Friday, September 04, 2009
Lisbon Essay (3): Not perfect, but ‘good enough’ to face multiplying and complex global risks…
Today, David Steven of Global Dashboard takes the frame of debate wider to look at the international implications of the Lisbon Treaty. The problem lies not just in the rejection itself, but the huge navel gazing it is likely to plunge Europe into in leiu of any substantial means of tackling the complex risks facing it. Ireland is currently suffered the foul taste of one global economic crisis, which may still have some considerable way to go… He concludes that Ireland’s elected leaders must directly “their attention away from short term squabbles tailored to an increasingly frenetic media cycle” in order to face squarely the great challenges that lie before the next generation.
By David Steven
When I was in Dublin on the eve of the first Lisbon referendum, a taxi driver explained his reasons for voting ‘no’. “Ireland got a great deal from Europe in the past,” he said. “Now we have to make sure we get as much, or more, from Brussels in the future”.
Can the EU continue to deliver dividends over the next thirty or so years? I think it can. But only if its energy is focused on managing the long-term and highly complex global risks that now govern the fate of European citizens.
Europe’s leaders may not like to admit it to their voters, but they are finding themselves increasingly impotent in the face of forces that cannot be controlled at national level. 9/11 and last year’s economic meltdown made a mockery of domestic political programmes. They will not be the last global emergencies to shake the foundations of even the most powerful and prosperous countries.
The drivers of instability are well-known. We are in the midst of a fundamental change in the way people associate with each other, as vast global networks cut across the nation state. Destructive technologies are also proliferating fast, making war cheaper to wage, and more expensive to deter and prevent.
Population growth, meanwhile, is concentrated in some of the world’s least stable countries. The world will have 1.5 billion more people by 2030, almost all of whom will live in the fragile towns and cities of the developing world. Resource limits – energy, water, food, land, atmospheric ‘space’ for emissions – are beginning to bite, and will increasingly drive conflict between and within nations.
Today’s global challenge recalls the predicament facing the European continent at the beginning of the 20th century. Then, the first period of globalization came to a swift and unexpected end. It took two world wars, and the intervening depression, to put the world back on its feet. The European Union was a response to this devastating failure, fulfilling Churchill’s vision of “a kind of United States of Europe” structured to allow its citizens to “dwell in peace, in safety and in freedom”.
Now we need the European Union to act once again as a platform for achieving security and prosperity – but with its efforts focused on managing risks that lie as much outside its borders as within. In theory, Europe’s experience of pooling sovereignty should make it a leader in navigating turbulent waters ahead. In practice, of course, its lack of coherent leadership means it punches well below its weight on the global stage.
This, then, is the significance of the Lisbon Treaty and why – for all its many imperfections – I hope the Irish people vote ‘yes’. Lisbon’s most important reforms will begin to sort out Europe’s ability to interact with and influence the rest of world.
The treaty’s new institutional arrangements should enable European countries to caucus more effectively and present a unified position on the great issues of our age. This will provide a basis for rebuilding the transatlantic relationship and, then, for coming to some kind of agreement with China, India and the other rising powers.
A ‘no’ vote, in contrast, will lead to yet another round of navel gazing, at a time when European countries desperately need to devote their energies to building a global system capable of taking us through the 21st century without too many major catastrophes.
If the Lisbon Treaty is finally approved, however, Europe’s elites should not forget how close they have taken the Union to the brink. As the EU’s global responsibilities increase, it must focus on key priorities, pushing all other business back to national and local levels.
Leaders must also do a much better job of explaining to people like my Dublin taxi driver why Europeans have little choice but to band together when faced by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, global terrorism, a changing climate, or competition for natural resources.
To do that, they will have to direct at least some of their attention away from short term squabbles tailored to an increasingly frenetic media cycle, in order to create a vision of the great challenges the next generation is destined to face.
David Steven is a non-resident fellow at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation and editor of Global Dashboard. In Monday’s Lisbon Essay we’ll hear a more Eurosceptic view from Social Party MEP, Joe Higgins. You can pick up the rest of the series here.
Mick Fealty @ 08:00 AM
Lisbon is not about representing a grand schema of globalisation – if anything it is a regional protectionist arrangement which has closed out developing country markets for decades, particularly through the Common Agricultural Policy. Lisbon will do nothing to help this situation and will only make it worse.
You quote Churchill but his exact words were “We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked, but not combined. We are interested and associated, but not absorbed.” He meant that states be democratically associated, and not absorbed into one superstate. Lisbon is a treaty for the absorption into a European federal superstate. Ireland must of course decide for itself, but Lisbon is a dangerous step towards an enhanced European superstate-building project.
Posted by on Sep 04, 2009 @ 11:28 AM“Now we need the European Union to act once again as a platform for achieving security and prosperity – but with its efforts focused on managing risks that lie as much outside its borders as within”
Uh-huh. That (using an alliance gathered for one purpose to achieve another) worked well in Afghanistan, didn’t it. If the Europeans want to contribute to world security, then doing something about the United Nations would be a good start. Banding together with posters that say “take us seriously!” won’t get it done.
Posted by on Sep 04, 2009 @ 11:36 AMJim,
I’m looking to get someone to tease out the arguments of whether the EC/EU is a superstate or not. That seems to me to be a critical argument upon which the No camps, both left and right, rest much, if not all, of their arguments.
And it is one the Yes camp seem unwilling to come out and fight over. A head in the sand attitude which leaves them curiously ‘unmanned’ when it comes to vital issues like what are they doing with sovereignty.
Even if there is a yes, it will remain an argument that will continue to resonate, not least through the accession countries. Thus David’s memo to Europe’s elites that they…
“...should not forget how close they have taken the Union to the brink. As the EU’s global responsibilities increase, it must focus on key priorities, pushing all other business back to national and local levels.”
One might also ask how would Mr Churchill’s European vision be pursued by means other than something like the EU, now that the globalisation process has come to such a pass that some of the rising countries in the world are destined to surpass the combined productivity and wealth of the current 27 members?
Mick
Posted by on Sep 04, 2009 @ 12:14 PMJim - the Churchill quote I was referring to is:
“There is a remedy which, if it were generally and spontaneously adopted by the great majority of people in many lands, would as if by a miracle transform the whole scene, and would in a few years make all Europe, or the greater part of it, as free and as happy as Switzerland is to-day. What is this sovereign remedy? It is to re-create the European Family, or as much of it as we can, and to provide it with a structure under which it can dwell in peace, in safety and in freedom. We must build a kind of United States of Europe. In this way only will hundreds of millions of toilers be able to regain the simple joys and hopes which make life worth living. The process is simple. All that is needed is the resolve of hundreds of millions of men and women to do right instead of wrong and to gain as their reward blessing instead of cursing.”
IMO - the “kind of” qualifier that Churchill uses is an important one. I agree with Robert Coooper:
“Although there are still some who dream of a European state (which would be supranational), they are a minority today…The dream is one left over from a previous agre…It is curious that having created a structure that has transformed the nation state into something more civilized and better adapted to today’s world, there are still enthusiasts who want to replace it with something more old-fashioned… Nevertheless it is unlikely that the European Union, as it is at the start of the twenty-first century, has reached its final resting place.”
Mark - the “once again” was a reference to the post-WW2 settlement, not more recent history. My opinion: progress in broader multilateral fora (UN, UNFCCC, WTO etc) is much more likely (and will often only be possible) when European countries have put in the hard work of arriving at a unified position.
Posted by on Sep 04, 2009 @ 02:13 PM“The treaty’s new institutional arrangements should enable European countries to caucus more effectively and present a unified position on the great issues of our age. This will provide a basis for rebuilding the transatlantic relationship and, then, for coming to some kind of agreement with China, India and the other rising powers.”
A study by Professor Helen Wallace of the London School of Economics found that the existing Nice Treaty arrangements have actually made decision making smoother and faster since Enlargement. In that context, the ‘greater efficiency/preventing gridlock’ argument for Lisbon is null and void. I have placed a link to the report on my username.
Posted by on Sep 04, 2009 @ 04:54 PMdavid steve another one looking for europe to be ‘good’ superpower, theres no such thing.
Posted by on Sep 04, 2009 @ 05:28 PMFT,
Could you unpack some of that argument for us?
Posted by on Sep 04, 2009 @ 07:26 PMWell MF, some of the conclusions of the report include:
“...a relatively agreed overall picture emerges from across these studies. They indicate that the ‘business as usual’ picture is more convincing than the ‘gridlock’ picture as regards practice in and output from the EU institutions since May 2004. Some changes and variations can be observed, although not all of these can be tied to the impact of enlargement as such. It is also clear that there are some differences across policy domains, which need further exploration. These become more apparent once attention is turned to the implementation phase and the ways in which EU policies and rules are put into practice inside the new member states.
The key data on output from the EU institutions:
A: Over the period 1999-2003 an average of around 195 legislative acts were adopted each year (but only 164 in 2002 and 165 in 2003); around 230 were adopted in 2004 (with a surge in April 2004 just before the EU15 became the EU25); some 130 were adopted in 2005: and 197 in 2006 . Data need to be added for non-legislative decisions, increasingly important in fields such as foreign policy and some aspects of justice and home affairs, where activity levels have been high. Mattila(forthcoming 2008) reports that some 942 acts other than legislative decisions were agreed between May 2004 and December 2006. Of the 360 (Hagemann and De Clerk-Sacchse 2007) legislative decisions adopted between May 2004 and December 2006 some 43 were identified as revisions to existing legislation to incorporate the new member states. Settembri (2007) reports that decisions taken show an increase in ‘ordinary’ or ‘minor’ subjects, and a decrease of 11% in what he classifies as the more ‘important’ topics.
B:· In the context of the ‘less is better’ objective of José Manuel Barroso as President of the European Commission (an objective shared by the Council) we can observe only a modest drop in the number of proposals for legislative acts made by the Commission: 2003-491; 2004-526; 2005-411; 2006-482. In 2006 the Commission withdrew 68 proposals and put forward 33 ‘simplification’ proposals and 22 ‘codification’ proposals. In 2006 the Commission also tabled 324 communications and reports, 10 Green Papers and 2 White Papers (covered in the Annual Report 2006, published in 2007).
C: There has been a reduction in the time lag between proposal and decision on both those subject to the unanimity rule and those based on qualified majority voting (QMV) treaty articles. This is so especially for decisions under the consultation procedures with the European Parliament (EP), including many on agricultural issues, where the data indicate a 5% reduction in the time taken to reach agreement. Issues subject to codecision take somewhat longer than before (Settembri (2007) notes that during the one-year period which he covers that this means some 22% more days). Interestingly, however, a rising proportion of decisions subject to codecision have been reached at first reading: 2003-34%; 2004-45%; 2005-64%; 2006-59%. In 2006 a revised joint declaration was adopted by the EU institutions, designed to improve the efficiency of the codecision procedure.
D:· There is no evidence of declining ‘productivity’ in the judicial system of the EU, at least as regards the work of the ECJ (Naômé forthcoming 2008). On the contrary numbers of cases completed and pending compare favourably with the period before enlargement, one in which there had been rising concerns about the existing overload on the judicial system, even without the added impact of enlargement. There is no significant increase at least yet in the number of new cases. The length of Court proceedings also shows a downwards trend. The Court of First Instance (CFI) has not adapted so easily to the increased pressure of cases combined with its backlog of prior pending cases.”
Posted by on Sep 04, 2009 @ 10:09 PM“Settembri (2007) reports that decisions taken show an increase in ‘ordinary’ or ‘minor’ subjects, and a decrease of 11% in what he classifies as the more ‘important’ topics.”
Is this not the key problem with the current arrangements? With enlargement, there is no shortage of personnel to prepare work packages and reach decisions, but given the concensual nature of the way Europe works, decisions that involve any level of justifiable disagreement get deferred. So we get a bunch of busy work being passed on the nod, but less debate and decision on bigger topics.
Europe (as a whole) is currently more like a committee than a parliament, and committees start to malfunction when they get bigger than 20 members.
Posted by on Sep 07, 2009 @ 08:28 AMOn Churchill, he was in favour of common defense, common citizenship and regional organisations within the overall framework of the UN. He just wanted the UK, Ireland and the rest of the Commonwealth in a different union than mainland Europe.
Whatever else he was against, and whatever you may think about how he divided up the world, you can’t argue he was against supra-national organisations.
He also said:
“The League of Nations did not fail because of its principles or conceptions. It failed because these principles were deserted by those States who had brought it into being.”“An ever closer union among the peoples of Europe” has always been just such a principle for Europe. I suspect its also the key to its relevence.
Posted by on Sep 07, 2009 @ 09:15 AMEurope (as a whole) is currently more like a committee than a parliament, and committees start to malfunction when they get bigger than 20 members.
Indeed, that’s exactly why they wanted to reduce the size of the Commission. Ironically, Lisbon is being sold as a way of making the Commission bigger…
Posted by on Sep 07, 2009 @ 10:37 AM@Andrew,
Yep, partly because the Council is so invisible.
It may be the start of the evolution of a second full time elected chamber. Tricameralism here we come? The Commission as an elected version of Bolívar’s Censors? (if it becomes a chamber it will eventually be elected - just like the US Senate changed to popular elections - but it won’t take Europe 100 years)I doubt if any Irish Government would be foolish enough to lose a Commissioner again, particularly not as early as 2014.
But an unchanged Commission of 30+ would be a recipe for stagnation. Some stratification of the Commission’s executive functions is inevitable if enlargment continues. Probably like junior and senior ministries. But decisions (and if necessary votes) would still require plenaries of the whole Commission. That’d be my guess.
If its not formalised it’ll develop informally, with “lunch meetings” of core Commissioners. Nothing illegal, just practical. Inevitable.
Posted by on Sep 07, 2009 @ 12:25 PMNeville:
I had that idea myself. People are attached to the idea of having a full-time national representative in the EU, and the Commission is currently performing that function de facto, even though de jure its members are supposed to be independent (one of many polite fictions in politics).
Posted by on Sep 08, 2009 @ 12:07 PM
