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The trouble is, this freedom
thing has simply gone too far. Apparently...
YOU REMEMBER the
Lisbon Treaty, right?
Rejected by voters
in three of the five European Union states to be asked, it was signed
regardless by the heads of all 27 member states in 2009, thus "complet[ing] the process [of]
enhancing the efficiency and democratic legitimacy of the Union."
Only voters in
Luxembourg and Spain gave the right answer first time, and only then with 56%
of the vote and a 42% turnout respectively. The Irish were asked to vote
again, but they had form after rejecting the Treaty of Nice – aimed at
enlarging the EU – in 2001. Again, it was second time lucky, at least
for a while.
"A dramatic
fall on the Dublin stock market," said The
Irish Times of the
re-run in Oct. 2009, "was avoided yesterday due
to the resounding Yes vote in the Lisbon Treaty referendum, according to
stockbrokers."
Phew! But what of
that "resounding" no in 2005 from France and the Netherlands? Well,
in fact, "We need more Europe, not less," said European Commission president
José Manuel Barroso, driving the Treaty forwards nevertheless in early 2006,
and also claiming (with a straight face, no doubt) that "The EU is there
to serve its citizens."
Former EC president,
and by then Italian prime minister, Romano Prodi agreed, saying that "we always have to make efforts
to understand the views of others, to take them on board," but "it
would be a misinterpretation of the people's will" to actually do what
the French and Dutch referenda said and reject the Treaty.
Besides, as former
French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing put it, "It is
not France that has said no. It is 55% of the French people – 45% of
the French people said yes." And even the nay-sayers
were sorry.
"It was a
pro-European no," said one apparently very confused man the BBC interviewed celebrating the no vote in Paris in
May 2005. "We are not against Europe – we just want a different
kind of Europe."
And now he's got it,
good and proper.
"Our responsibility no
longer stops at our countries' borders," declared German chancellor
Angela Merkel to her CDU Party this week. Note the plural. Note also the same
appeal as Barroso, Prodi and the rest make to some un-named,
all-in-it-together "we".
"Our generation's duty now
is to finalise the economic and currency union to form, step by step, a
political union. We must develop the European Union's structure further. That
does not mean less Europe, but more."
This demand for "more
Europe" – also being parroted by Germany's Green Party – isn't a new phrase. Prodi began using it in 2002 (if not earlier), right around the time Greece joined the
Euro and Ireland got round to giving the right answer on the Treaty of Nice. So
it's been a key platform for Brussels' unelected policy wonks when they talk
to each other for nearly a decade. Now "more Europe" is being
pushed directly to voters as the only fix for Europe's mess. But just like
the no voters of France and the Netherlands, Prodi's home country has already
got way more Europe than it can handle. Pushing it further still, for all we
know, may prove the best economic solution (although we sincerely doubt it).
That's not our beef tonight, however. It's the political logic of
"we" and "more Europe" that is coming to a head, and not
in the way that the "We Demand More Europe" wonks might wish.
"Umberto Bossi of [Italy's] Northern League says he will relish
entering opposition – where he can rail against the EU, immigrants and
southern Italians," writes Gideon Rachman in
the Financial
Times.
"Marine le Pen of the far-right National Front will have a big effect on
next year’s presidential election in France. In the Netherlands, the
government now relies on the votes of the Freedom Party led by Geert Wilders,
which is running second in the polls. Austria's far-right Freedom Party is at
level pegging in the polls with the governing People's Party. In Finland, the
nationalist True Finns are still gaining ground and are easily above 20% in
the polls."
Each of these
buffoons has spotted leaving the Euro as a potential vote winner, whether now
or soon, and "All of these rising parties rail against 'elites',"
notes Rachman – a badge you can stick on
Brussels just as easily as Wall Street or the City. But no matter; according
to the FT's columnist,
"Technocrats have something to be said for them in the middle of a
financial crisis." You know, just like they did in the economic crisis
of the 1930s. Just as the "strong man" last stepped up in Europe,
ready to give a very political solution where technical, unelected experts
failed.
"Our
membership of the Euro is a guarantee of monetary stability and creates the
right conditions for sustainable growth," claimed new Greek prime
minister Lucas Papademos last week. Stop laughing!
With a PhD in economics, and little else besides the obligatory hat-tip to Goldman Sachs, Papademos doesn't need the sense he was born with. This
career policy wonk – breaking out of the central bank in a way his
peers Ben Bernanke and Mervyn King could only dream
of – believes that "Our membership of the Euro is the only choice."
There's that
"we" again, and there's the political
course he'll stick to, pretending to pull levers and twiddle knobs as the
train-wreck piles up around him. Papademos' new colleague in Rome, the equally unelected
prime minister Mario Monti of Italy, is more expert
still – a professor of economics, no less, with no experience
outside the academy and Brussels beyond the obligatory consulting for Goldman
Sachs.
"His cabinet is to be made up of technocrats instead
of career politicians," reports Deutsche Welle.
"Apart from his own economics ministry, one of the key appointments is
seen as the infrastructure and industry portfolio, which he has handed to Corrado Passera, the CEO of
Italy's largest bank, Intesa Sanpaolo."
Yikes! The Shorter
Oxford defines "technocracy" – originating in the early
20th century US – as "the government or control of society or
industry by technical experts". The OED
forgets to add "perjorative", but even
without the bankers, there's plenty of people
already wincing at what this sharp turn to nerd-dom
now signals.
"Since 1973,
69% of Greek finance ministers and 55% of those in Portugal have had a PhD in
economics; a qualification unknown to any British chancellor," notes Aditya Chakrabortty, economics leader writer at The Guardian, citing a new study. How come? "Countries
appoint an economics specialist because
they are in trouble," says Mark Hallerberg of the Hertie School of
Governance in Berlin (and a professor himself, of course). "Countries
that already have high debts, like Greece, Portugal and Mexico, face more
pressure from the markets to appoint people that, at least in terms of their
education, appear to be competent.
"For more
economically stable countries such as the UK or Germany, being an economics
specialist might be seen to be less important than being a skilled
politician. Studying history, for example, was no barrier to Gordon Brown or
George Osborne becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer."
Double yikes! That history was no barrier to Gordon Brown
we knew. But what history now says about unelected policy wonks, and the very
same bureaucrats behind Europe's slow-motion catastrophe, we only dare guess.
So in the absence of poets, let's leave it to the pundits – today's equally
unelected legislators of the world as Percy Bysshe Shelley might gurgle (if the
Bay of La Spezia hadn't got him) – to help the technocrats set the
right course.
"The EU crisis
demonstrates that free trade has gone far enough," reckons Peter Wilby, former editor of the New Statesman, in The
Guardian.
"The world's supranational organisations, including the [World Trade
Organization] and the EU, should draw up rules that allow countries –
without jeopardising their trading opportunities – to re-introduce
limited tariffs and opt out of regulations..."
Protectionism not
strong enough for you? "The west is now in many respects too free,"
says Hong Kong property developer Ronnie Chan, writing in the FT. "Inefficiency is sometimes
the price of democratic freedom, but not this level of inefficiency."
Yes indeed – despite
"More Europe" being forced through, freedom is in fact the problem.
No doubt the populist politicians standing ready to take over when the
technocrats fall, alongside the Euro, will take note.
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