EU and national democracy?
MEP Esko Seppänen in the shadow seminar of the Youth
Convention 9.7.2002
Democracy is often referred to as a decision-making system
where the majority rules. More precisely, however, it is participation,
common preparation, language equality, openness and transparency
of the whole decision-making process that constitutes a democratic
system.
The decision-making unit of democracy could - or should -
be the multitude as described by Hardt & Negri in their book
The Empire. They speak about the universal multitude, but
I prefer to speak about the national or republican multitude.
There is no standard model for democracy. Democracy is about
balancing different opinions. It is about solving problems
and compromising peacefully. It is about self-governance and
sovereignty free from external pressures to standardise.
The midwife of democracy is the nation state, or the republic,
in any case the people, not the elite. Conceptually there
is no supranational or even international democracy. The very
concept is bound to the nation state.
Even the UN is not democratic, but it does not exploit the
sovereignty of its member countries.
The European Parliament and the constitutional Convention
on the Future of Europe are unrepresentative. There is an
over-representation of federal ideas in both the European
Parliament and in the Convention; therefore, the system produces
an unbalanced division of opinions. In the European Union
there is a political hegemony of the federalists.
The electoral systems in most EU countries favour big political
parties, the conservatives and the socialists. In the lists
of the national parties, those favoured are those who agree
with the federalist line of their party leaders. They are
at the top of the lists.
In Finland we have a better system. In our proportional
system, the voters vote primarily for a person and not a party.
This way the people decide who is elected. This is not the
case in most other EU countries, where they use the system
of list vote. In this system it is not the voters who decide
who will be elected, this is decided by the Parties. The voters,
therefore, can only give their support to the party of their
choice.
In this sense we have a better democracy than many other
EU countries. However, this is under threat as the European
Parliament has decided to request a uniform electoral system
for all member countries. This is not democracy for us. It
is dictatation by the EU. Full uniformity and full standardisation
is not democracy.
We should not hand our national democratic power to the EU
superstate under construction, in the hope that it will become
democratic. It should, at least, be democratic first.
In a democratic system the question remains as to what is
an appropriate unit of democratic decision-making. Should
the unit be an individual, a nation state or a community called
the European Union? It is becoming more and more the Union.
The legal basis for EU initiatives is found in the Treaty
of the European Union. In the Maastricht Treaty, three pillars
were established to deal with: 1) Community affairs, 2) foreign
and security policy and 3) legal affairs. The first pillar
is already fully federalised; the other two pillars are undergoing
a federalisation process.
There are two different methods for the development of the
European Union: the community method and an intergovernmental
method.
The Community method means that the decisions are made inside
the Union by the rules stipulated in the Treaties, including
voting by the qualified majority.
The intergovernmental method is different. Every member
country has, in all important questions, a right of veto.
Now this veto is under attack. The federalists want more qualified
majority voting, which favours bigger countries.
In Nice, the veto was taken away for decisions in various
different policy areas and a new right of veto was given to
the more populous countries. When the countries that represent
37,5 % of the EU population got a new veto right, it was given
to the three most populated countries.
If there is a referendum on the constitution now under preparation,
the result should be counted by country. Every country should
individually accept the final result. That is democracy. It
is not democracy if all the votes are counted together. It
gives the big countries the possibility to walk over the smaller
countries.
The fundamental question is whether the EU is to be developed
as the federation of states or as a confederation of nation
or independent states.
It is already, more or less, a federal state. It has its
own flag, its own anthem (stolen from the Council of Europe)
and people are recommended to stand up when it is played,
the common passport, its own Parliament (without real legislative
power), and its own money.
Next in line is the European army, the EU government (in
the form of the Commission) and, possibly, the EU president.
The right of veto is under attack particularly in foreign
and security policy and in defence. This federalist approach
will put pressure on the neutral countries to join Nato, even
though in Finland only 20% of the population are in favour
of such a development.
National languages, differences and diversities in Europe
are in danger. A new identity for EU citizens is now being
created from the top to the bottom and synthetically, by political
force.
The unit of the democracy is the multitude, and democracy
should be safeguarding the rights of minorities. Many nation
states are minorities in the European Union and need democratic
protection.
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