Over many years, European leaders have frequently compared the creation of the
European Union with the founding of the United States of America. The former
president of France, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, has a special fondness for
the comparison. In an interview in 2003, he even compared himself with
Thomas Jefferson, citing Jefferson’s part in the framing of the US
constitution. In his words, “I tried to play a little bit the role that
Jefferson played.”
But there’s a small problem here, one tiny fly in the Giscardian ointment. You will look in vain for Jefferson’s signature on the US constitution. Why? Because Jefferson wasn’t within 3,000 miles of the constitutional convention which sat for four hot months in Philadelphia in 1787; he was the American Ambassador to France at the time.
Indeed, it is hard to see any genuine comparison between the two constitutions: one brief and clear with just seven extensively debated articles, the other turgid and opaque with 465 articles which even some of its promoters acknowledged they barely understood. One constitution was built on victory in war; the other was designed to reconcile nations after ruinous defeat. One created a nation state, the other sought to supersede nation states as such.
Yet the real point is not the history or the hubris; it is that Giscard’s words inadvertently highlight what has become known delicately as the EU’s “democratic deficit”. How legitimate is the EU, and how much does legitimacy matter?
But there’s a small problem here, one tiny fly in the Giscardian ointment. You will look in vain for Jefferson’s signature on the US constitution. Why? Because Jefferson wasn’t within 3,000 miles of the constitutional convention which sat for four hot months in Philadelphia in 1787; he was the American Ambassador to France at the time.
Indeed, it is hard to see any genuine comparison between the two constitutions: one brief and clear with just seven extensively debated articles, the other turgid and opaque with 465 articles which even some of its promoters acknowledged they barely understood. One constitution was built on victory in war; the other was designed to reconcile nations after ruinous defeat. One created a nation state, the other sought to supersede nation states as such.
Yet the real point is not the history or the hubris; it is that Giscard’s words inadvertently highlight what has become known delicately as the EU’s “democratic deficit”. How legitimate is the EU, and how much does legitimacy matter?
The UK has historically welcomed the fact that the EU has often been able to
deliver policies which individual states could not or would not have
delivered themselves; policies which promoted economic growth, such as the
removal of trade barriers and state subsidies, and increased deregulation
and competition.
Indeed, one reason why many economists still welcome the euro, despite its
flaws, is that they see it as a mechanism by which tougher budgetary
constraints can be imposed on countries with poor fiscal discipline and a
record of currency devaluation. This is not necessarily very democratic, but
on the whole it has enjoyed a broad degree of public acceptance.
But a fair assessment would conclude that despite some improvements, the EU
and its institutions still face a crisis of legitimacy. For example, the
Commission proposes and develops law, yet “is subject to little direct or
even indirect public accountability”, to quote a recent textbook. The
European Parliament has limited powers to hold the Commission to account,
and often lacks the will to do so. Indeed, after the Commission was defeated
in its recent attempts to increase the EU budget, the president of the
Parliament threatened to institute secret voting on the budget for the first
time, in order to vote against austerity while avoiding public
accountability.
The European Court of Justice is bound by an essentially political commitment
to “ever closer union”. It is increasingly part of the executive, contrary
to a proper separation of powers. Only a third of its judges have previous
judicial experience. The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights confuses basic
rights such as the right to life with highly contested claims to economic
entitlement, such as Article 29, which confers a “right to a placement
service”.
The EU’s financial accounts have been qualified for the past 18 years, and
attempts made to silence various whistleblowers. In 2001, the Court of
Auditors announced that 5 per cent of the EU budget was unaccounted for.
Last year there was an “error rate” of 3.9 per cent – in the UK this would
be the equivalent of £27 billion gone missing every year.
Especially troubling are the EU’s attempts to use public money in ways that
appear designed to delegitimise the nation state and confer legitimacy on
itself. These included the regional government agenda, and the opening up of
structural funds to direct application by regions, which sidesteps national
parliaments and nationally agreed political priorities.
The EU has also sought to swing academic and expert opinion behind itself
through the Jean Monnet programme, which “stimulates teaching, research and
reflection on European integration in higher education institutions
worldwide”. At the last count, these projects operated in 72 countries
across the five continents, via 162 Jean Monnet Centres of Excellence and
875 Jean Monnet Chairs, reaching some 500,000 students every year.
It is this lack of legitimacy that poses the deepest challenge for the EU,
deeper even than the economic challenges of debt and competitiveness.
Without legitimacy, no government can sustain itself over time by democratic
means. Unaccountable government is ineffective, unresponsive government;
government which turns inwards on itself and becomes vulnerable to
corruption, self-dealing and domination by special interests.
People start to ask: why pay your taxes, why vote, why obey the rules, if you
have no power to change things? Resources are allocated for purely political
purposes, rather than in response to public need. Resilience,
competitiveness and energy are reduced; sclerosis sets in. When change
occurs it tends to be convulsive, not gradual.
It is worth noting that the euro crisis itself was made far worse by the lack
of accountability and legitimacy within the EU. Member states agreed, then
undermined, then breached their own Stability and Growth Pact. Italy
deliberately attempted to disguise its budget deficit, as did the Greeks, by
employing some of the most creative financing techniques ever seen. Germany
and France were both also in serious breach, but forced eurozone finance
ministers to drop fines against them in 2003.
The effects were catastrophic. Investors were led to believe that the euro
economies were stronger than they were. Once launched, the euro itself had
the effect of disguising the disastrous debts of the southern rim from the
capital markets. Instead, investors wrongly assumed that because Greece and
Germany were in the eurozone, both were similar credit risks. It is hard to
doubt that, had national currencies still existed, investors would have
assessed the periphery’s financial position and reacted appropriately
several years earlier.
Long ignored or shuffled to the sidelines, issues of legitimacy are now coming
to the fore in Europe. How could it be otherwise, with riots in Greece, huge
protests in Portugal and Spain, and Beppe Grillo on the rise in Italy? The
stage is thus set for a real debate about what the EU is for, and the
benefits of EU membership – not a debate rooted in national fears about the
past, but in pragmatic concern for the future.
It was not merely brilliant British diplomacy that caused Angela Merkel to
give her immediate backing to the Prime Minister’s recent call for an EU
budget cap. In this debate, the UK’s voice – the voice of free trade,
administrative fairness and the rule of law – is a vital one. It is
absolutely right for us to seek a new settlement between this country and
the EU, and to back that initiative up with an in-out referendum. But we can
go further still.
The nation state is the fundamental guarantor of legitimate power. Given our
history, we have a moral obligation, and a huge practical interest, to
reaffirm in a constructive and modest way the wider case for flexibility and
localism and democracy; for a Europe of nation states.
Jesse Norman is Conservative MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire
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