Richard has kindly put together another installment of another Europe. Which he has been doing some great work to facilitate with some seriously smart and influential people involved. I really hope this is a great success.
Over to you Richard.............................
The initial May 18 to 20 conference has spawned a sequel on Monday November 1st thru to 12:00 on Wednesday November 3rd. The whole caboodle is electronic. We are running it out of ETH in Zuerich this time as there are already over 400 attendees awaiting Bern vetting.
There is no upcoming Swiss – EU negotiation this time, as there was in May. Back in May ‘Another Europe’, level of interest, input, argument and well-evidenced projections led to a Swiss walkout in the May confrontation. Relations have not improved since, other than EU takes Switzerland more seriously.
We have enhanced our list of thought provoking presenters and seen some pre-conference interaction between them. Vernon Bogdanor, Nick Bouzou and Carl Baudenbacher have been joined by Eleanor Sharpston, Leo Brinkat. Ambrosia-Pilchard of the DT has applied for a ‘listening brief’.
Eleanor Sharpston you might remember as the ECJ’s UK justice who retained her place in the court because she pleaded that UK needed representation there until Brexit was finally done. Leo Brinkat is the whistle-blowing auditor who exposed the multi-level fiddles in the regional funding area that reduce the member’s receipt, make the EU look more benevolent than they are, and leaves inactive money that easily becomes a slush fund.
I’ll put forward the framework of three presentations that I think give us a massive opportunity to debate and discuss. The data below has been taken from chats with the participants about their offerings. I have not seen the presentations. I have made no comment or inference myself in any debate below, but I have sometimes used my long-used terminology, hoping it might be clearer and easier for the reader.
1) DEBATE 1 - “The discount on democracy and the rebate on accountability”
Presented by Vernon Bogdanor with Nick Bouzou
NB – both presenters acknowledge plagiarism of Richard Jones’s term ‘Disproportional Misrepresentation’
a) – Vernon Bogdanor
- In political, economic, social relations we have the inertia of a contracting majority vie with a polarizing, growing minority.
- Major factors - Professional politicians, social media, dilution of democracy?
- Looking, this time, at the latter.
- EU members use ‘Disproportional Misrepresentation’ constituent/party
- EU national government usually three or four party coalitions.
- Results:
- Inert, compromettal administrative continuation rather than governance
- Complex policy selection on shoulders of least qualified average voter
- Useless in emergency or times of radical reform
- Grey governments endorsed by grey voters
- No visionary statesmen or innovative policies, especially in the geo-strategic area
- Direct accountability diffused.
- An easy going, apparently innocuous political paradigm.
b) Nick Bouzou
- Some exceptions and additions to Vernon’s picture
- Hungary has a one party majority, nigh super-majority government. Poland is but 2 seats short.
- France has a FPTP system but tempered by a second round.
- 2nd round result too prone to tactics: better take a third player 3 from round 1.
- Switzerland has a very mixed voting system
- FPTP at some levels, simple DispropMisrep at others
- Popular direct democracy works at 2 senior levels with the constitutional requirement of quick and appropriate legislation
- Let’s look at these options to get stronger, more popular national governments reacting with EU institutions.
2) DEBATE 2 - “Slush funding EU’s future”
Presented by Nick Bouzou and Leo Brinkat –
a) – Leo Brinkat
- EU project funding is NOT ring-fenced thus covertly structured into ‘slush funds’.
- Large unused balances in Regional and Euro Stability funds – regional uptake (forex and ratio shortfall) no national central bank uptake (repayment term fright).
- Nowadays required ‘level of explanation’ bars ‘slush’ for Covid relief.
b) – Nick Bouzou
- Recap ECB problems: PEPP dysfunct, Target2 out of control, inflation spike. Natural Ezone interest rate difference between (Germany) and (Greece) adjudged 5%. No asset-backed treasure of last resort.
- Recap EU problems: Mid-term instabilities Germany, France, Italy, Spain.
Paupers use of ‘own resources to default point. Downturns on credit ratings.
Covid relief will be ‘bailouts’ with punitive austerity repayments, nothing else.
c) – Leo Brinkat & Nick Bouzou
- Predictions: Weakening euro – 1:1 USD, 1:0.90 CHF, 1:0.8 GBP – No recession recovery until Q3 2022 with some members not until Q2 2023 – Growing transparency demands, notably from sovereign currencies – Enforced euro take up becomes ‘exit referendum’ issue.
3) DEBATE 3 – “Moving to a new judiciary”
Presented by Eleanor Sharpston and Carl Baudenbacher
a) - Eleanor Sharpston
- Brief history of ORDNAP versus ASCOM.
- Imagine overjoyed individuals with no rights, subjected to arbitrary law by their masters, were with the inception of universal law that explicitly stated what individuals can safely do and implicitly deemed all else as wrongdoings. We call this ‘Ordained Napoleonic law’ – ORDNAP. It prevails in mainland Europe.
- Imagine a more gradual evolution of universal law that posits on a base of human rights and liberties and thus antithetically details wrongdoings and infers all else as societal freedom of action. We call this ‘Anglo-Saxon Common Law’ - ASCOM. It prevails in the transcontinental Anglosphere.
- ORDNAP is philosophically and philologically easier to construe, construct and impose than ASCOM’s one remove of implicit rights and freedoms and explicit wrongdoings. Based on this ‘easier path’ ORDNAP has prevailed, to the total disregard of Grotius’s and others basic rights, in the treaty world of EU, notably commercially. Situation worsened by the lack of clear statements on constitutional rights or structure for the EU judiciary (ECJ) to hinge on or blossom from.
- Clearly EU membership, institutions and citizens need the most effective judicial arm. There are two major areas of requisite reform.
b) – Carl Baudenbacher
- The ideological bias ORDNAP exerts on ECJ impedes trade sector flexibility and accountability and disfigures EU’s commercial profile.
- Construct a ‘simple as possible’ bilateral free trade model.
- Initiate ‘what to do and not to do’ advisories.
- Initiate a global trade ‘newsletter’.
- Collaboration with WTO, Mercosur, CPTPP and transport associations IMO (London), IRU, IATA.
- Provide ‘judicial review’ services for trade treaties.
- Provide pre-rulings on arbitration proceedings.
- Representative consultation services for inexperienced negotiators (developing world)
- ‘Call center’ services for on-going negotiations
- Maintain a reference library of treaties and related judicial actions.
- Updates and revision needed but the above services and processes already exist.
c) Eleanor Sharpston
- Factors laid out above have led to the deliberate? misuse of ECJ by the non-elected Commission. ECJ remoulded as an instrument blindly supporting prescribed policy, but not upholding the constitution’s legal safety of that policy. Often ECJ is unsafe, committing regular acts of ‘ultra vires’ regarding relationships between nations and EU.
- Requirement for ‘Bill of Rights’ oriented, tripartite constitution.
- Tripartite cover – EU institutions- Member’s governments – Member’s and EU citizens.
- Plenty of models – Switzerland, USA, Germany
- Do not under-estimate the difficulty of this task but must start now.
- First step – EUParliament liberation of unilateral legislative initiation.
- Second step – no vetoes on treaty law - no more QMV – 1 state = 1 vote.
I think ‘Another Europe 2’ will have wonderful, thoughtfully stimulated discussions.
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