaty by using google. Those that did would find most the treaty unobjectionable. For those that want the EU to do the same as it has been doing but run a bit more efficiently, the Treaty was good. For those that are against the EU anyway, obviously it's not so good since it makes it more efficient.
3) The Treaty did not make integration into the EU much tighter. There were no commitments to harmonised taxation and all EU states are bound by EU regulations and directives anyway.
4) "It's clear that the European Union will not become a political union any time soon, and quite possibly never." The EU is already very much a political union.
Posted by: Finnsense at Jun 16, 2008 12:57:06 AM
I'm normally somewhat ashamed of my Irish ancestry, but for now I'm proud. Hurrah for Calhoun, hurrah for unanimity! The only acceptable rule to me is unanimity of INDIVIDUALS (nations is only a short way there), which is just what we have in a free-market with free-association. I regret that we chucked our own Articles of Confedederation with its unanimity rule for a Constitution. All the promises made by the so-called "federalists" were disproven while the anti-federalists turned out to be unfortunately correct in their predictions.
Posted by: TGGP at Jun 16, 2008 1:15:40 AM
