Kaczynski: Liberum veto

Without the ’liberum veto’ Poland would have a much happier history to remember, so Polish president Lech Kaczynski has offered final proof why the same rule of minority terror must be scrapped if the European Union wants to survive and prosper.

See BBC News item ‘Poland in new blow to EU treaty’:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7482660.stm

Those bent on destroying the EU can perhaps find democratic merit in Kaczynski overriding his country’s parliament (at least temporarily deferring signature; legal authority unclear) and Czech president Vaclav Klaus openly agitating against the political commitments of the Czech government.

But for the vast majority of European Union member states and for thinking EU citizens Kaczynski must have driven the final nail into the coffin of the unanimity rule. The same Kaczynski who is personally to blame for many of the worst features of the Lisbon Treaty.

With or without Ireland, the Czech Republic, Poland and possibly some others, the willing member states must save the European Union by scrapping the ‘liberum veto’, even if they have to establish a new union to do so.

The added bonus would be that without Kaczynski important reforms could take effect much earlier than 2014 and 2017.


Ralf Grahn



Update 1 July 2008: According to the Wikepedia article on the Treaty of Lisbon, the Polish House of Representatives voted 384 for, 56 against (with 12 abstentions) and the Senate 74 for, 17 against (with 6 abstentions) to ratify the Lisbon Treaty. Friends of parliamentary sovereignty take note.

Continental vision vs liberum veto

The Philadelphia Convention had continental vision and it acted accordingly.

The European powers have been able to patch together a European Union of sorts, but as yet they have effectively restricted its potential for international action and internal reform by imitating the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Here is an excerpt of what the Wikipedia article Liberum veto tells us about the effects of the unanimity rule:

“In the first half of the 18th century, it became increasingly common for Sejm sessions to be broken up by liberum veto, as the Commonwealth's neighbours — chiefly Russia and Prussia — found this a useful tool to frustrate attempts at reforming and strengthening the Commonwealth. The latter deteriorated from a European power into a state of anarchy.”

The Wikipedia article is available at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberum_Veto

Is this the way we want it to be? Is this how we should want it to be?


Ralf Grahn