EU Wake

Irelands vote to reject European Union membership and the treaty that comes with the privilege is no great loss because the EU was a non-starter from the outset. A club that was founded in 1957 with six members that has grown to 27 members speaking 20 different languages “Did you just say this was a budget for a mean Europe?” a Danish journalist asked Jose Manuel Barroso, the Portuguese president of the European Commission during the 2005 budgetary debates.. “No, I said it was a budget for a mini Europe,” he replied. In fact, Barroso meant both.

Europe’s mean history and identity is rooted in religion – Christianity. Austria, which was in the forefront of opposition to Turkey’s membership, is encumbered with the historical baggage of conflict with the Ottoman Empire. Dismembering the Ottoman Empire may have been the most damaging and dangerous thing Europe ever did for itself. Nation states then, like now, tried to maintain religious monopolies. At best, a concordat could be struck with other Christians, although often only after generations of civil war. “Ultimately, antagonistic religions mean antagonistic cultures,” T.S. Eliot warned, “and ultimately, religions cannot be reconciled.” He was writing in the aftermath of World War II and probably had in mind Catholics and Protestants, and perhaps Jews. Europeans today might think of Muslims and perhaps agree with Eliot.

The 450-page European Constitution as drafted is disconnected from Europe’s history. To make matters worse, its language, like the EU, has been dictated by bureaucrats ─ unelected “experts.” The text, which has as many exceptions as rules, isn’t written for the ordinary citizen, but for the bureaucrat. For example, Article III-139, which declares: “This sub-section shall not apply, so far as any member state is concerned, to activities which in that state are connected, even occasionally, with the exercise of public authority.

European laws or framework laws may exclude certain activities from application of this sub-section.” As a lawyer, I can’t figure out what that means. Any wonder Irish, French and Dutch voters turned it down? I don’t know of any European, yet alone a Irish, French or Dutch person, who will vote in favor of a document that begins with the words “His Majesty the King of the Belgians….” Just because the proposed EU will be headquartered in Belgium does not make all Europeans Belgian.

The fact is the European Constitution is dead ─ dead and cold ─ unless it gets back to its historical competitive roots. Europe is the product of intense competition of numerous states on a small continent. The competition has to get a lot stiffer for Europe to survive as a union.