Category Archives: EU Reform

A bit of weekend reading

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A few bits and bobs that have caught my eye over the last week or so:

Robert Amsterdam on Donald Rumsfeld’s legacy to Europe:

he was the original master artist of disaggregation – a man who saw and skillfully exploited the very fissures of the contemporary European Union which today threaten its purpose and continued existence as an alliance of nations… And this week, the Rumsfeldian conception of “old and new Europe” is making a comeback in the debate over how to handle Moscow’s threat to put missiles in Kaliningrad”

It’s not just over Russian missiles – old vs. new Europe seems to be an emerging theme in the ongoing confusion over how to tackle the growing economic storm, according to Eurozine:

Even if a common set of regulations and measures were to be reached, differences would be manifest between member states, and above all between West and East: unemployment, inflation, budgetary deficits would affect each country differently. The problem is that a recession would have more severe consequences in the fragile and unpredictable eastern European countries, including at the political level.

Also on the economy, Obsolete is (as ever) really rather good on the bizarre collapse of the Tory poll lead during the current crisis:

The man who promised an end to Tory boom and bust has succeeded in abolishing boom, while the prospects for the bust look increasingly ominous. The economy which he boasted was among the best placed to deal with the global downturn is in actual fact one of the worst placed to deal with it, according to the IMF and the European Union. Unrelenting, the Labour party believes that the solution is to borrow more to fund the tax cuts to stimulate the economy. As Larry Elliot has pointed out, this is a direct contradiction of what Gordon Brown formerly believed. At the weekend the same man attended a conference which he claimed would back up his solution to the downturn; it did nothing of the sort, and predictably only agreed to more or less meet again. Gordon Brown, by rights, ought to be finished.

Elsewhere, Jon Worth asks do you think Barroso is rubbish? With more in a similar vein from Jean Quatremer:

Si, jusqu’à présent, les voix critiques étaient rares, elles commencent à se faire entendre, ce qui montre que la campagne pour le renouvellement de la Commission a bel et bien commencé.

Complementing Quatremer’s overview, the Financial Times’s (new look) Brussels Blog asks

why are political parties of the left in such poor shape across much of Europe? It’s the worst financial crisis since the early 1930s, the worst economic recession since the early 1990s, if not the 1970s – and where is the left?

And finally, a very promising signal from the European Parliament:

MEPs today overwhelmingly backed calls to strengthen the EU’s anti-fraud unit OLAF to enable it to tackle fraud more effectively…

[report author Ingeborg Grässle MEP] said that the Parliament’s zeal to strengthen OLAF and how it worked was not shared by the member states. “The Council [of Ministers] doesn’t want to strengthen OLAF,” she said… She said the Council did not want awkward discussions about the fight against fraud.

Once again, one of the EU’s biggest problems and PR disasters can be blamed nice and neatly on the reluctance of the Council of Ministers – on the governments of the member states – to press ahead with reforms to increase both efficiency and transparency.

A distinct lack of transparency

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Following the progress made on Common Agricultural Policy reform the other day (and it was progress, even if not as much as many would have liked), there remains much confusion. As CAP Health Check asks, who voted for what?

Common Agricultural Policy budgetThe same (invaluable) blog has all kinds of details on the fall-out from the deal – a deal in which, once again, France appears to have acted the petulant child and, from pure selfishness, scuppered reforms that the EU sorely needs. Because it wouldn’t be fair for France to get any less than 20% of the single largest chunk of the EU budget, would it?

And so, once again, a much-needed serious overhaul of one of the fundamental aspects of the modern EU is put off for a few more years. Instead we get yet another compromise that pleases no one. Just as with the last attempt to reform the CAP back in 2003. Just as with the Constitution. Just as with the Treaty of Nice.

Am I a cynic to think that the reason the big decisions keep being put off by a few years every time (the next attempt to reform the CAP will come in 2013) is that our dear politicians are aware of their short terms of office, and are hoping that come the next round of negotiations it’ll be somebody else’s problem?

Thatcher, Bruges and future Tory EU policy

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Still catching up, but it would be churlish not to mention the 20th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher’s celebrated (in some circles) Bruges speech, which passed the other day with the usual guff from withdrawalists. The BBC’s Nick Robinson has a fun piece on the anniversary celebrations and the Tories’ Europe problem which is well worth reading, considering the fact that they’re likely to be in power at some point within the next couple of years.

David CameronBecause the Tories under David Cameron still have no EU policy. I’ve been hunting for one for a while now (March 2008, July 2006), and they still seem no closer to working out what they even think of the thing. (It’s not just the Tories, of course – Labour are just as bad…)

The thing is, Thatcher’s near-infamous Bruges speech remains a great starting point for the Tories to set out their position on Britain’s involvement with the rest of Europe. An odd thing for someone who labels himself loosely pro-EU to say? Not really…

The speech is well worth reading in full – because it’s now become this near-mythical anti-EU manifesto for British withdrawalists (notably anti-EU “think tank” the Bruges Group, named after the speech – a think tank not afraid to associate itself with some of the more hysterical anti-EU crowd).

With such a massive reputation to fight through, it’s very easy to make assumptions about what Thatcher actually said. Listen to the anti-EU lot and you’d think that the speech was a blistering attack on the very idea of a common European future, delivered in the kind of foaming-at-the-mouth style that anyone who’s been knocking around EU-related internet forums has come to associate with British euroscepticism. (Seriously, British anti-EU types – you’re embarrassing me here… I want to feel proud of being British, and you’re making us all look like arseholes – same as those drunken tits on the Costa del Sol. Whatever happened to the old British virtues of decency, restraint and politeness?)

Yet it actually contains much that is positive towards a European Union, and fully supports continued British engagement at the heart of the process. It’s just that it doesn’t support the direction the current EU has been heading for the last 30-odd years towards greater centralisation and uniformity. Pretty much all of Thatcher’s suggestions back then are still being made to this day – and not just by eurosceptics.

Sadly, though, Thatcher’s Bruges speech is more referred to than read – and thanks to its current associations with flag-waving anti-EU nutters it is mostly ignored. Yet its overall vision for Europe remains a sound alternative to the current model, while in the details are identified many of the key problems with the current set-up, none of which have really changed in two decades. It’s got its problems, certainly – I don’t advocate everything that Maggie said by any means – but as a starting point for creating an alternative vision for the European Union, it remains both simple (if occasionally overly simplistic) and compelling. Check out the Wordle-generated word cloud of the speech (with only Europe, Community, European, Britain, British and removed – the five most commonly-used words, and in that order) – there may be a slight tilt towards an economic vision of European co-operation, but she covers a lot of ground:

Thatcher's Bruges speech word cloud

Most satisfying, though, is that it provides a healthy supply of quotes defending and advocating Britain’s close involvement with the rest of Europe (even to the point of advocating greater use of a European single currency) which can be thrown at any British eurosceptics that happen by…

“We British are as much heirs to the legacy of European culture as any other nation. Our links to the rest of Europe, the continent of Europe, have been the dominant factor in our history…

Too often, the history of Europe is described as a series of interminable wars and quarrels. Yet from our perspective today surely what strikes us most is our common experience… It is the record of nearly two thousand years of British involvement in Europe, cooperation with Europe and contribution to Europe, contribution which today is as valid and as strong as ever…

Britain does not dream of some cosy, isolated existence on the fringes of the European Community. Our destiny is in Europe, as part of the Community.”

What are the chances of David Cameron ever making a speech containing that kind of rhetoric? The old Tory squabbles over the EU that dominated the 1990s may well have subsided, but the party leadership are still worried that they’re bubbling away under the surface. The recent campaign for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty showed how powerful anti-EU populism can be. Though the campaign was ultimately unsuccessful, it did demonstrate one thing – euroscepticism remains a danger to the Conservative party. Perhaps its biggest danger.

These people will be in charge of the EU’s second largest economy – and yet even they don’t know what they are going to do once they come to power.

(On a related note, Richard Corbett may be a decidedly pro-EU Labour MEP writing in the left-wing Guardian, so just about as biased as they come on this topic, but his recent look at current Tory attitudes towards the EU is essential reading.)

Mandelson and EU openness

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Yes, I’ve gone quiet again of late. Sorry. Illness and work have conspired to make me feel like poo.

Still, an interesting tidbit from the whole “did Peter Mandelson get up to anything dodgy with Russian oligarchs?” thing that’s been knocking around for the last week or so, from the invaluable Unspeak:

So as to head off any suggestion of impropriety, the Telegraph has been asking the EU for the records of all Mandelson’s meetings with Deripaska while the former was trade commissioner. The EU’s response is not exactly helpful…

It all comes down to the definition of what is a “document” according to EU regulation 1049/2001. Exciting, eh? Nonetheless, it’s well worth reading the whole thing. This kind of obfuscation and obstructionism isn’t unique to the EU, of course – but by god, Brussels doesn’t do these things by half…

(This sort of thing, you’ll be unsurprised to learn, is the reason that the EU receives so little press coverage – working out precisely what its rules and regulations are is one of the most tedious things imaginable, and even if you do happen to have a journalist or blogger determined enough to manage to track it down before the news cycle has moved on, you’re then stuck with all kinds of petty squabbles over terminology. It’s fairly surprising that any EU news ever gets out, in fact…)

In any case, this all follows rather neatly from recent responses from GrahnLaw, Julien Frisch and Re: Europa to a Statewatch paper suggesting methods to achieve “greater openness, transparency and democracy in the EU” (WARNING – PDF). Worth a look – because I doubt there’s an EU-watcher out there who wouldn’t wish for more of all three.

My plea to the European Union thoughout my five and a half years of trying to blog about it remains the same as it ever was: Please, please stop being so boring and incomprehensible. Pretty please?

The Irish are stupid, apparently

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I don’t even have to check the usual eurosceptic sources to know how the Irish government’s research into the reasons for the rejection of the Lisbon Treaty is likely to be interpreted. Because, you see, they’ve found that the reason for the No vote was that the Irish people didn’t know enough about the treaty.

Cue screams of outrage from the eurosceptic hoardes: “You see! They’re going to tell us we don’t know what’s good for us! The people are stupid! They’ll press ahead with it anyway because they can use this to show we can’t be trusted! The elitist bastards!”

Well, perhaps. There are, after all, already rumours circulating of a second referendum being planned for next year – though it’s unlikely to be before the European Parliament elections or the arrival of the new Commission. But despite the torrent of frustrated voices from across the Channel calling for a fresh vote, read between the lines and it’s quite clear that the Irish government itself has made no such plans. Yet. Hell, even the latest suggestions of a fresh vote stem merely from a briefing paper prepared for the French EU presidency – and we all know that Sarkozy’s in favour of forcing the thing through (why else would he deny the people of France a vote on a treaty so heavily based on the constitution. Briefing papers – despite the spin – are not official EU policy.

But the thing is, this new research tells us nothing new. We knew ages ago from exit polls and countless surveys before the vote that one of the major reasons for the Irish No was that the treaty (and the constitution before that) was simply too complex, vague and self-contradictory for its own good. In trying to be everything to all people during the tortuous negotiations between the various EU member states, it ended up having all the usual characteristics of a bad compromise worked out in umpteen languages – wording that could be interpreted pretty much any way you like. Not much good for a legal document – and a disaster for its advocates, as every pressure group with a grudge was able to find something to worry about.

In other words, the reason that the Irish people didn’t understand the Lisbon Treaty is because it was rubbish.

Does this mean it shouldn’t be ratified anyway? Well, that’s up to the Irish government. The EU certainly shouldn’t (and under the present rules can’t) progress without unanimity on the treaty. And if one thing is certain to bolster the anti-treaty vote, it’s a bunch of Johnny Foreigners telling the Irish that they’re stupid. Ireland’s had enough of a bunch of foreigners painting them as idiots and telling them what to do – and look how well that turned out for the foreigners in question…

What is the EU for? (Part 2)

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This started off as a reply to comments on this post, but got a bit lengthy…

EU Constitution mastermind Valery Giscard D'Estaing

The Convention on the Future of Europe (which drew up the failed EU Constitution) was, in its early stages, a step in the right direction. But – vitally – the public were never fully brought on board despite this being one of the key aims mentioned in the inaugural meeting (and despite the website being quite good, I don’t recall much press coverage or wider debate at the time, nor much effort being made to canvas the views of the peoples of Europe). It ended up being a grand talking-shop for a bunch of lobbyists and politicians (if a slightly wider group of politicians than usual in EU treaty-writing), and coming up with something so vast and complex that it could never be understood by the people it was supposed to sell itself to (though at least it was better on this front than the Lisbon Treaty, I suppose).

It also, as far as I can tell, went far beyond its initial remit – to simplify and clarify the meaning of previous treaties, define the limits of the EU’s power in line with the subsidiarity concept, and push for greater democracy, efficiency and transparency – while not going far enough on any of those main points. It certainly failed dismally in clarifying what the old treaties meant, at any rate – and hell, even the Charter of Fundamental Rights ended up being something countries – i.e. the UK – could opt out of, despite that being another key issue highlighted in the wake of Nice… (Here’s probably not the place to have a moan about what that document includes as fundamental rights, many of which are not so much “rights” as “privileges”…)

What I’d like to see happen (though I have no illusions that it will) now that the Lisbon Treaty also seems to be dying is the birth of a genuine, Europe-wide discussion of the kind Peter mentioned in his first comment – hell, even debates conducted within each state (like that in France in the run-up to their 2005 referendum) would be a start. The Commission’s been making some decent efforts over the last few years, and Margot Wallstrom‘s convinced me that she truly would like a genuine debate while making some good first steps in the right direction – but so far none of these have really taken off, or gone anywhere near far enough.

But this is vital – fundamental. Get the people thinking about the EU, rather than just ignoring it. Get them talking about it. Get them to say what they think it is and what it should be for. Because I’m pretty certain that currently no one knows – and if our representatives at these meetings are starting from a position of ignorance about what the people they are representing actually want, little wonder that they end up with something that the people then reject.

Bruno‘s definitely right about the split between the political establishment and the people. Only the real problem, I’d say, is not at EU level – I’d again agree with Peter (in his second comment), and say it’s the national politicians who are the problem. They don’t know what their people want from the EU, because the people themselves don’t know. But rather than try to get their people thinking and talking about it so they can then, y’know, represent their people, they take the “father knows best” line and forge ahead regardless – in the process constructing an EU without any real guiding principles or final goals, and that the people who have to live with it have had no say in creating.

You wouldn’t start constructing a building with no plans, no idea of the number of floors, rooms, windows and doors, and no idea what the people who are going to be using it are going to be using it for. Yet that’s precisely what’s been happening with the EU for decades. It’s no longer (if it ever was) just a trading block. It’s no longer (if it ever was) heading towards a federal superstate. It’s something altogether new and altogether misunderstood – because the EU itself doesn’t know what it is or what it’s for.

Until the EU works out what it’s for – a purpose that really must be set by the peoples of Europe if it’s going to have any chance at long-term survival – the same unproductive nonsense is going to continue ad infinitum.

(For more along these lines, check out What is the EU for? (Part 1) and the dLiberation blog I did for openDemocracy last year, focussing pretty much exclusively on the problems of getting the people to participate meaningfully in EU reform…)

The Czech Republic and the Lisbon Treaty

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Handy overview today from the EU Observer – worth a look for UK-centered readers as well, as these guys are the closest that Tory leader David Cameron’s got to allies on the continent, so may just provide a hint as to his as yet decidedly unclear attitude towards the EU:

A large segment of the Czech political elite makes no secret of its discontentment with EU membership. These politicians fiercely oppose further European integration, and consider the whole European project a major threat to Czech sovereignty.

President Klaus – by far the most outspoken eurosceptic in Central-Europe – made no secret of his pleasure at the Irish No. While the office of the Czech president is largely honorary, his signature is needed to round up the ratification process of the Lisbon Treaty…

More significant however is the fact the president still has considerable influence on a large segment of the Civic Democratic Party. After the Irish referendum the harsh language of Mr Klaus was echoed by several party members. CDP holds a majority in the Czech Senate where voting on the Lisbon Treaty still needs to take place.

The vote in the Czech Senate is scheduled at the end of the year, after the Constitutional Court has ruled on the compatibility of the Lisbon Treaty with the Czech constitution. Even if its verdict is positive, it is hard to predict the outcome of the vote in the Upper House.

I’m not convinced by the latter half of the article with its dire warnings of potential disaster if the Czechs vote Lisbon down, but still – worth a gander. (And if anyone knows of any English-language Czech politics blogs/news sites that are still being updated, I’d be grateful for a heads-up, as I’ve got rather out of touch over the last few years and a lot of my old bookmarks are now dead.)

“We cannot do business like this in future”

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Thus spake Tony Blair, echoing Gerhard Schröder, following the negotiations for the shoddy Treaty of Nice back in 2000. And yet the last eight years have seen the European Union do business in exactly the same way, time and time again – last-minute concessions, bad compromises, unimaginative and ineffective solutions to problems that sometimes didn’t exist in the first place.

The Constitution, designed to rectify the mistakes of Nice’s last-minute compromises ended up inadequate as a result. In turn, the Treaty of Lisbon ended up little more than a shoddy remix with a few contentious bits removed (though not enough for its critics).

With Lisbon on the verge of death, is there any sign of the kind of radical rethinks and approaches that may shake the EU out of its growing torpor? Well, not really. But…

Unless Ireland can be persuaded to vote again, Lisbon – which must be ratified by all 27 nations to come into force – will die and the EU will be left operating under rules agreed to at 3:25 a.m. in Nice on Dec. 11, 2000.

Increasingly, however, diplomats are wondering whether that would be such a bad thing…

True, Lisbon is designed to streamline procedures that were creaking even in 2000, when the EU had only 15 member states, and that get more unwieldy with each nation that joins. But, in some ways, Lisbon would be a step backward.

There’s a compelling case made in this IHT article. Do go and read the whole thing. Not only is it an intriguing suggestion for a way forward, pulling together a few ideas I’ve seen elsewhere and adding to them to create a coherent strategy, but it’s also a handy overview of some of the key issues Lisbon was attempting (poorly) to address.

Deal ‘will slash EU farm subsidies’

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Potentially promising stuff for those of us who dislike the CAP – though worrying news for Europe’s beleaguered farmers:

Europe’s farmers will be “major losers” from a new world trade deal, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson has admitted.

He told the start of marathon make-or-break talks in Geneva that Brussels was offering “groundbreaking” agricultural reforms which would see subsidies to the European farming sector slashed by £80 billion and average agriculture trade tariffs cut by more than half.

In return, he warned negotiators representing more than 150 countries, the EU wanted to see real concessions from the rest of the world towards opening up global trade to the benefit of everyone.

This is the British vision of what the EU should be all about personified – and something that France has always fought against tooth and nail.

So, is it a coincidence that Mandelson is putting this forward a few weeks into the French EU presidency – a French EU presidency that kicked off with President Sarkozy publicly attacking Mandelson?

Meh – who cares about petty feuds? The real question is will President Bush step up to the challenge and revive his offer from 2005 to slash US farm subsides? If he does, he could just end his presidency with helping seal the biggest contribution to the global fight against poverty and starvation the world has ever seen. Hell… Only Nixon could go to China, right?

Belgium as role-model for the EU

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An interesting discussion’s kicked off in the comments to that history of Belgium piece, looking at how the current Belgian crisis could prove a very useful case study and model for future EU reform. It kicks of with this from SD (a Belgian, as it happens), with the (always thoughtful) Peter Davidson neatly summarising and expanding on the concept.

Well worth a read – more so than the original post in fact…

A quick case study of the EU’s problems

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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.

Habermas and the EU

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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?)

More ways forward: John Vincour

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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.

Spotted elsewhere

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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.”