EUROPEAN INTEGRATION
AT THE CROSSROADS
This article features
in Eurorealist magazine, June 2012.
Much
attention has been on whether Greece will have to leave the Euro. On 3rd
November, Karolina Kottova of the European Commission clarified that the Lisbon
Treaty doesn't see an exit from the Eurozone without exiting the EU.[1]
The
first reaction of flat-earth EU reformers is ‘Well why can’t we renegotiate the
Treaty – after all we’re all sovereign nations?’ The bad news for them is that
this is against all EU legal precedent.
For
a start, the founding fathers of federalism saw a single currency as a key part
of the Eurostate – well before Britain joined. The Lisbon Treaty sees running a
currency as too important to be left to a member state, with grudging (and
temporary) opt-outs for countries like Britain and Denmark outside the Euro.[2]
Angela
Merkel put it: “If the Euro fails, then
Europe will fail”.[3] So when Greece hits breaking point, we can expect a
lot of political effort to prop up the project. This may see pressure on Greece
to stay enmeshed in the Euro under arrangements akin to a company under
administration – or to set in motion the Greeks leaving the EU, which could
take a messy two years. [4] As any decision will have economic and political
cost, the other possibility is some sort of temporary fudge to try to
regularise the mess, with more talk than action.
Federalists
will rightly point out that being in the EU means being committed to its goals
[5] – and as the Commission website puts it, “The main goal of the EU is the progressive integration of Member
States' economic and political systems” i.e. ever closer economic and political union.[6] It couldn’t be
clearer, yet some Tories live in a fantasy world that we can ‘stay in but go no
further’. (Repeatedly blocking all further integration would ultimately lead to
eviction, although the EU could also suspend our voting rights and pass any
measures it wanted over our heads.[7])
EU
law is firmly on the federalists’ side, with the European Court of Justice long
having confirmed that these goals apply to EU institutions as well as member
states.[8]
It
is no surprise that the Lisbon Treaty now explicitly lists the European Council
(the conference of heads of government) as a formal EU institution, so when it
meets to revise Treaties, it will have no option but to pursue European
integration. [9]
Judging
by political blogs, there is now at least a growing awareness of the legal
ratchet known as the ‘acquis
communautaire’. Basically this means that once power has been transferred
to EU level, there has been a permanent
limitation of national sovereignty (while within the EU). The European
Court decided this in 1964,[10] and it is shameful that the Heath and Wilson
governments covered it up in the 1970s.
Labour’s
‘renegotiation’ in 1975 featured a skilful diversion into secondary matters,
such as payment details, and not a single power was returned – any attempt to
do so would have been shown up as a fraud.[11] The current Europe Minister,
David Lidington, appears to be equally evasive when pressured by MPs asking what
powers can be repatriated.[12] Words like ‘Emperor’s’ and ‘clothes’ come to
mind.
Some
soft-headed Tory types believe that the problem is with the European Court,
with its reputation for ‘judicial activism’, i.e. actively promoting European
integration in its judgements.[13] It is high of them to complain that the
Court is ‘biased’, as it is a long established practice in international law to
interpret treaties in the intended spirit.[14]
If they don’t want a one-way journey towards the superstate, then they
shouldn’t be in the EU – full stop.
Schoolboys
have long failed exams because they don’t read the exam paper properly and
answer the question they want rather than the question as put. By the same
chalk, some EU reformers will be disappointed in their expectation that the
Lisbon Treaty ‘allows powers to be repatriated to member states’. Actually
reading Case Law and Treaty small print suggests they’re wrong by a mile.
They
key words are ‘exercise competence’ – which sounds like calling the shots, but
in fact means acting in a policy area in the context of supporting European integration.[15] This is allied to the concept
of ‘subsidiarity’, which sounds like devolution, but keeps the whip hand firmly
with EU institutions.[16]
EU
control over our lives is so extensive now that if there is a (temporary) block
in advancing their interests, the federalists can usually find a way around it
by finding some EU commitment that takes precedence. The Working Time Directive
was pushed through as a health and safety measure as using an employment
measure would have faced a veto.[17]
European
Court judgements are a reminder that they member
states cannot exercise power in an unfettered way within the EU, in fact in
any way that conflicts with the mass of EU obligations.[18] Not even national
security is exempt.
Although
the Treaty suggests that member states have sole responsibility for national
security, European Court judgements have intruded into the exercise of
power.[19] So if the UK banned an ‘EU citizen’ from its shores for criminality
bordering on a threat to national security, it could be taken to the European
Court, over-ruled and made to pay compensation for a breach of the EU
Citizenship Directive! [20]
Worse
still, the Treaty dictates that member states must do nothing that jeopardises
the objectives of the EU, and must do
everything possible to meet EU
obligations.[21]
EU-appeasers
have long maintained their indulgent fantasies of power, wielding lots of
imaginary influence in Europe, achieving a largely illusory Single Market while
not shedding a drop of essential national sovereignty.[22]
As
with Dr Faust, who sold his soul to the devil, the day of reckoning is coming.... the British people who have long been lied to
are demanding their say, as they wake up to the real nature of the EU.
The
final stages of economic and political union are being mapped out on the
drawing board. Our former European Commissioners Kinnock and Mandelson got it
right when they noted that the choice is stark – out or in. All or
nothing...[23]
Ironically
the Lisbon Treaty commits the EU to fostering good relations with neighbouring
countries, and trade would be preserved by other agreements (GATT/WTO), so the
break could be relatively clean.[24]
References
ToL = Lisbon Treaty,
with two sections (TEU and TFEU)
1 Reuters, 3.11.11, http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/03/us-greece-eu-eurozone-idUSTRE7A25H820111103
2 ToL TEU Title I, Art. 3.1, NB
The Maastricht Treaty saw monetary union as irreversible. Notes 10 and 15 below
also relevant.
3 Telegraph, 16.5.12, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/currency/9269819/What-on-earth-is-Britain-doingtrying-to-save-the-euro.html
4 ToL TEU Title VI, Art. 50.
5 (European Court of Justice), Cases 161/78 and 44/84; note also ToL TEU
Title III, Art.13 and
www.newalliance.org.uk/eccourt.htm
6 http://ec.europa.eu/eu_law/introduction/treaty_en.htm
7 ToL TEU Title I, Art. 2 and 7 –
‘rule of law’.
8 EU institutions bound by EU goals
(Cases 11/00, 15/00)
9 ToL TEU Title I, Art. 13
10 Case 6/64, see also www.newalliance.org.uk/eccourt.htm
and note 15 below.
11 See 'The Great Deception', Booker and
North, 2003; ‘While Britain Slept’, by
Douglas Evans, 1975.
12 See ‘Repatriating EU powers to
Member States’, Standard Note SN/IA/6153, House
of Commons Library, 2011
13 http://www.hanselawreview.org/pdf9/Vol6No01Art01.pdf (Vol 6, No 1, 2010, de
Waele article), also www.guardian.co.uk/law/2010/aug/10/european-court-justice-legal-political
14 Note also the international
legal convention, The ‘Vienna Convention’ on
Treaties, 1969, see also www.newalliance.org.uk/intlaw.htm
15 ToL TEU Title I, Art. 5 makes
it quite clear that ‘competences’ are about attaining Treaty objectives. The
preceding Treaty of Nice, Title I, Art. 2 listed among its objectives economic
and monetary union, a single currency and maintaining the ‘acquis
communautaire’. The Lisbon Treaty maintained continuity over this (ToL TEU,
Title I, Art. 1; Title III, Art. 13).
16 ToL Protocol 2, also clearly
about attaining Treaty objectives
17 Controversy in Nov. 1996,
decided under Maastricht Treaty rules.
18 Case 1/05, the European Court decided national and
Community ‘competences’ and went on to qualify the circumstances under which
‘national competence’ must be exercised
http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?docid=56261&doclang=en&mode=&part=1
Also
Case 83/98, National competence can be limited by other provisions
EU
(‘Community’) measures must be adopted even in areas that ‘currently fall
within national competence’.
19 Case C-186/01, Case C-273/97 found holes in national
‘competence’
“The Court has, however, stated on numerous
occasions, as settled case-law, that there are certain areas in which, even
though they fall in principle within the exclusive normative [law-making] power
of the Member States, Community law sets limits to that power.”
also
http://curia.europa.eu/en/actu/communiques/cp99/cp9932en.htm
20 Citizenship
Directive, 2004/38, also coverage
21 ToL TEU, Title I, Art. 4.3
22 Pro-EU Economist journalists
Colchester and Buchan reviewed the Single Market in ‘1992 Revisited’ and found
it only truly existed for luxury goods. Within the EU, the UK’s voting weight
is only around 10%, insufficient to achieve a blocking mechanism. Edward Heath held that
joining the EEC (EU) would not involve a loss of essential national
sovereignty.
23 “For those
states such as Britain who will for the foreseeable future remain outside any
new core group... Europe may be about to ask us to choose. We have pursued...
integration in Europe within our political comfort zone. That strategy may now
be defunct...
[A section of British public
opinion favours] a looser free trade area or as it is, with no further
integration. Tonight I have argued that these are not the directions Europe is
going in...
A Britain that accepts that to
rule out ever joining the euro may be – almost certainly will be - to rule out
a place in the genuine European Union of the future.”
Mandelson speech to Policy
Network, 4.5.12, favouring in/out referendum:
www.policy-network.net/file_download.aspx?id=7911
24 ToL TEU Title I, Art 8 “good
neighbourliness...close and peaceful relations based on co-operation”.
ToL TFEU Part V Title II, Art 206
promotes free trade
ToL TFEU Title III, Art 63
promotes free movement of capital
This
page compiled: 26 May 2012