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)

http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf;jsessionid=9ea7d0f130d5edeee418412a48ecbb0ac117ae34eb86.e34KaxiLc3eQc40LaxqMbN4Oa3aNe0?docid=47730&pageIndex=0&doclang=en&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&cid=923605,

http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf;jsessionid=9ea7d0f130de86b0844a6b854d7d9378e81f4b509c4f.e34KaxiLc3eQc40LaxqMbN4NchuOe0?docid=47731&pageIndex=0&doclang=en&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&cid=3303

 

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’.

http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf;jsessionid=9ea7d0f130ded3b9700a3ccf41419ca0f14986e0cdbb.e34KaxiLc3eQc40LaxqMbN4NchqLe0?docid=44861&pageIndex=0&doclang=en&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&cid=59181

 

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.

http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf;jsessionid=9ea7d2dc30ddd481e40fa0cf4b229f66ef10d0902a24.e34KaxiLc3qMb40Rch0SaxqTbN10?text=&docid=47546&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=74530

 

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

 

 

 

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This page compiled: 26 May 2012