Treaty of Amsterdam

Thomas Paine said (in ‘The Rights of Man’) that there are only two kinds of government in the world; (i) those which derive their legitimate power from a people and (ii) those which can trace their origin back to a usurpation of power, such as occurred in 1066 in England. When Paine wrote this in 1791 he judged there were only two governments in the world (the USA & France) belonging to his first category, but since then peoples everywhere (including in the countries you list) have succeeded in replacing the arbitrary rule of the descendants of the usurpers that we called Kings and Emperors by parliamentary or presidential democracies which derive their legitimate authority from a people. Those in Brussels, Berlin and Paris for whom Wolfgang Münchau speaks would effectively be modern day usurpers so dedicated to their federalist vision as to be prepared to take us back to government without the consent of the people.

Thomas Paine said (in ‘The Rights of Man’) that there are only two kinds of government in the world; (i) those which derive their legitimate power from a people and (ii) those which can trace their origin back to a usurpation of power, such as occurred in 1066 in England. When Paine wrote this in 1791 he judged there were only two governments in the world (the USA & France) belonging to his first category, but since then peoples everywhere (including in the countries you list) have succeeded in replacing the arbitrary rule of the descendants of the usurpers that we called Kings and Emperors by parliamentary or presidential democracies which derive their legitimate authority from a people. Those in Brussels, Berlin and Paris for whom Wolfgang Münchau would effectively be modern day usurpers so dedicated to their federalist vision as to be prepared to take us back to government without the consent of the people.

The latter point is true enough historically. On the other hand, I would point out that the powers of many states were, legally speaking, only conferred on them by other nation-states – e.g. Australia, Canada and indeed what you describe as the only EU member-state where the people are sovereign, Ireland. Of course in all these cases it was (always or eventually) politically and then legally imposible for the conferring state to reclaim the powers it had formally conferred, whereas, despite the lack of any explicit secession procedure, there is little to stop any EU member-state that wants to withdrawing and reclaiming the legal powers it has ceded/pooled.

So perhaps it is the possibility of secession that makes the EU no more than an international organisation in your view? But this poses questions about the status of, for example, the UK, since it has acknowledged the right of Northern Ireland (and at least implicitly Scotland/Wales) to secede.

novakant(67): You can be sure that I use terms such as ‘citizenship’ precisely. I expect that this site has higher ambitions than ‘street language’. It is impossible to hold a serious discussion about the problems facing the EU (problems that political science should be able to diagnose) using imprecise language.

I actively campaigned and voted against the EC. However that Eurocrat “elite” and its multinational buddies have more or less successfully “framed” the issue that if you are against their version, you are against Europe. Of they presented their project as the only one possible.

So now if you are against that particular project, you are labeled “anti-Europe”. I rather see it as being against rampant multinational globalization leading to the economy of the lowest common denominator.

If, as may be true, there is a need to revise European institutions, they could have written a text on that subject only in 20 or so pages. But they have a “mini-treaty” of nearly 300 pages that includes everything, even the kitchen sink, and all of it is favorable to corporate and banking interests.

French president and neo-con Sarkozy even expressly amended the French constitution for the sole reason of avoiding another referendum. One irony is that Sarkozy has been criticizing the European central bank even while his treaty reinforces the power and independence of that bank.

When the French voters rejected the EC, they did so in spite of the fact that the biggest political parties supported it and the mass media engaged in a dishonest propaganda campaign in favor of it. The “no” vote was really a grassroots movement with virtually no institutional support.

At the time, even many people who supported the EC complained about the unfair treatment of the “no” voices in the media. Typically you would have a forum with three or four “yes” advocates against one, if any, “no” advocates. The “no’s” where repeatedly attacked on a personal level and their motives were questioned. The major media talking heads denigrated the “no” spokesmen.

The “no’s” almost always strictly stuck to their own arguments.

Let me stress again – none of this means that I am right about any of this stuff. People with far more considerable reputations and qualifications than me get things very badly wrong all the time. So I’m not pulling qualifications in order to bolster my empirical claims. Nor am I deeply upset that a pseudonymous person on the WWW is calling these qualifications into doubt – after a few years blogging, I’ve developed a reasonable number of calluses. What I am saying is that the claim that I’m excluded because of who I am from interpreting European politics seems both rather obtuse, and carries some offensive implications given that this is, after all what I do for a living. At the least, if you want to maintain that I’m unqualified to pronounce on European politics, I’d be grateful for some specific illustration, drawn from my research or elsewhere, of how I have gotten it so badly wrong because of my purported lack-of-continued-European-ness or whatever as to prove your point.

Agreed regarding relevance. I think the idea is to discredit the notion of EU citizenship by characterizing it (or mischaracterizing it) as the misguided notion of one rogue authority figure.

freeborn john – if international organisations don’t have powers of their own then the EU isn’t one. Guess it must be a state? Or sui generis?!

Also: my point re: the origin of the idea of EU citizenship (according to you Felipe Gonzalez at a coffee break) was not that this is inaccurate (never heard it before) but 1) that I don’t understand its relevance and 2) that many a nation-state has emerged from more inglorious (not to mention bloody) circumstances.

Not being able to click on the “who are we” link is actually pretty sad.

“this is really quite pathetic”

No, it’s not pathetic, Henry. One is quite entitled to ask for your qualifications to speak about Europeans, when you don’t appear to be one (any more) or to have much contact with them (except in the distant past)

Don’t get me wrong – I like you, and agree with you in many ways. But I don’t you’re qualified to say what Europeans think

This is getting ridiculous: of course EU citizen and EU territory have a rather clearly defined legal meaning and a generally accepted ordinary language meaning. You can look it up in the relevant documents or just talk to people on the street. The fact that you don’t seem to like this state of affairs is wholly irrelevant.