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Allez, Giscard! Europe is not a home for slaves
William Rees-Mogg

The draft Constitution for Europe which was published last Thursday is a shameful document, destructive of democracy, disastrous for Europe, disastrous for Britain and for all the other present and prospective members of the European Union. It has even been drafted in a disorderly and undemocratic way.
I would not want anyone to take my word for it. The website address of the European Commission is www.europa.eu.int. From that website one can get to the home page of the European Convention. The draft Constitution, in its present form, runs to 19 pages, which can be downloaded. Those who do so are likely to be as astonished as I have been, and as horrified. Even a Euro-fanatic such as Peter Hain said that: “The first draft could have been a lot better.”

The draft Constitution would establish a United States of Europe. The main differences between this Constitution and that of the United States of America are that the new Europe would take more power to the centre, leave less independence to the individual states, have fewer and weaker constitutional safeguards and would be undemocratic.

If ratified, the new Constitution would change the whole legal basis of the European Union. The EU would cease to be a confederation of independent states, each retaining its ultimate sovereignty, and would become a new “legal personality”, with common citizenship, a “duty of loyal co-operation”, primacy of its laws over member states, areas of “exclusive competence” — that means power — and dominance in areas of “shared competence”. It would also have areas of “supporting action” and in case all these powers proved insufficient, “flexibility” to add new powers. It would not have a democratic government.

The new state would be responsible for co-ordinating economic policy and for “defining and implementing” foreign and defence policy. That alone would give the European institutions power over three of Britain’s chief offices of state, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary for Defence.

The United States of Europe would have exclusive competencies in six areas, including the movement of persons, goods, services and capital, and competition rules. The EU would decide whether any proposed merger was legal or not. It would also have exclusive competencies, with no democratic recourse, over the customs union, common commercial policy, monetary policy for euro nations — which we would soon have to join — common fisheries and international agreements. That is only the beginning.

The 13 “shared” competencies are almost as powerful as the exclusive ones. The individual nations would be the junior partners in shared competencies, left to do the jobs the European institutions assigned to them. Europe’s powers would include the internal market, freedom, security and justice, agriculture and fisheries, transport, trans-European networks, energy, social policy, economic and social cohesion, environment, public health, consumer protection, research, technology and space, development and human aid. Altogether these powers include virtually of the central matters of modern government. Under the proposed Constitution, they would all be determined by European bureaucrats not by elected national politicians.

Some may think I’m arguing this too much in local national terms. It may be better to put the question in the terms of some other European countries. Do you think that the interests of Denmark will be better cared for by a democratically elected Danish Government or by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels? For “Denmark”, one can read France, Germany, Poland, Spain, or any other of the 25 present or prospective members of the EU. One can, of course, ask the same question about Britain.

Nor is this the lot. The Charter of Fundamental Rights, that self-contradictory bundle of legal aspirations, is to be incorporated into European law, which takes precedence over national law. This hits home to the press. British newspapers may find freedom of speech ranked well below respect for the privacy of Europe’s great statesmen. We shall all have to be extra careful of the tender sensitivities of Chancellor Schröder.

There are also six areas in which the European institutions will be entitled to take “supporting action”. Now that we can see Brussels’s full hunger for power, we should be as reluctant to accept supporting action from the Brussels bureaucrats as from the wolf that ate Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother. These areas include employment, on which the EU’s record is very poor, industry, education, vocational training and youth, culture, sport and the prevention of disasters. These vital areas of public life are added on as an afterthought to the main banquet of powers.

These proposals would destroy European democracy. The European nations would cease to be self-governing. The individual European parliaments are still sovereign; in Britain, the House of Commons, which is democratically elected, is the seat of government. The European Parliament is not sovereign, it is elected on the party list system — which is only too easy to manipulate — and it is not the seat of government. After enlargement, Britain will have approximately 13 per cent of the seats in this weak European Parliament. We would never again be able to change our real government by our own votes. Never. Nor would any other European country. The outrage is that this Constitution would destroy the democracy of all the nations of Europe.

On January 30 Tony Blair lunched with Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the author of this arrogant document. On November 28, 2002, Blair had made a speech in Cardiff which endorsed Giscard’s European approach, if not all the details. Whatever he now says, we cannot afford to trust Tony Blair on the European Constitution. Nor can Conservatives trust Kenneth Clarke, who has already said that he expects to be at odds with his party over the Constitution. If the Tories do decide to change their leader, they cannot and will not accept a leader who wants to destroy British independence and democracy.

The only safeguard would be a referendum. This Constitutional change is too important to be ratified by Parliament under the whips. If we have referendums on Scotland, Wales, local mayors and the euro, the future of our national independence surely requires one as well. That is the only way to force the Government to negotiate on the basis of the reality of British opinion.

This, however, is a great difficulty. Giscard has done his damnedest to destroy European democracy. There is virtually no possibility of negotiating this document down to a level at which it would be acceptable to European democrats, once it has been properly understood, once enough people have downloaded the text or read their newspapers.

The Giscard Constitution stands Europe on its head. In democratic theory, power belongs to the people. They elect their government; the governments make mutually beneficial arrangements to co-operate. That is how the European Union ought to be. In the actual Europe, and in this proposed Constitution, power belongs to the rulers, to a bureaucratic class, of which Giscard is a member, which claims, “L’état, c’est moi”. The answer to that is: “Oh no, it’s not.”

The French Government has suggested that there ought to be Europe-wide referendums on the Constitution, held on the same day. There are strong arguments for that. There is no European country which does not value its own independence and democracy; every country in the EU is democratic at the national level. The Giscard Constitution would, in my view, certainly lose a referendum in Britain. We have a consistent majority against the euro in the polls; this is far worse than the euro.

The French voted for Maastricht by only the narrowest margin; they voted Giscard out when he was President, because they could not stand his condescension. I expect they will do so again. The new members, including Poland, Hungary, and the Czechs, have only recently regained their freedom and do not want to lose it again. Perhaps Giscard’s bureau-Fascist Constitution could win a referendum in Belgium or Luxembourg — I do not know where else. Let all Europe put this nonsense to a vote; the peoples of Europe do not have the mentality of slaves.

Now consider last months Schroeder/ Chirac love fest and you will see the ultimate goal. The take over of Europe without firing a shot. History does repeat itself. If this constitution is adopted in June there will be 4-5 countries left in the EU. The timing is atrocious and an opportunity for the U.S. to create a new alliance without these socialists. At least we would give them more freedom to decide their own fate.