The Kosmopolit blog looked at the relative merits of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy on blocking or undermining the European Union: The quiet, the loud and the hyperactive: Who is the best anti-European?
Yesterday the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union was proclaimed in Strasbourg and today we are going to witness the signing ceremony of the Treaty of Lisbon.
We should be overjoyed, shouldn’t we? Why these doubting questions from Kosmopolit?
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I posted a comment, which I am going to repeat here:
Who will be successful in blocking decisions?
Your question is sadly revealing of the mindset of national leaders (feudal lords) trying to insulate Europe against success in the world and to ensure that intergovernmentalism is enshrined instead of democratic accountability in foreign, security and defence policies.
The Treaty of Lisbon, to be signed later today, separately by Mr Brown, is no quantum leap for the security, prosperity and democratic rights of EU citizens.
The bickering leaders may be tired of institutional reform, but they have left the European project in a state of infirmity and disarray.
Europe is, in a way, the “old Continent”, but must it also be decrepit?
Let other politicians, think-tanks, researchers, journalists, NGOs and democratically inclined citizens of the European Union keep up the pressure, in spite of our weary leaders.
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It is impossible to speak with one voice in the world, if one voice is all it takes in the European Council or Council to block decision-making and when the individual states safeguard their freedom to act independently on the international stage.
It is inconsistent to enshrine values of openness, transparency and democracy, when back-room dealing between state governments leave the European Parliament and the Union’s citizens as mere spectators.
Let it be said, the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the Treaty of Lisbon are improvements on the Nice Treaty, but they fall far short of the effective, democratic and solidary European Union the collective interests of its citizens call for.
Ralf Grahn
Source:
Kosmopolit: The quiet, the loud and the hyperactive: Who is the best anti-European? 13 December 2007; http://kosmopolit.wordpress.com
Thursday, 13 December 2007
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looking at the global economy , feuding as you put it seem to benefit europe ,looking in from the outside{i am from the USA} European have done well,not something we cabn say about the USA WHICH ARE ON THE VERGE OF COLLAPSE SHOULD THE INTERNATIONAL BANK STICK TO THE SAME STANDART THAN IN EUROPE .
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