Today marks the start of the French presidency of the EU. Sarkozy’s task as president? To guide the union from the post-Irish referendum confusion into a fresh new dawn of harmony and mutual appreciation, to an EU both truly united and sure of its purpose.

Yes, the Polish president may have refused to ratify Lisbon as well, but he’s a homophobic right-wing nutter, everyone knows that. We’ll pretend that hasn’t happened, just as we’ll pretend the Irish no vote hasn’t happened. And worst case scenario we’ll put our fingers in our ears, go “la la la la la!” whenever anyone else speaks, and then act as if we’re all singing from the same hymnsheet when we aren’t even singing from the same hymnbook. It’ll all work out fine in the end.

To wit, a case in point, from the reception the French Ambassador to the Court of St James (aka to the UK, for those not au fait with outmoded chivalry), held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London the Saturday before last to mark the start of the French EU presidency (to which I was kindly invited):

The French Ambassador speaks, listing France’s three priorities for her presidency of the EU as:

1) Culture
2) Diversity
3) The people of Europe

Up next, a representative of the British government (whose name I didn’t catch and whom I didn’t recognise), listing what the UK thinks are the three French priorities:

1) Energy and energy security
2) Climate change
3) Migration

Followed, of course, by much shaking of hands, smiling, and mutterings about how great it was that everyone was in agreement. No mention of France focussing on more abstract concepts (in an effort to reunite the EU around core shared ideals, so entirely understandable) while the UK focusses on practicalities. No acknowledgement of the complete lack of anything in the way of similarity in what the two representatives have just stated as being the key priorities. Just carrying on regardless like a couple of deaf old ladies over tea and biscuits.

“I said let’s prioritise Climate change, Ivy.”

“Culture and diversity, you say? Why Ethel, what a lovely idea! How about doing something to get the people of Europe on board while we’re at it?”

“You’re entirely right - we really should do something about all those migrants crossing the borders.”

At this rate we’re never going to get anywhere.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Nanne highlights a piece by the man who must surely now be Europe’s last great public intellectual, Jurgen Habermas (let’s face it, most of the rest are dead now… Not that Habermas wouldn’t deserve a place in the top five or ten of the last 40 years anyway, but still - where’s the next generation, eh?).

Thankfully it’s in English - and Habermas is always worth a read when he’s being topical, because he’s got an uncanny knack for spotting trends and problems that others miss, as well as being able to say things bluntly that would label lesser-known figures as raving eurosceptics. He is, however, more often than not spot-on, as this piece written back in 2001 (amply predicting all the problems the EU has faced in the years following the Treaty of Nice) and this from last year (on the challenges for the EU at 50) both amply demonstrate.

At any rate, Habermas is at once scathing and constructive in his criticism:

After the failure of the proposed European constitution in 2005, the Lisbon Treaty represented a bureaucratically negotiated compromise to be pushed through behind the backs of the citizenry. With this most recent tour de force, European governments have callously demonstrated that they alone are shaping Europe’s future…

The failed referendums are a signal that the elitist mode of European unification is, thanks to its own success, reaching its limits. These limits can only be surmounted if the pro-European elites stop excusing themselves from the principle of representation and shed their fears of contact with the electorate…

Naturally, the fundamental conflict over direction derives its explosive force from deeper-seated, historically-rooted differences. There are not grounds for criticism of any particular country. But in the wake of the Irish signal, we should expect two things from our governments. They must admit that they are at their wits’ end. And they cannot continue to suppress their crippling dissent. In the end, they are left with no choice but to allow the peoples to decide for themselves…

With luck and commitment, a two-speed Europe could emerge from such a vote

All quite familiar stuff, perhaps (much of his suggestions covered here over the last few years) - but it’s not what’s said so much as who’s saying it. Habermas may not always be right (indeed, he’s long been a vehement supporter of a common European foreign policy, something I still reckon to be unworkable for the forseeable future), but he is consistent and, most importantly, considered.

Who, after all, are mere gadfly politicians - in office for but a few years and rarely the sharpest tools in the box - to ignore the advice of one of the foremost political theorists of the late 20th century, one who has been studying this very problem for decades? With his specialism the study of communication, pragmatic compromise and understanding - precisely the things the EU is supposed to promote between nations - Habermas should be one of the first ports of call for ideas on how to proceed… After all, what is the EU if not an attempt to spread universal pragmatics across an entire continent?

But such is the nature of these things. Increasingly politicians get into office unarmed with a knowledge of history and philosophy that was once thought vital for offices of state. Little wonder we’re in such trouble…

(On which note, perhaps it’s time for me to start that series of posts on little-known and forgotten aspects, incidents and people of European history that I’ve been meaning to do for a while now?)

Popularity: 15% [?]

Still trawling through post-Lisbon reactions and catching up with the various pieces of differing, trying to absorb as many suggestions as possible.

Via Certain Ideas of Europe I find John Vincour’s interesting take in the IHT, which makes some very good points - not least in agreeing with my ongoing contention that securing a reliable supply of energy to the continent should be acknowledged as one of the EU’s biggest concerns. He’s against my pet favourite solution of a multi-speed Europe - but for an eminently sensible reason, and with a possibly workable alternative proposal.

One of the best articles I’ve seen so far, and well worth reading in full.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Jon Worth on the futility of being an EU-focussed blogger.

The only thing I’d say he’s missed is that the EU is also insanely boring, which makes getting up the motivation to write about it even more tricky than the minute readership and constant feeling that your few good ideas are being nicked by people who are then getting paid for it…

Of course, the plus side is that a small readership of people who know their stuff or will intelligently engage (hello, dear readers, etc.) is infinitely preferable to a large readership of idiots. In professional journalism you always end up writing for the audience you’ve got (for example, just last week I ended up using the phrase “gossip-fest” in the headline of a piece I was working on - not something you’d normally see here…).

The point of blogging, I always thought, is to write to the audience you want. Want a large one? Saying remotely positive things about the EU - if you’re writing in English in particular - simply isn’t the way to go. Instead you need populist conspiracy theories, knee-jerk politician-bashing, and plenty of rumour and innuendo. Just be prepared for a flood of comments from nutters. Want an influential one? Be thoughtful and original. Just don’t expect a great deal of credit - and don’t expect to be able to tell whether you’re influential or not half the time…

Popularity: 18% [?]

Catching up on various blogs (and as part of my drive to post more frequently here, even if they are shorter pieces), a couple of interesting pieces from Cicero’s Songs - seemingly one of the few left(ish) liberal British political bloggers to have noticed the Irish Lisbon Treaty referendum result (perhaps because left(ish) liberal British political bloggers rarely seem to notice the EU - a bit of an elephant in the room, than…). In any case, both posts are well worth a read, whether you agree with them or not:

Where does the EU go from here?
“To my mind, the problem remains one of identity and legitimacy. The European Union has failed to justify, or even explain, its purpose… The EU used to define its purpose as creating ‘an ever closer union’ - in other words it had an open-ended commitment to increasing its role and the scope of its activities. The time has come for the EU to do the reverse and set the limits of its activities.”

Outvoting democracy
“As a Liberal commentary this blog believes that setting the limits to state power is a fundamental basis of freedom. The EU has been trying to change tack from ‘ever closer union’ towards more limited policy goals for some time. However the compromises embedded in the Constitutional treaty and the Lisbon treaty are simply too many and too complicated. The idea of comprehensive reform must be shelved- we can not bring either the majority of the states or the majority of the population to agreement at this point- and it is dangerous to try.

“The EU can only reconnect with the citizen if it can demonstrate that it serves a valuable purpose. Instead of the high-falutin’ words of Giscard d’Estaing’s Federalism, we should return to the practical usefulness of Functionalism.”

Popularity: 17% [?]

It’s the single most important question - because without an answer, how can the EU progress? Brian Barder has a good stab at providing an answer - well worth reading in full:

most of the sentiments, worries and concerns contributing to the No vote in the referendum are widely shared in many other EU countries; few are unique to Ireland, and those that are probably have similar counterparts elsewhere in the EU. The people of some EU countries differ from the Irish in exhibiting a high level of antipathy to the whole European project: the UK is certainly one of these, and some of the new eastern and central European countries (and/or their leaders) are others. Even those who are generally pro-European are often critical of the lack of transparency of many of the processes of the EU, of the centripetal tendencies of the Commission, of the failure to clean up the Union’s finances, of what is rather vaguely referred to as the democratic deficit. All such tendencies will tend to predispose a goodly number of individual European voters to vote No in a referendum on almost any proposition recommended to them by their political leaders, however intrinsically innocuous.

The only trouble with all this is, of course, that the “why” ends up complicating the issue yet further. Rather than being merely an Irish problem, or merely a European one, the Irish “no” ends up due to global concerns - and, let’s face it, what isn’t a global issue these days?

This makes the “No” problem far harder to solve, for sure. But it also surely helps underscore just how ineffective individual nation states have become at dealing with problems that are increasingly global in scale. Strength in numbers sounds like an ever safer bet the more the economy suffers jitters and the more that globalisation continues.

This is something that the whole EU can, with any luck, start to get behind - because it’s the whole reason that pretty much every member state joined in the first place. Its the economy, stupid - and I’d say it’s about time the various leaders of the various EU member states began to remember that. The fancy bits and high ideals can come later - the first step is to bolster the economic base. That was the initial aim of the European Project, after all. The EU should remember that it needs to learn to walk before it tries sprinting…

Note: This is another in an apparently ongoing series of occasional posts where I’m effectively thinking out loud. I’ll have changed my mind again in a couple of hours, most likely…

Popularity: 27% [?]

First up, Nanne’s done a handy roundup of blog reactions (with a few more from RZ) - which further goes to show that there’s no real consensus on what the hell should be done. Some more fervent pro-EU types are adopting the “sod the Irish” approach of continuing ratification and booting Ireland out of the EU if they don’t follow along like a well-trained dog. Some anti-EU types are revelling in the red faces in Brussels and calling for the whole thing to be scrapped again because (obviously) a no vote in a referendum means that every single person voting no did so because they hate the EU and everything it stands for. Neither extreme, fairly obviously, is a sensible option.

Me? I’m still at the stage of thinking out loud, so to speak - reading and writing helps me to work out what I think about things, which is why I started blogging in the first place. I’m still not sure if I’m getting anywhere on the short-term solution. Longer-term I have a far firmer idea of what I’d like to see done - but the likelihood of that coming to pass is minimal, so I’ll leave it for now.

Having read a lot of stuff about the vote over the weekend, the best comment piece I’ve seen so far comes - as so often - from the Financial Times. This quotation is somewhat selective, but gives an inkling of what’s becoming my approach:

First the French, then the Dutch and now the Irish have rejected much the same package of institutional reforms that were supposed to make an enlarged EU more effective and more democratic… Their attitude suggests a worrying gulf between EU decision-makers and popular feeling that needs a new sort of response… The No vote[s were] based on a ragbag of reasons to which there is no obvious response.”

In the FT’s take, a repeat referendum would likewise return a “No” - and I imagine the same would be the case in France and the Netherlands had they been given a chance to vote on the Lisbon Treaty as they were on the Constitution. The anger in France at the two fingers the politicians raised to the people by denying them another vote on a treaty that was so similar to a text that had already been popularly rejected is immense. Who can blame them?

Because the biggest problem facing the EU now is not the much-needed institutional reforms that Lisbon (and the constitution, and Nice) was trying to fix to help the thing function more effectively - it is that the people of Europe are increasingly starting to think that there may well be something in all those allegations of the EU being an undemocratic project of the quasi-mythical political elites for the benefit of those same elites. And you can hardly blame them - French and Dutch “No” votes have already been ignored, the Danish and Irish people have already been told to vote again when they returned the wrong result the first time, and now it looks like the inconvenience of the Irish people voting “No” again is going to lead to some kind of get-around. It’s hard to think of the last time the people of Europe were consulted and their opinions actually taken on board. In fact, I can’t think of a time this has happened - bar the odd small-scale experiment as part of the Plan D initiative over the last couple of years.

Does it matter that on numbers alone the “No” voters in Ireland are a tiny percentage of the EU’s population as a whole? Not while the rest of that population doesn’t get a vote it doesn’t - as pointed out elsewhere, so what if “only” 860,000 Irish voted “No” when the rest of the EU denies the people a vote and leaves the decision up to a mere 9,000-odd politicians? And what does it matter while the EU continues to function with its current set-up, with smaller countries given disproportionate influence to counter the dominance of those with larger populations? The Lisbon Treaty aimed to fix some of the more silly elements of this, but Maltese MEPs would continue to represent 80,000 Maltese compared to German MEPs representing 800,000 Germans - and in many areas the national veto would still have been maintained. Because part of the very point of the EU is to prevent the larger, stronger countries from dominating the continent. To ignore Ireland’s vote is therefore to go against the very essence of what the EU was set up to achieve.

(Please also note that I say all this as someone who argued repeatedly against holding referenda on the constitution and Lisbon treaty. Contradictory? Possibly - but if you hold votes you’d damned well better abide by the results. If not, the people will tend to get increasingly annoyed with you. It’s bad public relations as much as it’s bad democracy.)

In any case, the FT’s proposal for the next step is one of the least contentious I’ve seen so far, and (I hope) the most likely short-term outcome:

It would be more sensible to put the Lisbon treaty on ice for several years, and try to rescue those parts that are important, uncontentious, and capable of being carried out without treaty amendment… Europe does not need to turn the drama of the Irish No vote into a fully-fledged crisis of confidence. Everyone is fed up with negotiating new treaties. The priority should be to make the EU work better with practical policies… with its present rules and 27 member states. The Nice treaty is not ideal, but losing Lisbon should not be seen as the end of the world.

Calm-headedness is the way forward, for sure. But, as I say, the institutional problems are no longer the most pressing. What is needed now more than ever is an energetic campaign to get the people of Europe on board. Mere propaganda drives will not do it - they need to be brought into the debate and made to feel that their voices count. Because currently - with the European Parliament still largely toothless and the French, Dutch and Irish referendum results all more or less dismissed by the powers that be - you can hardly blame people for feeling that in the EU, the people count for nothing.

Popularity: 35% [?]

But considering it was largely the unconvincing zombie resurrection of the old Constitution anyway, it probably won’t be fully dead until someone’s cut its head off, put a stake through its heart, shot it repeatedly with silver bullets, smothered it in garlic-infused holy water, and tricked it into saying its name backwards three times.

Note to the EU: for Christ’s sake, can we please actually THINK about the next step this time? In detail? Preferably without the assumption that the people are too stupid to notice what you’re trying to pull on them (thus alienating them yet further from a project which seems increasingly separated from the needs of the European people) - and ideally with the people in full, genuine consultation at every stage.

The continent of Europe is far, far too diverse for such idealistic “one size fits all” projects to have any place in future EU planning - unless it’s the most basic statement of shared ideals and principles, along the lines of the American declaration of independence or the US constitution. Surely that much is obvious? Just like the American colonies - only far, far more so - Europe is not made up of one united people; we are many peoples with much shared history and culture, but with plenty that also divides us in terms of hopes, dreams and aspirations. The old Constitution, the Lisbon Treaty - hell, pretty much every EU and EEC treaty ever ratified - failed sufficiently to acknowledge this, and so failed to allay concerns. The longer this went on - especially as the EU’s power and presence seemed to continue to grow without so much as a by your leave from a democratic vote - the more annoyed, the more distrustful the people of Europe were bound to become.

The European project was started by political elites as a trade association with delusions of grandeur. It is now much, much more than that, with competence creep after competence creep. It is too unwieldy and unaccountable for the people of a continent with more than its fair experience of despotism and dictatorship not to start taking offence if it continues down the route of “what we say goes, and there’s not much you can do about it”.

I believe in the principles behind the European Union. I believe that the European Union has done far, far more good than harm both in Europe itself and worldwide. I believe that the European Union should continue. But not in the direction it is currently heading. Not with the attitude it has currently got.

The Lisbon Treaty is dead - don’t make the same mistake as last time of trying to dress up the corpse to make it look a bit different. Accept the fundamental failure of the treaty (and constitution), and accept that a far more radical solution is vital. A complete rethink. A deep, serious analysis of what the EU is and what it is for - and, most importantly, what the European people think it is for. This is something that hasn’t happened in decades, but that is absolutely essential if the EU is to avoid the further alienation of its citzens - citizens who, it should be noted, have not all been asked if they want such citizenship in the first place.

The EU has evolved gradually over the years based on vague dreams. It’s time for a reality check.

(BBC story on initial reports of the lost Irish referendum here)

Update: As the count’s not final yet (this post was written at around 15:30 UK time), keep an eye on the Irish Times’ Lisbon Treaty site, with real-time updates. The current tally is 46.3% yes, 53.7% no. Elsewhere I’ve seen turnouts estimated at 40-45% - not huge, but not bad for EU-related elections, and more than the last Irish rejection of a European treaty back in 2001, even if the margin of rejection seems to be smaller this time…

Popularity: 41% [?]

Three thoughts on all the Westminster excitement (for non-UK readers, the short version - the Shadow Home Secretary has resigned his seat as MP to force a by-election, which he has announced that he intends to fight on the single issue of the erosion of civil liberties in Britain, following the contentious and close vote to extend the legal period of detention without trial to 42 days):

1) No one (outside of blogland) really cares about a bunch of muslims being locked up (and no one outside of blogland thinks the risk of anyone other than terrorist suspects being affected is a serious one). Nor do they care much about ID cards and a national ID database, or about there being loads of CCTV cameras invading our privacy every second of the day with no discernible impact on crime rates (the “if you’ve done nothing wrong you’ve got nothing to hide” mentality still being massively dominant) when their house price is plummeting and/or it’s costing more to fill up at the pumps and do the weekly shop. The next election will almost certainly be fought over the economy, with Gordon Brown’s ten years as Chancellor being painted as ten years of luck that set us up for a crash by the Tories, and as ten years of stability showing Gordon Brown to be the best man to weather the economic storm by Labour. Civil Liberties are simply not an election-winning issue.

2) This is aimed at Cameron far more than Labour, and smacks of sour grapes that Davis hasn’t got the influence within the party to make this a central plank of the Tory attack strategy. He’s throwing his toys out of the pram, because two-time leadership loser Davis can’t hack that he’s not the boss. He almost certainly does believe (pretty much) everything he says on the civil liberties front - he’s got a decent enough track record, (though his support of 28 days does raise a few questions and contradictory positions on gay rights do cause some concern) - but it’s hard not to see this as anything more than another internal Tory party spat.

3) It is, however, moderately interesting that one of the most senior opposition frontbenchers sees parliament’s influence as so diminished that it’s easier to spread his message (pretty much literally) from a soapbox. Maybe someone should get the man a blog…

(Far more interesting, of course, is the result of the Irish Lisbon Treaty referendum - expected later today, and expected to be very close indeed. But will there be any irregularities that may allow a legal challenge from the losing side?)

Popularity: 39% [?]

Their only MP - Tory defector Bob Spink - voted with the government this evening to extend detention without trial to 42 days.

Way to fight for our age-old freedoms, hypocritical right-wing dudes!

Popularity: 38% [?]