The European Union Bill is one of those strange populist beasts announced by the Conservative Party in the run-up to last year’s general election, aimed squarely at keeping Britain’s eurosceptic right from abandoning them for the UK Independence Party (following David Cameron’s admission that he was not planning to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty after it had already entered into force, despite what many eurosceptics had hoped/expected).

In short, this new bill promises to force the government to hold a nationwide referendum on any future transfer of sovereignty from Britain to the European Union – trying to put a referendum lock in place so that no future government could sign the UK up to a treaty like Lisbon (an act that caused much outrage among eurosceptics – not least because all three main parties had promised a referendum on the old European Constitution, on which the Lisbon Treaty was heavily based).

Of course, as no parliament can bind another, all any future British government that wanted to avoid a referendum would have to do is revoke this Act – if the Bill passes into law.

On top of that, the current government has realised that to hold referenda on *every* transfer of power to the EU – no matter how small – would be cripplingly expensive and inefficient, and so has opted to leave it up to ministerial discretion whether or not a transfer of power from Westminster to Brussels is significant enough to warrant a referendum. This, unsurprisingly, has greatly angered many hard eurosceptics.

Cunning Cameron

Yet despite the protestations of the eurosceptics, from British perspective this is actually a very canny move on the part of the current government – because if passed, it will instantly give the UK a far, far stronger bargaining position in the European Council, as well as throughout the rest of the EU as a whole.

The British government doesn’t like something being proposed? Whereas now the Prime Minister risks annoying and alienating his European allies by threatening to use his veto, he would now simply say “Sorry, chaps – we’ll never get it past the public in a referendum.”

By this simple piece of legislation, David Cameron will have effectively managed to have secured Britain’s continued ability to veto any EU legislation she doesn’t like – even in areas governed by Qualified Majority Voting – by creating a new line in the sand that the government can always profess to be out of their hands, thus (in theory) helping to maintain diplomatic relations in a way that would simply be impossible by the use of a ministerially-decided veto.

You’ve got to admire it – it’s very cunning. If just a little bit cowardly…

Constitutional correctives

A good overview of the first reading debate in the House of Commons (which took place on 11th January) can be found over at Connor’s place, with plenty of focus on the proposed amendments by the veteran Tory eurosceptic MP, Bill Cash.

These amendments were – thankfully – soundly defeated, with just 39 MPs voting in favour. As such, they have already become little more than a minor footnote in British/EU political history – but considering Cash’s prominence in eurosceptic circles (he led the Maastricht rebellion against John Major for starters), they can serve as interesting insights into just why (some) eurosceptics are so worried about the EU.

Bill Cash vs the British Constitution

Connor summarises the intentions of Cash’s amendments quite neatly – though his post is worth reading in full for some interesting, thoughtful observations:

these amendments were aimed at creating a version of parliamentary sovereignty that could not be interpreted or challenged by the courts (or, perhaps more accurately, to entrench the current, not entirely strictly defined, version of parliamentary sovereignty beyond the reach of the courts). Parliamentary sovereignty is the UK legal doctrine that parliament has supreme legislative authority, and its Acts cannot be challenged by the courts – it can do whatever it wants, except limit the power of its successors (i.e. the next elected parliament(s)).

Nice summary – but I have one (important) quibble:

“perhaps more accurately, to entrench the current, not entirely strictly defined, version of parliamentary sovereignty”

It was sadly not even that.

What Cash was trying to do with his amendments was to revert the idea of parliamentary sovereignty back to one (highly debatable) interpretation of the concept that hasn’t been (even arguably) valid since Edwardian times.

By his own admission, he wanted to push the clock back 40 years to before the passing of the 1972 European Communities Act, through which the UK joined the EEC and accepted the supremacy of European Law (in some areas) over British law.

In reality, he was trying to roll back the clock on the British constitution by the best part of a century – to before the creation of NATO, the WTO, the Council of Europe the UN and more, all of which have (to a greater or lesser extent) curtailed the ability of the House of Commons to do what it likes.

What is Parliament?

Cash also – seemingly deliberately – fails to note that Parliament is not just the House of Commons, as he repeatedly appeared to be stating throughout his speech: It is *both* Houses of Parliament, the Lords as well as the Commons.

In his amendment, Cash appeared to want to establish, by statute, not merely the supremacy of Parliament, but the supremacy of the House of Commons.

By repeatedly attacking “radical judges” and “Common Law interpretations” of the status of parliamentary legislation, he was effectively arguing that nobody is entitled to overrule the House of Commons but the House of Commons itself. (We’ve already gone a long way down that route thanks to the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949, which both enable the Commons to overrule the objections of the Lords in certain circumstances – Cash’s proposed amendments, however, would have set a precedent that could easily have gone even further.)

In this, at least, Cash comes closer to the mark than many eurosceptics, who frequently attack “European judges” for forcing Britain to comply with internationally-agreed laws while seemingly not realising that British judges can do much the same thing. Yet you rarely hear anyone openly (as Cash did repeatedly throughout his speech) attack the British judiciary’s right to interpret British law – which is, after all, the whole point of the judiciary…

(As a related aside: It never ceases to amaze me how British critics of non-British systems of law, regulation and government so often fail to follow the age-old maxim of “put your own house in order“. Yes, European Commissioners are unelected – but neither are British Cabinet ministers; yes, many EU laws and regulations enter into force without being scrutinised by elected officials – but so do British statutory instruments; yes, the EU’s accounts have repeatedly failed to be signed off – but neither would the UK’s accounts if they were subject to the same criteria to be passed; yes, it’s arguable that too many powers have been centralised in Brussels – but too many have also been centralised in Westminster; yes, the EU has lots of bureaucrats – but the UK has many, many times more, etc. etc. ad infinitum… Unless your own actions are blatantly better, don’t be surprised if those you are criticising don’t take you too seriously – cf. China’s response to American criticisms of the imprisonment of political prisoners while Guantanamo Bay continues to exist, or Russia’s failure to pay attention to British criticisms of the 2008 invasion of Georgia after Britain’s role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.)

What is Parliamentary Sovereignty?

Cash also singularly failed to realise that there’s a strong distinction between the idea of *Parliament* being sovereign (as he argues passionately should be the case), and the *actual* case, which is that sovereignty lies with “the Crown in Parliament”.

A seemingly subtle distinction, this, but a vitally important one: Parliament has *never* been sovereign – sovereignty *still* lies with the monarch, even after the Civil War, Glorious Revolution, Bill of Rights, etc. etc..

This is most obviously, if largely symbolically, expressed through the fact that the Queen still has to give the royal assent to all Acts of Parliament before they can become law – Parliament lacks the power to create new laws without the approval of the Sovereign.

This is also strongly indicated in the law courts – if the state prosecutes someone, it is expressed as “Crown vs”, not “Parliament vs”.

Likewise, the government is always “Her Majesty’s government”, and the Prime Minister is still not elected – either by the people or by Parliament – but is *appointed* by the monarch in his/her role as Sovereign. (The last British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, was frequently attacked by the Tory right for being “unelected”, having succeeded Tony Blair to the post midway through a parliamentary term. But this is not a rare event – Major, Callaghan, Douglas-Home, Macmillan, Eden, Churchill, Chamberlain, Baldwin (twice), Lloyd-George, Asquith and Balfour all became Prime Minister without a general election having been held – and that’s just the 20th century!)

Of course, the monarch no longer directly exercises most of the crown’s executive/sovereign powers, and has – for a good three centuries – mostly allowed the government of the day to run things as it sees fit. It could be argued – and many have – that the monarch’s powers are now merely symbolic, and that in practice the Sovereign is no longer sovereign, having ceded those powers to his/her representatives in Parliament.

But until that convention is actively, openly challenged (as Cash’s amendments arguably sought to do), by the wonderfully obtuse rules of the British constitution nothing has *technically* changed, even though many things may well have changed in practice. And when it comes to points of law, technicalities can often be vital. A new constitutional convention may well have been set by the crown’s failure to veto Parliament since 1708, stating that the right of veto no longer exists (thus meaning that the crown is no longer Sovereign) – but until a monarch tries (and fails) to veto parliament again, we simply won’t know.

Cash the constitutional radical

Needless to say, both of these (significant) misinterpretations of the way the UK works threatened some fundamental alterations of the British constitution when the person who believes those misinterpretations is in a position to attempt to introduce amendments to British statute law – and is eloquent enough to sound convincing.

In other words, while professing to be a constitutional conservative – and quite probably even believing that he is to his core – Bill Cash’s proposed amendments were in fact infinitely more radical than pretty much everything he was proposing them to prevent.

And that’s before we even start on his truly dangerous attempt to exempt Acts of Parliament from judicial scrutiny/interpretation – effectively putting Parliament in the position enjoyed by the monarch prior to the Civil War (a state of legal immunity/infallibility which was in large part responsible for Parliament’s revolt in the first place – the Commons arguing that *no one* should be above the Law, including the Commons themselves).

Add that attack on long-established legal principles on top, and Cash’s amendments would have amounted to one of the most radical revolutions the British constitution has ever seen. Certainly far, far more radical than anything contained in Lisbon *or* Maastricht.

Parliamentary absolutism

Cash was, in short, arguing for the reintroduction of *absolute* sovereignty – albeit absolutism based upon an elected House of Commons rather than an inherited crown.

The reason? Cash holds with what I like to think of as the *nice* (mis)interpretation of the British constitution – the interpretation held by most of the better-educated eurosceptics I’ve talked to. Students of history or political theory will recognise it as the theory of the Social Contract.

This view holds that the people of Britain are ultimately sovereign, having voluntarily ceded power first to the monarchy, then (following the Civil War and, especially, the Glorious Revolution) to Parliament. It holds that today, the people’s election of MPs to parliament shows their willingness to continue to cede power to Parliament, which exercises the people’s sovereign will on their behalf.

Sound familiar? Yep – it’s extremely close to Cash’s interpretation of “the Crown in Parliament”, which holds that the crown has ceded power to Parliament, which exercises the monarch’s sovereign will on their behalf – only this sees sovereignty passing to Parliament from the bottom up, rather from the top down.

Where do the people fit in?

What is particularly interesting is that, despite professing to be pushing for parliamentary sovereignty to be entrenched, at no point did Cash call for the concept that the people are sovereign to be entrenched – despite using the Social Contract theories about the people’s sovereignty to justify his claims about the sovereignty of Parliament. Cash was not interested in returning power to the people, but to the politicians.

Proponents of the Social Contract theory of the British constitution frequently – while being extremely well intentioned – fail to acknowledge that the Social Contract is not, nor ever has been, an actual document. Nor did the idea of the Social Contract precede the supposed initial transfer of power from the people to the monarch – nor, indeed, from the monarch to an elected government.

The Social Contract was, and always has been, an attempt to justify rebellion, or the right to revolt. Its history tells you all you need to know: First developed by Grotius in the Dutch Republic in the early 17th century following the Dutch Revolt, then developed by Hobbes (partially accidentally) following the British Civil Wars, then by Locke in Britain following the Glorious Revolution, then by Rousseau during the rising discontent of the absolutist reign of Louis XV of France – with Rousseau’s ideas and justifications later being adopted by the leaders of the French Revolution who brought Louis to the guillotine.

The Social Contract has never been the basis of government – as much as its proponents have always wanted it to – it has only ever been an excuse for usurpation.

What is sovereignty?

What *actually* grants the right to govern is simple and obvious: It is the ability to govern. That’s it.

I could publish a statement tomorrow declaring myself to be Emperor of Europe, announcing a broad range of new laws, and demand tribute from every single person in the EU. Would it mean anything? No – because I don’t have the ability to enforce those laws or the payment of that tribute.

Likewise, does an assertion that Parliament, rather than the EU, is sovereign change anything if Parliament is unable to alter EU legislation?

And here lies the rub: The sole purpose of EU legislation and regulations is intended to be to harmonise systems across the EU. If Britain were to assert her independence by rejecting more and more aspects of EU legislation and regulations, Britain would increasingly become out of synch with the rest of the EU.

A few opt-outs? Not a problem – and Britain already has quite a few (most notably on joining the Euro). But a systematic rejection of any further harmonisation – as the hardline Tory eurosceptics want? This would effectively be a declaration that Britain will no longer be participating in the EU.

Because as much as Britain may be able to claim sovereignty within her own borders, to assert her will in France, in Slovakia, in Denmark, in Finland, or in Spain would be to claim sovereignty over *those* countries as well.

By threatening to reject any further EU integration in the name of British sovereignty while still professing a desire to remain a member of the EU, Britain would be restricting the sovereignty of every other EU member state – much as the UK is *already* restricting the sovereignty of Ireland by refusing to join the Schengen Zone (which in turn has prevented Ireland from joining due to the British ultimatum: Schengen or the Common Travel Zone?)

Thanks to the very nature of the EU’s aim of harmonising European economies, a pick and mix approach such as that proposed by the (non-withdrawalist) proponents of the European Union Bill is going to be extremely difficult to put into place – and I say that as a long-time advocate of a multi-tier EU.

You cannot maintain the Common Market without common rules and regulations – which apply to all. No one should be above the law.

Does this mean that Britain’s sovereignty has been limited by EU membership?

Yes and no. Let’s use the idea of the Social Contract to explain why, as so many who argue for more British sovereignty seem to like it so much:

According to Social Contract theory, way back in the mists of time, the people ceded their sovereignty to the monarchy because they realised the advantages the protection of the monarch could bring – this despite the downsides of now having to pay tribute, serve in the militia and so on.

Later on, that sovereignty passed to Parliament because Parliament could bring even more benefits than the monarch – better laws, better regulations. More restrictions again – taxes have gone up repeatedly since Parliament took charge – but the advantages were seen to outweigh the disadvantages. If they weren’t, then the British parliamentary system of democracy would not have survived, and we would have either reverted to monarchy – as we did in 1660 after the failure of the Cromwellian republic – or come up with something better.

Indeed, the whole point of democracy is that we are *constantly* trying to come up with something better – that’s why we have new minor laws and regulations enacted every day, and change governments every few years to allow new ideas to be tested.

Now, in turn, the governments of nation states (to whom the people have ceded their sovereignty) have come to see the advantages of, in turn, passing some of *their* sovereignty to even higher bodies, which can transcend national boundaries to provide greater advantages to all. This is not just apparent in the EU, but also in NATO, the UN, the WTO, the African Union, ASEAN (in South East Asia), CARICOM (in the Caribbean), SICA (in Central America), CCASG (in the Middle East), EAEC (in Central Asia), SAARC (in South Asia), UNASUR (in Latin America), and countless other bodies – even the federal United States of America itself counts, albeit a couple of centuries earlier.

Yes – I’m adopting a teleological approach *and* the Social Contract (both of which I despise as ahistorical nonsense) to argue that passing sovereignty to a level above the national is a natural next step in society’s evolution.

More seriously, I’m arguing that the advantages of EU membership far outweigh the advantages of withdrawal. That, while we could leave – just as we could go back to absolute monarchy – it is not in our interests to do so.

British sovereignty and the EU

But – and this is crucial – Britain retains the right to reclaim the sovereignty she has pooled at EU (or UN, or NATO, or WTO, or whatever) level any time she likes. As former Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind succinctly put it in the European Union Bill debate:

“is not the ultimate test of the sovereignty of Parliament whether Parliament can amend the law, either on domestic matters, when the courts have interpreted the law to our dissatisfaction, or in relation to our international treaty obligations, from which Parliament should always have the right to withdraw if it so chooses? Given those circumstances, the sovereignty of Parliament ultimately remains available to us.”

If Britain doesn’t like it, she’s still free to leave any and all of her international treaty obligations. She’s also free to try to persuade other countries to leave with her, or to set up her own alternatives (as she did with EFTA back in 1960, having missed the boat with the initial launch of the EEC).

Britain’s ability reclaim *total* independence and sovereignty is not constrained in the slightest by EU membership, or by membership of NATO, the UN, the WTO, or whatever. We can go the way of North Korea any time we like – principles of self-determination are firmly entrenched in international law.

But what Britain *can’t* do is guarantee that *other* countries will be happy to play along in the way that Britain wants if Britain decides to throw her toys out of the pram.

What Britain also can’t do is expect other countries to always agree with her. We can’t be members of just the kind of European Union that we would like it to be – we can only be members of the EU that we’ve got (created by compromise and slow evolution over 60-odd years of negotiations between more than two dozen countries), while continuing to try to convince everyone else that our ideas are worth adopting.

There is no possibility – no matter how much many may want it – of Britain simply being a member of the Common Market without any of the EU rules and regulations that are now an intrinsic part of that Common Market. This is no more possible than me owning a pet Dodo. We missed our chance.

And if she knows what’s good for her, what Britain *shouldn’t* do – within the current EU set-up – is attempt to impose her will on other EU member states through the threat of veto or referendum.

Use vetoes and referendums to protect her own interests? By all means. But not to force others to comply with her wishes in ways that will negatively affect them.

If Britain wants to remain a member of the EU but in doing so prevents further European integration from happening, she will be destroying the EU – forcing it to stay as something Britain wants, not what other EU member states may want. And this not by negotiation, but by an obstinate, childish refusal to either compromise or have the decency to leave and let others get on with it. It’d be the diplomatic equivalent of puncturing the football the other children are playing with because no one wants to play cricket with you.

In short, my fear is that in attempting to assert British sovereignty, the European Union Bill threatens to undermine the freedoms – the sovereignty – of other EU member states, in the process building resentment against Britain that would only serve to undermine British interests.

And here’s a nice report from Journalism.co.uk.

I may well be posting some more detailed thoughts here at some point soon – no doubt musing on the concept of a political institution giving journalists money for doing their job in a manner the politicians like (or, indeed, of giving journalists any money whatsoever), the state of political blogging, journalism and EU coverage in general.

For now, however, here’s an updated version of the acceptance speech that I decided on the day that I wouldn’t use (mostly due to not having had the time to formulate it in my head after hearing why I’d won…)

—-

Although I’m flattered, I genuinely *don’t* think that my post on the percentage of laws that come from the EU [which won me the 5,000 euro prize] deserves to be described as “extraordinary research work”.

“Informative and interesting”, perhaps. “Understandable and convincing”, I hope. Written “with a sense of humour”, I’d like to think. But “extraordinary research work”?

The research that went into that post was less than I would have done on an undergraduate history essay while at university. It was just a tiny fraction of what I would have needed to do for a postgraduate level essay. Compared to a PhD or a book? It’s nothing.

I’ve not done a PhD, but do have an MA in history, have written two books and edited several others – I don’t know what “extraordinary” research is, but I’ve got a good idea of what counts as *proper* research.

You want proper research on the percentage of laws that comes from the EU? Check out this 59-page PDF research paper from the (politically independent) House of Commons Library – amusingly published the very same day that I was in Brussels being handed an award for my supposedly “extraordinary research work” on the very same topic. My post looks like *nothing* in comparison (though – sweetly – it is referenced in the footnotes).

I did my MA before the internet had really taken off as a research tool, when to find things out one had to sit in libraries for weeks, months on end, inhaling the dust of generations of pasty students. When to get to the *really* interesting stuff, one had to hop on a train – perhaps even a plane – to go to the documents, rather than have the documents delivered to you, direct to your laptop. When to uncover something new, one might have to spend years studying a new language to enable the decryption of a document that no one had read for hundreds of years.

We don’t realise how lucky we are. Thanks to the internet, we’re utterly spoiled.

Had I been working ten years ago, that post would have taken me a good couple of days – perhaps as long as a week – to dig out all the information. As it was, it took me a little over an hour and a half.

That’s not “extraordinary research work”. That’s being aware of this thing called Google, and understanding how to use the web to uncover information. Something that *every* journalist or blogger worthy of the name should know how to do.

I’ll accept that I may have compiled that information in an accessible way – hell, I’ve been a professional writer/editor for over a decade so I bloody ought to be able to – but research? That was nothing. And if anyone thinks it is, that says more about the dire state of the general, accepted standard of research that goes into articles about the EU (and most other subjects these days) than it does about my own abilities.

I’m flattered, but let’s be realistic here…

—

For those who are interested, a report and some interviews with yours truly – I like the last the best:

Journalists following the dodo?: Interview w/Nosemonkey
Uploaded by tuulitoivanen. – Up-to-the minute news videos.

After nearly ten years of putting up with me blathering on about it, and just as I’ve started to find the whole thing more tedious than ever, the missus is starting to get interested in the EU. (Poor woman…)

As such – and further inspired by Eurogoblin’s excellent recent post on the history of European integration (very similar to something I’ve been meaning to write for years but have never got around to), Ralf Grahn’s follow-up, suggesting some of his favourite Italian books about the concept, and the fact that numerous people (not just the wife) have asked me to recommend books over the years – I reckoned it was finally time to get started on compiling a list of some of the best books on the EU and Europe, both for those starting out in EU affairs for the first time and those who want to learn more.

So, this is the first in what I hope will become a new series in which I’ll start compiling an EU reading list. But I won’t confine myself just to dusty political / historical text books. Instead, I’ll also explore some of the best magazines, articles, websites, blog posts, films, documentaries, novels, paintings, sculptures, music and whatever else springs to mind that can aid understanding both of the European Union as political project, and the concept of Europe itself. Hell, the strapline of this blog has been “in search of a European identity” for years now, and I’ve still not quite got around to exploring the concept.

Added advantage? It can help sate my bibliophilia, and give purpose to my reading / re-reading.

Suggestions for inclusions welcome – though I’ve got enough chunky tomes piled high in the flat to keep me going for a fair while yet…

Note to publishers: Yes, I will gladly accept review copies. But don’t expect a favourable review, just because you bung me a freebie. I’ve reviewed books professionally for several years now, including for the Times Literary Supplement, and have my (modest) reputation to consider… If you have a book (or DVD, or whatever) you think should be included in the list, get in touch via info {at} jcm.org.uk

So, the EU is apparently planning to make it illegal to sell eggs by the dozen – or indeed to sell any products at all by number, instead forcing producers and retailers alike to sell only by weight.

“Utter madness!”, you cry. “How could anyone possibly be so stupid? It’s ridiculous!”

Yes. Yes it is ridiculous.

The story started (as far as I can tell*) in the europhobic Mail (over 1000 outraged comments and counting), before spreading to the usual suspects of the anti-EU blogs and the knee-jerk eurosceptics of Tory blogland – the latter starting with the classic cliche “You really couldn’t make it up”.

By the end of Monday, 28th June, the story had even spread to the BBC where, as of 10pm, it was ranking as the second most popular story on the site.

Shamefully for the BBC – supposedly a bastion of responsible journalism – this is a story made up entirely of quotes from supposed experts who evidently don’t know what they’re talking about, with “A UK minister” and an unnamed spokesman from the UK Federation of Bakers being added to the anonymous source that started the hysteria rolling, the “FSA spokeswoman” quoted by the Mail, who says:

“This proposal would disallow selling by numbers. Retailers would not be allowed to put “Six eggs” on the front of the box. If it was a bag of rolls, it would say “500g” instead of six rolls.”

This statement is utterly false.

Indeed, all you have to do is read the proposed regulation itself (warning: PDF) – which makes precisely no mention of outlawing selling by numbers.

In fact, quite the opposite – Annex VIII makes explicit exceptions for foods “which are sold by number”. (This only slightly amended in the final version, despite the apparent claim in the BBC article that such a get-out had been rejected.)

John Band – formerly something of an expert in the food industry in the real world – has already successfully demolished all claims that selling by numbers will be outlawed. He also helpfully points out that

eggs are already graded by weight – e.g. a ‘large’ egg weighs 63-73g – which requires them to be weighed

.

Of course, the *existing* legislation requiring eggs to be weighed is just one part of a vast array of rules and regulations that cover food packaging – none of which, it would appear, most of the supposed experts quoted in all the media coverage of this non-story know anything about.

Indeed, back in April, Compassion in World Farming was complaining about the very same proposed bit of legislation – because it threatens to *reduce* the amount of information currently required (under rules brought in a decade ago).

And please note, from that September 2000 article, this:

“To date, it has been mandatory to put the following indications on packs of eggs: the name of the trader, the number of the packing centre, quality and weight grading, number of eggs, date of minimum durability and appropriate storage, recommendations, particulars as to refrigeration/preservation in the case of grade B eggs (refrigerated or preserved eggs), packing date for eggs of other grades and for imported eggs”

Where this has been turned by the Mail and the rest of the anti-EU crowd into a story about Brussels bureaucrats’ mad over-regulation, the truth of the matter is *precisely* the opposite – these new rules are instead entirely and explicitly about deregulation, as anyone who read the original document would be able to see in a second.

The aim is not to force food producers to include *more* unnecessary information on their packaging, but to remove the existing requirements to include insane levels of detail about (for example) farming conditions, nutritional information, etc. etc. etc. As the proposal itself states:

“The emphasis is on simplifying the regulatory process, thus reducing the administrative burden and improving the competitiveness of the European food industry”

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why you should never believe anything you read in the British press. All it takes is one hack staff writer on a paper with a political agenda to get something wrong, and soon everyone else is following the story up – not by going back to the supposed source of the outcry, but by phoning various rent-a-quotes and asking them their opinion on something they almost certainly know even less about than the journalist who started the whole thing rolling:

Hack journalist: “Hi, it’s Christopher Leake from the Mail on Sunday. What do you think about the EU’s proposals to ban selling eggs by the dozen?”

Anonymous spokesperson: “Eh? They’re proposing what? That’s ridiculous! [Insert ill-informed rant]”

Hack journalist following up initial bullshit story: “Hi, it’s Laurence Peter from the BBC. I just wanted to get your opinion on this story about the EU banning the selling of eggs by the dozen.”

First MEP to pick up the phone (in this case Glenis Willmott): “Oh, the BBC? Right… Erm… (Shit! I can’t let on that I don’t know what I’m talking about… Erm…) Well… [Insert off-the-cuff vaguely plausible explanation of why legislation that doesn't actually exist might possibly be considered sensible, plus vague assurances that there are normally get-outs for this sort of thing, thus lending even more credence to the story even though there's nothing actually going on.]“

And thus another Euromyth is born. It’s all strangely familiar – once again, EU deregulation is presented as over-regulation thanks to the seemingly wilful ignorance of the anti-EU press, and the poor journalistic standards of the rest of the media. Even though this story is utter bollocks, expect it to be trotted out for years to come. Just like with those straight bananas…

UPDATE: A categorical rejection of this story from the European Parliament itself:

The European Parliament’s rapporteur on the food labelling regulation, Renate Sommer (Germany, EPP group) responded today: “In principle, there will be no changes to selling foods by quantity. Selling eggs by the dozen, for example, will not be banned”.

UPDATE – 1st July: The Food Standards Agency has responded to my request for a clarification of their position, following their anonymous spokesperson’s misleading quote in the Mail.

UPDATE 2: Just came across this, via the Scottish Executive. A handy summary of existing EU egg labelling regulations. Please note:

“Minimum standards of quality and weight grading…

“The regulations apply to hen eggs marketed within the Community. They do not apply to eggs sold direct by producers to the final consumer at the farm gate, in local public markets (with the exception of auction markets), or by door-to-door selling. “

Please note also that there is already a requirement to own “a machine for grading the eggs by weight”.

There. Is that categorical enough for you?

* I very much doubt the story actually originated at the Mail – they don’t have the resources to trawl through reams of EU legislation looking for things that they can turn into stories, because the vast majority of EU legislation is deeply boring and innocuous. I’d imagine that they got the tip-off from some anti-EU campaign group, think tank or party, probably in the form of a press release, and that the Mail also didn’t bother to look at the original text but just leapt straight onto the phones looking for quotes to pad the story out a bit. But I don’t know this for certain and so – unlike the Mail – I’m not going to state it as fact.

I’m on the other side of the world at the moment, with limited web/computer access (writing this on a combination of a mobile phone and a computer with a Japanese keyboard and operating system, so likely to be more typo-ridden and less coherent than I’d like), hence even less from me than usual. But this deserves to be noted:

“Europe is at a crossroads,” Merkel declared to the German parliament in Berlin today. “This is about no more and no less than the future of Europe and about Germany’s future in Europe.”

…In return for leading the rescue attempt, Germany is demanding new rules and penalties for the 16 countries taking part in the single currency.

The 16 could not keep muddling along turning a blind eye to the fudges and fiddling of fiscal miscreants, she argued. Instead, persistent breakers of the euro rules could be “suspended” from the single currency, fiscal sinners would have to forfeit their voting rights in EU councils, and would lose EU subsidies.

If there was no alternative, a country using the euro should be allowed to go insolvent, meaning hundreds of billions in losses for international banks and other creditors. This was seen as a warning to the markets betting on a country’s sovereign debt default, while confident that investors would recoup their money from European and German bailouts.

As a last resort, Wolfgang Schaeuble, the German finance minister, is proposing that a persistent rule-breaker be expelled from the eurozone, though not from the EU. Olli Rehn, the European commissioner for monetary affairs, is to unveil proposals next week for new rules that would give Brussels the power to scrutinise national budgets, withhold EU funds, and impose penalties in the eurozone.

The Germans support and oppose some of Rehn’s measures, but are against vesting the powers in the European Commission. Merkel’s proposals are radical and would require renegotiating the Lisbon Treaty defining how the EU works.

Many have argued that European monetary union was never going to work without far tighter centralised controls. They may now be about to be proved right.

For advocates of the euro (and I remain unconvinced one way or the other, seeing it as nice in theory but problematic in practice, as well as relatively convinced that it was a) introduced too soon, and b) too lax on entry criteria), this is a depressing time, with little space for optimism.

For advocates of the EU, it is almost as tricky to see anything positive here. Yes, this crisis may finally underscore something I’ve been saying for years – not all EU member states are equal, so it’s about time we stopped pretending that they are and start considering how to make a multi-tier EU function effectively. But after the decade-long squabbles that led to the final ratification of the Lisbon Treaty six months ago, I can’t see anyone in Europe being keen to start a fresh round of EU reform talks.

At the same time, we are likely to start to see some big shifts in the attitudes of two of the EU’s most important member states, Britain and Germany.

Britain, because of today’s general election, which may see the eurosceptic Conservative party gain power (and, more to the point, the strongly anti-EU William Hague become UK Foreign Secretary), with a number of explicit promises to scale back Britain’s already unenthusiastic involvement in EU affairs.

Germany, because of the understandable resentment from German taxpayers at having to bail out the rest of the EU combining with frustration at being the single biggest contributor to the EU project while at the same time having the smallest amount of influence (in proportion to both economic might and population).

Plus – an important point, this, as so much of Germany’s foreign policy over the last 60 years has been due to residual feelings of guilt and shame over World War 2 – we are entering the decade in which the last WWII veterans are going to start dying off. There is only so long that Europe’s largest economy was going to allow itself to be bossed around based on a geopolitical version of the sins of the father.

The decision of some parts of the Greek press to explicitly bring up the Nazi occupation of that country as a reason why Germany effectively owed them a bailout has only further underlined a feeling that has understandably been rising in Germany for some time now – “the Second World War had nothing to do with me – I wasn’t even born then, so why the hell should I be punished for what my grandparents’ generation did?”

To (only slightly) oversimplify, for the first 50 years of its existence, the EU has been shaped primarily by France and French intersts (note that it was a former French president, not a former German chancellor, who drew up the EU Constitutionh note that the Treaty of Rome contains many France-only clausesh note that France still receives a disproportionate amount of Common Agricultural Policy funds). Germany has tended to stand dutifully in the background, mostly nodding in (sometimes reluctant) agreement, due to a combination of war guilt and genuine enthusiasm for the ideas of European integration.

Germany has invested more in the EU – both financially and philosophically – than any other member state, yet has hed comparatively little say in how the project has evolved.

With the Greek crisis, this could all be about to change. Germany has long had a moral right to have a greater say in EU affairs – this may be the moment when she starts to assert that right.

I, for one, am hopeful that this could prove very positive indeed. Not in the short-term, perhaps – but in the medium-term this may, with any luck, see the EU reconstituted on more sensible grounds, where weak economies are no longer able to drag down the strong, and where rather than progressing at the pace of the weakest or most reluctant member state, those that are stronger or more enthusiastic for further integration can finally be allowed to truly flourish.

Update: The Centre for European Reform seems to be thinking on similar lines about the Germany-EU relationship… Key quote:

It is hard to see how the EU could make progress on anything – whether it is services market liberalisation or a common energy policy – with a reluctant, grumpy and inward-looking Germany at its heart.

It is time for some damage limitation.

Hell, I’m supposedly a leading EU politics blogger, and I’ve barely discussed what’s been going on in the midst of one of the biggest crises I can remember the EU facing as the various member states try and work out what the hell to do about the Greek economic collapse.

I thought it was just me being lazy, but according to The Week in Bloggingportal roundup of Euroblogs, not a single one of the 555+ EU-related blogs that Bloggingportal aggregates could be bothered to discuss last week’s EU summit.

Of course, that’s not entirely true. Good old Fistful (one of the few EU-focussed blogs to have been going longer than this place) has been covering the Greek crisis in depth for ages now, and had another lengthy post on Friday looking at how the Greek situation could impact on the Eurozone. Yet even Fistful found little room to discuss the machinations at the EU Summit, preferring to focus more specifically on the economics.

And herein lies the problem. Now that the Lisbon Treaty has been passed, the major areas of EU-related debate have shifted – as they often do, when there aren’t treaty negotiations going on – to the economy.

The only trouble is that there have been treaty negotiations going on for so long now (pretty much continually since the late 90s, with first the Nice negotiations, then the discussions that led to the EU Constitution, then the run-up to Lisbon, and Lisbon again after the first Irish referendum) that most EU-watchers (especially us amateur ones) have become more used to constitutional issues than economic ones. We’ve all been looking at the big *political* picture, not the economic one. (And – let’s face it – most people who are interested in politics aren’t very good when it comes to economics… How many newspaper columnists outside the Business section would you trust on economic analysis? How many politicians not involved with a Finance ministry, for that matter?)

But the EU is, at its most fundamental, an economic body. Yes, you can dispute precisely how it goes about it (and you may be one of the conspiracy theorists who sees the economic aspects of the EU as being a mere smokescreen for the political project), but at the EU’s heart lie vastly ambitious economic projects, from the Common Market and Common Agricultural and Common Fisheries Policies through the Eurozone, Regional Development Funds, even the attempts to cut mobile phone tarrifs and promote the free movement of people. All of these are economic at heart – and even if you are one of the conspiracy theorists, they are economic as much as they are political.

But understanding continental-scale economics takes levels of knowledge, reading, education and understanding that most political commentators simply don’t have . Hell, the very fact that there’s still no consensus on the benefits of the euro shows that – and most people who comment on the euro, even those who have the economic background to know roughly what they’re talking about – don’t have the knowledge of the individual economies and polities that make up the Eurozone that would really be necessary to provide a proper analysis (though Fistful and the Economist’s Charlemagne have good stabs at coming close on occasion).

And so what we mostly do, us EU political commentators, is we try to discuss what’s going on in the EU in terms that are easier to understand. We try to treat the EU as if it’s a country, and EU politics as if its the politics of any old nation state. We try to create conflict – as over the European Council Presidency appointment – and we try to create factions – be they pro-EU vs anti-EU (if you’re in Britain), neo-liberal vs socialist, Anglo-Saxon vs whatever you happen to identify with that’s not Anglo-Saxon (if you’re outside Britain), or whatever.

Part of the reason for this is a desperate attempt to get people interested in a subject that interests us – because so few people care tuppence for EU affairs. But it’s also because we understand conflict. We can explain conflict. We can understand personal, selfish reasons for particular policy positions. They make sense to us, looking at the EU from the perspective of people only used to national-level politics. We don’t all understand economics or interntaional law, and none of us understands the politics of all the individual member states. And so we focus on those things we do understand, and read those into everything the EU does.

But the EU is not a single, harmonious entity, and cannot be simply explained. It is made up of 27 individual member state governments (who all still have to agree unanimously on all major decisions, despite being made up of political parties of all stripes), plus the European Parliament, plus the commission, plus the numerous other bodies that hang around the fringes.

If “the EU” decides to act, it is never for just *one* reason. It is for *at least* 27 different reasons. Unlike with national politics, where policy decisions can often be explained in just a sentence, every EU decision is vastly complex – with large chunks of the decision-making process having taken place behind closed doors in languages that you don’t understand.

In short, we can never hope to understand the EU. It takes more economic knowledge than most of us have. It takes more knowledge of the politics and economics of the individual member states than anyone had. It takes an understanding of all the insane confusion of EU rules, reglations, laws and treaties that can only be gained with a lifetime’s study of international and EU law. It takes insider knowledge of diplomatic discussions and deals that will probably never be revealed.

All we can do is guess – and our guesses will *always* be based on only a tiny, tiny fraction of the knowledge that is needed to get close to the truth. In fact, I can state with utmost certainty that anyone who tells you that they understand the EU is either lying or deluded. No one understands the EU. It is simply too big, too complex, too secretive, too multidisciplinary, too multilingual, too innovative, too unique for anyone to be able to grasp it in its entirety.

This, of course, makes it fascinating to those of use who like a challenge. But it also makes it utterly daunting. To try to explain the EU is like trying to climb Mount Everest. Without oxygen. Or ropes. Or protective clothing. With both arms tied behind your back. At night. In a blizzard.

Little wonder, then, that sometimes the enthusiasm leaves us. Some will quit for good. Others will keep bashing away at it – perhaps deluding themselves that one day they will get it. I intend to keep bashing away at it – but after seven years of an uphill struggle, for now I need a breather while I scout out a new route. This economic crisis in Greece and its reveberations throughout the continent has shown that there are some major gaps in my knowledge of the EU, and I need to fill these in as best I can before I continue.

Back soon, I hope. But in the meantime just remember that *no one* knows what’s going on. Keep that in mind whenever you read anything about the EU and you should do just fine.

Two interesting developments this week have prompted some ponderings…

1) The European Court of Human Rights has ruled the UK police’s stop and search tactics illegal

This creates a serious dilemma for anti-EU libertarians, as shown by the response of anti-EU blogger 13th Spitfire in the (fascinating) comments thread on law blog Charon QC’s coverage of the ruling (via the rather good Jack of Kent). As 13th Spitfire puts it:

Though I sincerely disagree with the Stop and Search laws, it just leaves a very bad taste in the mouth that we have to be told by a foreign court that our domestic proceedings, and by extension our parliament, is illegal.

2) The EU-withdrawalist UK Independence Party has announced that it favours a ban on the burka. This despite UKIP long having portrayed itself as a more or less libertarian party.

Libertarians are a hugely over-represented breed among the political blogosphere. There’s hundreds of them, on both sides of the Atlantic – but in real world politics there’s barely a handful, and they rarely even retain their deposits in elections. They are, however, so vocal on the web that few online political discussions can pass without a libertarian of some stripe cropping up to make their case. As such, libertarian arguments increasinly need to be addressed, even while libertarianism remains decidedly fringe.

The prime unifying belief that they share is that individual liberty is paramount, and that the role of the state should be kept as minimal as feasibly possible. A libertarian, as a rule, opposes bans and restrictions – taking John Stuart Mill’s laudable harm principle as the starting point for pretty much all their approaches to the world, but taking this idea far further than Mill himself (or his fellow small-”L” liberals) ever did.

The libertarian argument against European integration in general – and the European Union specifically – is usually that it implies the imposition of a new layer of government above the national. As libertarians believe small government to be the best form, this is an understandable approach. After all, if you already have a national ministry dealing with policy area X, where’s the need for an additional European-level administration which deals with the same area?

What happens next, however, is that the majority of libertarians seem to take this entirely reasonable argument against the repetition/overlap of governmental/administrative layers, and from it extrapolate that it is the super-national, European-level layer of government/administration which is the unnecessary one.

If the smallest amount of governmental/state interference in the life of the individual – and the maximum level of individual liberty – is the key aim, then surely it is the *national* layer which is superfluous?

If we agree that there are a few basic fundamentals for individual liberty – the right to trial, to vote, to be free from persecution, to free speech, etc. etc. (read Mill and the US declaration of independence for more) – then why, in the case of the EU, have these asserted 27 times in 27 countries, when once should be enough?

If we agree, as most libertarians do, that some laws and regulations are necessary for the smooth functioning of society – agreed systems of weights and measures (to prevent fraud), some level of health and safety guarantees, product standards, environmental/pollution restrictions (all taking Mill’s dictum that as individuals we shouldn’t harm others and applying it to corporations and government bodies), etc. etc. – why have 27 different variants of these laws and regulations, when what’s good for one of us is surely good for all?

This is the fundamental reason why libertarians should be in favour of European integration (note: not necessarily the current nature of European integration or current European bodies, both EU and non-EU, but the general principle) – for an individual in country X to have to abide by different laws than an individual in country Y implies a strong likelihood that the two are experiencing different levels of individual freedom. Plus, most importantly, if individual X goes to country Y, then he/she will have to abide by country Y’s laws – a potential restriction on that individual’s liberty of movement. (Case study: In Germany and Austria, it is illegal to deny the Holocaust; it is not in the UK. When British citizen David Irving went to Austria, having denied the Holocaust, he was arrested and imprisoned.)

Of course, restricting this to a mere continent (and not even all of that) is not ideal. The true libertarian would agree that liberty is universal – for true liberty to exist, what applies to one individual should apply to us all – and therefore we should be pushing for world government, where everyone on the planet has the same rights as everyone else.

But this still doesn’t take away from the fact that if you want small government for maximum individual liberty, the higher the level at which the basic laws and regulations are imposed, the better. Universal is the ideal (hence the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights), but if that proves impossible for now then you surely go for as broad an area as you can? The best part of a continent is not a bad starting point, and is certainly better than a mere individual country. Especially when, as the European Court of Human Rights ruling demonstrates, individual countries cannot be relied upon to safeguard the liberties of their citizens.

I have long stated this to be one of my prime motivations for supporting European integration: the ability of super-national bodies to restrict the power that nation states can hold over the individual. Case in point: if you are British, you have obligations but few rights – we remain, technically, subjects, not citizens. As I have argued before (in some detail), it was only with the introduction of EU citizenship that

“for the first time in Britain’s history, British citizens/subjects have the right to vote, to free movement, and so on, rather than just the privilege – we are no longer dependant upon the whim of parliament.”

And yet still we find self-professed libertarians clinging to the old, liberty-restricting national apparatus, rather than the new, liberty-granting super-national bodies of the EU and Council of Europe. Supposedly state-hating libertarians who cling to the state.

It genuinely baffles me. Can any libertarian provide me with a libertarian case for this apparent nationalism? Because the way I see it, nationalism and libertarianism are mutually exclusive – one being a collective idea focussed around the concept of a geographically and legally-restrictive state, the other focussed around the ideas of individualism and freedom.

Yes, it’s confusing. Too many Councils, all something to do with Europe. I get that it’s hard to keep track of them all – hell, I get confused myself sometimes.

But – and this is an important but – when the media is discussing these things, it should get them right. All too often, the media gets them muddled up and seems to have little understanding of where the distinctions lie, which does what, and where the sensible comparisons are.

The Council of Europe

It’s been around the longest, so you’d think people would understand it by now. It is not part of the EU – though every EU member state is also a member of the Council of Europe.

Founded in 1949, the Council of Europe focussed on fostering democracy, human rights and the rule of law. It has 47 member states (20 more than the EU) – and most often makes the news when its main court, the European Court of Human Rights (note: not an EU institution – that’s the European Court of Justice, and yes, that just adds to the confusion) features in a high-profile case.

The Council of Europe has a Secretary General, but not a President. It also – like the EU – has a Parliamentary Assembly which, unlike the European Parliament, is not directly elected, but is made up of members of the parliaments of its member states, their numbers (similarly to the European Parliament) based upon the population of the member state in question. The Council of Europe also – to add to the confusion – has a Congress, as well as a Committee of Ministers and a Commissioner for Human Rights (the European Union does *not* have a Commissioner for Human Rights).

The European Council

This is the body over which all the fuss is currently taking place, as under the Lisbon Treaty the European Council is to gain a President for the first time (although – as noted here recently – this position has very limited powers). It is not an official EU institution – yet is part of the EU. (Told you it was confusing…) It will only become an official EU institution after the Lisbon Treaty is ratified, though its role and powers will barely change.

The European Council is made up of the heads of government of the 27 EU member states, plus the President of the European Commission (and so, to some extent, it already has a president…) but – important to note, considering all the fuss that’s being made over its president – has no formal legilsative or executive powers. It only meets four times a year – twice at the headquarters of the Council of the European Union (to add to the confusion) and twice in the country of the member state that holds the Presidency of the Council of the European Union (yet more confusion) – in what are informally known as EU Summits. These started on an informal basis back in the early 1960s, first became formalised in the 1970s, and were included in an EU treaty for the first time in the 1987 Single European Act, and only gained a defined role with the 1992 Maastricht Treaty.

The European Council is – unsurprisingly, as it’s a formal meeting of the heads of government of the EU member states – the body that “provide[s] the Union with the necessary impetus for its development”, by allowing the heads of the member states to agree broad policy objectives for the Union to focus on. It has also adopted some of the higher-level powers of the Council of the European Union, such as the appointment of the President of the European Commission – again, because it is made up of the heads of government of the member states, and so it makes sense for these things to be discussed in the European Council (as the governments of the member states can veto candidates for the Commission Presidency, as well as other proposed EU legislation, it’s eminently sensible for them to try and agree a shared agenda before everyone starts work on pushing through candidates or policies).

Because of these powers – again, to stress, simply a natural offshoot of the European Council being made up of the heads of government of the member states – it can be seen as one of the EU’s most powerful bodies, despite not being an official EU institution. Some have compared it to the British Cabinet – though, as it meets only four times a year and tends to focus on broad, general policy objectives rather than specifics, this is being rather generous.

The proposed President of the European Council, therefore, will chair only four meetings a year, and act as a formal middle-man for the governments of the member states. He or she may well be able to propose solutions, suggest focuses for EU policy, and lend the EU a guiding hand, but – and this is a very important but – the President of the European Council will have practically no formal powers, and the job is very poorly-defined. He or she can suggest and try to persuade – but the final decisions will still be taken by the heads of government of the EU member states who make up the European Council, not by the person they have appointed (for just a two and a half year term, lest we forget) to help them reach agreement. It is an important position that will require a great deal of skilfull diplomacy, but it is not powerful one.

The Council of the European Union

This is the primary decision-making institution within the EU. The Council of the European Union is the same thing as the Council of Ministers. The latter is an informal name that was no doubt originally intended to prevent confusion with the European Council – but has only added to it. To make matters worse, it’s also sometimes referred to as the Consilium.

The members of the Council of the European Union are the 27 government ministers of the EU member states for the relevant topic under discussion. If Agriculture, then the Agriculture ministers. If Finance, the Finance ministers, and so on. (The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers, by contrast, is made up solely of the Foreign ministers of the Council of Europe’s member states, or their representatives.)

Because of the subject-specific, ministerial-level debates that take place at the Council of the European Union, it can be seen as the EU’s principle decision-making body – and can in some cases overrule the European Parliament (though under the codecision procedure, unanimity between the two bodies is usually required). It is here that EU policy is most often determined.

The Council of the European Union also – like the European Commission, and like the European Council will soon – has a President. This is the six-month rotating “EU presidency” (as it is often informally known), that flits from member state to member state in an order that’s about as clear as mud, but no doubt makes sense to somebody. However, just to confuse matters een further, the actual position of President shifts throughout these six-month presidencies, depending on the topic being discussed. If it’s Agriculture, then the Agriculture minister from the member state that holds the Presidency of the Council of the European Union is, for that session, the President. If Finance, the Finance minister, and so on.

This rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union will continue after Lisbon’s ratification, and will exist alongside – not be replaced by – the Presidency of the European Council.

The Council of the European Union also – just to make matters even more confusing – has a General Secretary, who sits for a five-year term to help co-ordinate policy between the rotating presidencies and ensure some kind of continuity. The position was founded in 1999, and is currently held by Javier Solana, who is at the same time the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy. After the Lisbon Treaty comes in, the latter part of Solan’s current job is to be separated out, merged with the European Commissioner for External Relations, become known as the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy – in which capacity whoever gets the gig will chair any Council of the European Union discussions on foreign affairs.

If you want comparisons to national governments, the Council is the closest the EU has to a Cabinet, as the power of executive formally lies with the Council of the European Union. However, the Cabinet analogy isn’t entirely right, because the Council also acts as the second (upper) chamber of the EU legislature – like the US Senate or UK House of Lords.

What this basically means is that the Council of the European Union is where most decisions get made – albeit after being pointed in the right direction by the European Council. Were Lisbon introducing a permanent President of the Council of the European Union, rather than of the European Council, then it would indeed be a position with the potential to wield a hell of a lot of power.

But it isn’t. So there’s no point getting all het up about it.

The quick version

Council of Europe
Not an EU body; concerned with democracy and justice

Council of the European Union
At once the EU’s Cabinet and Upper House of the legislature; where the decisions are made

Council of Ministers
The same as the Council of the European Union

European Council
The heads of government of the EU member states; an EU body but not an EU institution; effectively just a formalised old-school international summit, like the G8 or G20

A few vague thoughts towards predicting a new global geopolitics:

Globalisation has been the undeniable trend of the last half century.

As transportation and communication technologies have advanced, the world has got smaller. You can now get from London to Australia in a day where, two hundred years ago – at the height of the nation state – it would have taken several times that to travel from London to Edinburgh. A century ago, most goods in your local shop would have been local to your (more or less) immediate area – even with the expansion of 19th century Empires and the arrival in Europe of affordably-priced exotic fruits and out-of-season vegetables, delivered via early refrigerated ships. Now we have to go to specialist shops to get local produce – and local today often means little more than “from the same country”. As for the interconnectedness of the global economy, we have had the ultimate proof over the last year as recession has spread around the world.

Communities arise due to a combination of proximity and common interest – the latter more often than not following the former.

Up until the dawn of the steam age, most modern nation states were highly fragmented, with much autonomy among the further-flung regions. The steam train – and later, the telegraph – enabled more effective administration over longer distances, and so nation states became more coherent as entities.

The proximity of most peoples on Earth has, over the last half century – since the advent of the Jet engine and, more recently, the virtual proximity made possible by the internet – likewise become ever closer. The ability to administrate over far larger areas has similarly increased. Where two centuries ago – as the French national identity was beginning to solidify post-Revolution and under the auspices of Napoleon – it would have taken a week to travel from Paris to Marseilles, there is now nowhere on Earth that you cannot get to in a week, no matter your starting point. Two centuries ago it took six days to travel from London to Edinburgh; a century ago it took six hours; now you can get from London to New York in six hours.

At the same time, with the globalisation of the world economy, previously disparate communities – separated by many hundreds of miles as well as by language and culture – are now economically interconnected via the a combination of the complexities of global finance and the fact that their local shops are full of goods from other countries.

New technologies lead to new identities.

It is possible over the last few centuries to demonstrate that advances in travel and communication technologies have led to consolidation and centralisation of governance structures, as it has become ever easier to manage large areas from a central capital. At the same time, shared identities have arisen, as previously disparate communities (sometimes nominally already under the same administration, but usually for all practical purposes largely independent of each other) have suddenly found themselves in the same boat. Scottish and Cornish become British; Normans and Savoyards become French; Milanese and Sicilians become Italians. Old identities are retained, but the new proximity provided by innovative technologies allows a top-down governmental and bottom-up social coming together.

The EU was, at its birth, backward-looking – yet accidentally stumbled upon an idea far ahead of its time.

The EEC was formed in the 1950s not as a reaction to new technology, but as a means of preventing the violence that so often ensued from the clashing interests of nation states. It was the dawn of the jet age, the year (1957) that Sputnik’s launch heralded the even more advanced era of the space age – yet the advances in transportation and communication that the jet engine and satellite were in the process of bringing about were barely on the radar of the EU’s founding fathers.

Nonetheless, the coming together of the previously competing states of a continent to pursue shared interests was to be made far easier by these new technologies. In 1920, to travel from London to Athens took days. By 1960 it was a matter of hours. Europe had shrunk. The EEC was formed just on the cusp of this new shrinkage, and so was in an ideal position to capitalise on the possibilities that the new technologies provided.

Approaching the present.

With the arrival of the internet, the world has shrunk yet again – only this time only socially/culturally, as we can chat away to people of any nation from the comfort of our front rooms. But as long as the physical transportation of goods over the internet remains impossible, for physical commerce we remain reliant on 20th (and even 19th) century technologies.

This places a geographical limit on effective economic interaction – at least when it comes to the exchange of day-to-day goods. If it takes more than a few hours to transport your goods from A to B it’s usually more trouble than it’s worth, especially with rising fuel prices. Large organisations may be able to trade over far larger distances – using economies of scale to make sending a refrigerated container ship packed with New Zealand lamb halfway round the globe make financial sense – but for the small business (as most businesses are), local trade remains the most effective. The arrival of the railway and the aeroplane expanded the geographical limits of the small business’s economic potential, but we have yet to advance much beyond these limits, set now for more than half a century.

The geographical limitations of (economic) communities.

In practical terms, if a journey of more than a few hours is too long to be economically viable for small businesses, then the geographical limit of most small businesses is more or less continental. At the same time, the EU has done a good job of continuing the work of postwar reconstruction and improving Europe’s transportation and communications infrastructure, ensuring that the EU area is one of the most effectively interconnected on earth – rivalled only by the United States of America, which has the added advantage of a) having been a coherent nation state for 90 years before the EEC came into being, and b) working with a pretty much blank canvas.

But this is a minor issue – there is a far more compelling reason why socio-economic communities today still have geographical limits: time zones. It may well be possible to travel to the west coast of America in half a day, and to speak to someone in Los Angeles, Seattle or San Francisco at any time. But we still cannot get over the fact that there is an eight hour time difference between London and LA.

With office hours generally running from 9am to 6pm, we have a nine-hour window for normal economic activity. Working with a company on America’s east coast while based in London is feasible – the five-hour time difference allows a four-hour overlap, with the Americans starting work around 2pm London time – but working with a company based in Seattle presents problems, with only a one-hour shared office window. For effective working, you need to be able to communicate with colleagues pretty much all the time – losing more than about four hours every day from the nine hour working day will lead to growing inefficiencies. The technology exists to communicate with people on the other side of the world – but the fact remains that when you contact them, they may well be asleep.*

The continental United States is spread over four timezones. From the Atlantic to the Urals, Europe is also spread over four timezones. The same goes for Latin America. Africa is spread over five. Asia and Australasia are rather more spread out – yet if you take South East Asia through to eastern Australia, the time difference is only four hours again, yet covers Australia, Japan, the Phillippines, Indonesia, Thailand and most of China.

These are, geographically-speaking, all entirely practical economic units. Any small businessman on the east coast of America can easily trade with one on the west without needing anything much in the way of complicated planning. A shopkeeper in Portugal can phone a supplier in Turkey, and know he will be able to sort out his orders that same day – possibly even take delivery the same day, if he phones in the morning. But for someone in London to order a vital part from Japan, there remain serious practical difficulties – the nine-hour time difference compounded by a 12-hour flight time. By the time the Japanese supplier has got the message and sent the part, two days might well have passed – which in business terms can prove disastrous.

Today.

So now, by accident at least as much as design, Europe (or, at least, Western Europe) is, in terms of its infrastructure and and geography, about as coherent and sensible a socio-economic unit as most nation states were two centuries ago, before the arrival of the railways and telegraph – if not more so.

Having been working on coming together for longer than other parts of the world, the EU’s institutions, procedures and structures are further advanced. Yet they were not originally planned with the aim of taking advantage of new technologies – but of preventing the conflicts of earlier ages. The overriding feature of the way the EU currently works is the perennial clash between the institutional attempts to find compromises between conflicting national interests (the need for unanimity on substantial changes), and structural fluff designed to flatter the national egos (the hang-on of old school diplomacy that is the veto).

The big fear of the old developed (national) economies over the last decade has been the rise of the new economies of China, India and – to a lesser extent – Brazil. These nationally-focussed concerns have been passed on to the EU – the organisation’s member states have been trying to use the EU as a way of maintaining strength through numbers against the newcomers on the global scene. Technology has allowed for greater pooling of resources and more efficient ways of working, enabling the EU’s member states to maintain the hope that they can compete against the vast potential of India and China – a potential based largely upon those two countries’ huge populations and geographical areas, which on both counts rival those of continents.

Looking to a continental future?

Yet now there are signs of yet more new developments. In the last couple of weeks, two potentially hugely significant events took place – both of which took their inspiration from the European Union, and both of which recognise that continental-scale organisation (or, at least, organisation across several – but not more than four or five – timezones) is both desirable and practical.

First, in Latin America, the members of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) decided to adopt a single currency – the SUCRE – explicitly modelled upon the euro. (And before you dismiss ALBA as made up of piddlingly insignificant countries, let’s not forget that the EU started out with just six member states, all still recovering from a devastating war, and three of which were tiny. Let’s also not forget ALBA’s more significant neighbours, who will be watching developments with interest.)

This was swiftly followed by fresh moves by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to create a regional bloc – including an EU-style common market and, potentially, a euro-style single currency.

Yes, ASEAN can also be dismissed as being made up of a bunch of relative lightweights – its most significant members probably being Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand, hardly global major players. But this new move shows far greater ambition – having been proposed by Japan, backed by China, and potentially including Australia, New Zealand and even the United States down the line. Any economic bloc including China and Japan among its members is a force to be reckoned with.

A new age?

And so we may be on the cusp of a major shift in global geopolitics and the structuring of the global economy. If these two new continental blocs get off the ground, the EU will have continental competitors for the first time. And the member states of the EU, until now using the benefits of membership to give themselves an economic advantage on the world stage, will find it even harder to compete as individuals.

Of course, timezone practicalities as well as national egos could still prevent the ASEAN plan from ever coing to fruition, but even a smaller-scale version of an Asia-Pacific version of the European Union would herald a major shift in the way the world works.

The upshot? The EU could well be about to shift from being a nice idea to being an absolute necessity.

* Yes, larger organisations can work on a 24-hour basis – but most businesses are not larger organisations. And for an economic community to benefit the most people within it, its advantages must be accessible to everyone without having to stay up all night.

There are many, many good arguments to be used against the EU. Scores of them, in fact. In places it’s massively inefficient. In places there are strong indications of what seems like systemic corruption. Some of the policies it has introduced have been hugely harmful to both people and the planet.

But do the eurosceptics use these as their main lines of attack? No. Instead they wander off into the realms of fantasy to spew out hilariously inane nonsense like this glorious example from leading Daily Mail columnist Peter Hitchens – easily the most stupid article I’ve read about the EU in years. Read the comments as well and it’ll swiftly become clear why some people assume that all eurosceptics are loons.

Eurosceptics aren’t loons, of course. At least, not all of them. Many eurosceptic complaints are largely valid and – as I’ve argued before – should be paid attention to.

But the maniacs tend to shout the loudest, and in the process end up doing the eurosceptic cause no end of harm. UKIP’s Nigel Farage realised this, hence his attempts to gradually cull the more verbal conspiracy theorists from the party over the last few years and associate with more intelligent and thoughtful critics of the EU like Jens-Peter Bonde and Marta Andreassen. The anti-EU crowd in Ireland have also no doubt realised this now – because one of the major reasons for the huge swing to the Yes camp was undoubtedly because the Irish people were so annoyed at being taken in by the baseless conspiracy theories that the No groups were spewing out last time around.

Because if – as Hitchens does in the article linked above – you wander off into the realms of hyperbole (e.g. the wonderfully idiotic claim that “Increasingly, the provinces of Europe, which until today were countries, will need its permission to exist at all” or the pathetic “Shouldn’t somebody have pointed out that in the recent history of the Continent, yellow stars call up only one dismal image, the mass murder of Europe’s Jews?” – that last especially awful considering the Mail’s support for the Nazis), all you end up doing is discrediting yourself.

Just as if I claimed that the EU’s great because it’ll give us all magical ponies that can fly and shit gold, you’d not pay attention to anything else I said as I was obviously a delusional liar, so do a lot of us get switched off every time a leading eurosceptic makes such obviously stupid remarks as those that run throughout Hitchens’ piece.

There are all sorts of genuine problems with the Lisbon Treaty. There are all sorts of entirely legitimate reasons why the Irish shouldn’t have held a second referendum, and why they should have voted no.

The thing is, I’ve hardly seen *any* of them brought up in the dozens of eurosceptic pieces that I’ve read over the last few days. Instead, eurosceptic arguments still seem largely to revolve around vague emotional appeals to patriotism and national myths, topped off with objectively false misrepresentations of what it is the EU does and is doing. Anyone with half a brain who looks at these arguments for half a minute will write them off as the nonsense that they are – and the eurosceptic cause takes yet another hit.

Every time you make such wild claims – and they turn out to be unfounded – you are alienating potential allies. When Lisbon comes into force and life in the EU continues much as before, proving all the claims that this treaty is in any way significant to be objectively false (because no matter what many eurosceptics claim, Lisbon *is* just a tidying-up exercise) – when member states continue to run themselves, when the threatened abortion clinics and enforced involvement in military campaigns fail to materialise – then anyone with half a brain will be able to see that the claims of the eurosceptics were false, and so stop paying them any further attention.

So come on, eurosceptic types – for your own sake start with the *proper* arguments against the EU. Stop all this hyperbolic emotional guff that’s characterised so much of the debate over the last couple of decades, and make with the convincing critical analysis. Stop with all the pathetic and blatantly false comparisons to dictatorships past and present. End the “EUSSR” meme – that only makes everyone who uses it look like a moron.

Instead, try pointing out what’s *actually* wrong with the EU, rather than make up nonsense about Lisbon ending Irish neutrality, forcing abortion, ending national sovereignty, creating a superstate and so on. You’ll find that you’ll win a lot more support – whereas at the moment you’re just preaching to the converted (as the comments to Hitchens’ piece perfectly prove).

It’s not like it’s a difficult target – the EU’s got so much wrong with it it’s like blasting away at the proverbial fish in a barrel. No one with any critical faculties can look at the EU and think it’s perfect. There’s simply no need for all the nonsense that Hitchens and co like to spew.

(And yes, I know that not all eurosceptics use the sorts of silly arguments noted above. The point is that as long as a vocal minority of eurosceptics do, the entire cause is going to continue to be damaged by association.)