Vision Europe: new DM campaign sets out a constructive alternative to the outdated EU.

Democracy Movement ^ | 11th July 2005

[jb6]

The seismic rejection of the EU Constitution by the French and Dutch peoples in their recent referendums has shown clearly that the EU's 'one-size-fits-all' model - whereby laws are made in Brussels and then imposed on 25 diverse countries regardless of what their voters want - is no longer viable.

The diversity of the reasons for opposing the Constitution in these two countries and beyond has shown that different European peoples demand very different priorities from those who govern them.

Crucially, the idea that more and more law-making powers should be concentrated in the hands of EU officials who cannot be democratically removed from office was firmly rebuffed.

The logical conclusion that must be drawn from these events is that the European Union is too over-centralised, and that this product of 'big is best', top-down elitist thinking is fundamentally out of date.

The EU Constitution was the EU's effort at reform, but went entirely in the wrong direction - down the same, old centralising path first set out in the 1950s.

Today's crisis presents Europeans with an opportunity to build a more realistic, bottom-up way of interacting that enables co-operation but which also respects Europe's diversity. If the EU cannot reform, then it must be replaced. Vision Europe puts forward a constructive alternative.

[nosofar]

They need a federal system (if any) like the U.S. And like the U.S., they would become a highly centralized political entity eventually anyway, though much more quickly. They are just too impatient to usher in the Fourth Reich.