European elections: Libertas by bumpkins for dupes?

Only some 26 days remain before the first polling stations open in the European elections, and we see that the new contender Libertas has stepped up its increasingly shrill campaign against the Lisbon Treaty, now approved by the parliaments of 26 EU member states.

Let us turn to the policies Libertas offers voters for the following five year term of the European Parliament.

It is getting late in the European election campaign, but we are still offered the same text on the Policies page: The Libertas programme for a better Europe will be published on this site in the coming weeks.

That should be enough to disqualifiy Libertas from pretending to be a serious challenger to the existing EU order.

But we have pledged to study the so called core principles on which Libertas’ case rests.

The fifth and final one tells us:

“A lean EU: Cut the number of meetings in Brussels by 50 % in 2010.”


***

You’re kidding?

You don’t need much sophistication to know that the European Union is a complex structure. The briefest ABC book on the EU tells you that much.

If you splash millions on creating a new political force intent on representing EU citizens in the European Parliament, you can be expected to familiar with at least the basics.

If you really want to cut the number of meetings and create a lean European Union, you have to give the union a simpler design.

This is not going to happen in 2010, although ideas concerning the future would be most welcome.

Even if the Lisbon Treaty enters into force, it is only going to improve the functioning of the European Union in an incremental way, without simplifying the basic structure.

If you campaign against the Lisbon Treaty, you work to preserve the current Treaty of Nice. It is hard to be more anti-lean than that.

Demanding Formula 1 performance from a horse cart is a joke. Elevating this slogan to the status of core principle reveals the paucity of knowledge and ideas.

This opens up two possible interpretations: Either you are (perhaps in good faith) ignorant bumpkins, or you are cynical enough to know full well what you are doing, assuming that your potential voters are gullible dupes, ready to be taken for a ride.

***

Where are the details?

Libertas offers no clues as to which 50 per cent of meetings in Brussels should be scrapped next year.

Since no serious treatment of their proposal is possible, let us play along with their joke or scam.

Only meetings in Brussels are targeted. This could mean that the European Parliament is free to continue its hated monthly sessions in Strasbourg. Libertas has conjured up a mythical “Brussels” of axis of evil proportions, so perhaps the EP would have to sacrifice its convenient mini-sessions in Brussels to fill its part of the quota.

I am at a loss to propose which meetings the part executive and civil service of the EU, the Commission, should cancel. It is hard to prepare, to manage and to coordinate public bodies without meetings, even if they consume time and resources. I have to leave it at this: If Libertas has a working solution, I am sure that every government on earth will be queueing up to hear it.

Most of the “behind closed doors” dealings Libertas is foaming about take place within the Council structures, where the representatives of the member states meet and where the national administrations send committee members to steer the Commission.

If Libertas wants to undo the iron grip of the member states on the running of the European Union, it should say so. What I am fairly sure of is that such a reform is incompatible with a quest to maintain the current Treaty of Nice.

***

Without serious proposals, Libertas idea is mush. Elevating the reduction of meetings to a core principle only tells us where the rot is.

Cynicism or stupidity, it’s your choice.


Ralf Grahn

European elections: Libertas’ principles ─ what do they mean?

We are some 31 days from the start of the European elections. A few moments ago, the policies page of Libertas.eu still told us that:

“The Libertas programme for a better Europe will be published on this site in the coming weeks.”



***

First principle

The problem is that a simplistic slogan is actually much harder to understand than a detailed explanation, because it raises a number of questions: What do they mean by that? How are they going to achieve it? What are the consequences?

If Libertas is serious about its politics, it should start detailing its policies and their consequences immediately.

In the meanwhile, without a proper Libertas programme, we will have to make do with what is on offer.

Libertas tells us that it is committed to five core principles. We take one at a time, and try to figure out what they mean.

We start with the first one.


***

Hold the EU accountable: Only elected politicians should make the law, says Libertas.

Is Libertas smashing through an open door?

Council?

The supreme law-making body of the European Union is the Council, where the ministers of the EU member states approve the directives and regulations.

Most people would accept the ministers as elected politicians, although their mandate is national.

Is this the problem for Libertas? Should national level politicians be disqualified from EU level decisions?

If Libertas wants to abolish the Council, it should say so. Likewise, if it wants to turn the Council into a second chamber (Senate) of the European Parliament, with directly elected Senators.

**

European Parliament?

The slogan can hardly be directed against the directly elected European Parliament, which participates in many areas of EU legislation. The EP’s participation would increase and develop under the Treaty of Lisbon, so representative democracy at EU level improves during the next parliamentary term, if the treaty enters into force.

Presumably Libertas means to improve representative democracy further by its legislative action within the EP, since it is standing in the elections to the European Parliament.

**

Commission?

The rallying cry can hardly target the Commission, either. The Commission drafts legislative proposals, which are adopted by the Council and often the European Parliament.

I find it hard to believe that Libertas would want to ban the strictly limited cases of delegated legislation by the Commission. Any national or European political system would choke, if the daily fluctuating import values of vegetables or the latest food additive or other details of implementation would have to go the full parliamentary route.

Is Libertas against the Commission’s power to propose legal acts? If that is the case, why not say so?

The rationale for the Commission’s right of proposal is its task to look after the general interest. If Libertas wants to weaken the general interest, which interests does it want to strengthen?


***


National parliaments

National parliaments already make the domestic laws, so the aim of Libertas’ slogan has to be something else. And why should Libertas speak about domestic law-making in a campaign for the European Parliament?

***

Perplexing

As we see, the meaning and the implications of Libertas’ first core principle are far from clear. Honestly, I don’t know what to make of it.

If Libertas wants to maintain what we already have, why launch it as a battle cry, as the first principle of its campaign?

If they want something different, why not tell voters what it is and why it is important?

What do we vote for, if we cast our ballot for a Libertas candidate?

Libertas’ first principle leaves us hanging in suspense.



Ralf Grahn