eurealist.co.uk

From Denis Cooper
A good letter until the end, when he fails to grasp that some French and German citizens “of the left” may long for a “social France”, and a “social Germany”, respectively, rather than a “social Europe”, and they may even long for the European Parliament, European Commission, etc etc to simply vanish.

Citizens feel short-changed by democracy deficit
Published: May 28 2005 03:00 | Last updated: May 28 2005 03:00

From Prof Arthur Mitzman.

Sir, Your May 26 coverage of the referendums on the European Union constitution reminds us of the indifference of Europe’s elites both to democracy and to rational discourse with the citizenry.

Democracy? The demand by Jean-Claude Juncker, current holder of the EU presidency, for a re-vote if the constitution is voted down in coming referendums recalls Bertolt Brecht’s famous poem after the suppression of the 1953 East German uprising. After the head of the East German Writers’ Union proposed that, “the people had frivolously thrown away the government’s confidence . . . and could only regain it through redoubled work,” Brecht suggested: “Wouldn’t it be simpler if the government simply dissolved the people and elected another?”

Rational reasoning? Quentin Peel (”France cannot have the last word”), in discussing the aftermath of a Non, dismisses the idea of a Franco-German-led “integrated hard core”. His reasons: the current French government is not planning on it; a “’social core’ at the heart of a single market would only aggravate competitive pressures”; and “France [unlike "Germany"] does not want a stronger European parliament”.

Thinking in terms of “the current French government” and reifications such as “France” and “Germany”, however, obscures the facts that the present French and German regimes have completely lost the confidence of their respective constituencies, that most ordinary citizens support the enhanced democracy a more empowered European parliament would bring, and that most of those prepared to vote down the constitution in France are voters of the left who feel short-changed by the lack of social protection and the dog-eat-dog neo-liberalism enshrined in the new document.

Having endured decades of single market “reforms” in the name of free competition, French and German citizens long for the “social Europe” that obstruction from the free-trade right kept out of the new treaty.

Arthur Mitzman, Emeritus Professor of History, University of Amsterdam, 1077 GC Amsterdam, The Netherlands