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12/10/2002 | Globalise democracy: from Asia to Europe, paths, connections, contradictions and needs. by Olivier Dupuis |
| Comment this document, click here Esprimi la tua opinione su questo documento, clicca qui 1. Dialogue with Beijing? Is something important happening in China? Is the long-awaited move towards democracy and the Rule of Law about to take place? There are currently contradictory and conflicting signals which can lead us to two opposing interpretations, one optimistic and the other sceptical, or to all the many shades of interpretation between them. a) developments which might be positive... First point: towards negotiations on Tibet. For over a year the Chinese authorities have been releasing dozens of important Tibetan political prisoners, like Tanak Jigme Sangpo, for example. On the situation of the Tibetan nun Nawang Sangdrol, another “symbol” of the Tibetan cause who has been in prison for over ten years for demonstrating in favour of the freedom of Tibet, the Lhasa prison authorities have told a delegation of European deputies that “in view of her good conduct, she may be released quite soon”. Still on the question of Tibet, in recent months the brother of the Dalai Lama has made a private visit to China and Tibet, while a few weeks ago two envoys of the Dalai Lama, Lodi Gyari and Kelsang Gyaltsen, visited Beijing and Tibet after being officially invited by the Chinese authorities, meeting representatives of the Chinese government in Beijing and the authorities of the so-called Autonomous Region of Tibet in Lhasa. These gestures of distension towards the question of Tibet have led the Prime Minister of the Tibetan government in exile, Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche, to launch an appeal to all the supporters of the Tibetan cause around the world to suspend demonstrations of protest towards the Chinese authorities on the occasion of their official visits abroad. A new situation is thus taking shape, but this does not alter our central belief - that the organisation over the last few years of a world satyagraha for the freedom and liberation of Tibet, that is of an organised, non-violent initiative involving tens of thousands of people, could have created a different relationship between the leaders of the Tibetan government in exile and the Beijing authorities, and therefore a better basis to begin negotiations on the future of Tibet. We cannot, however, fret over the past and the errors on both sides, including our own. We must take account of the new situation. Second point: civil battles. Thanks partly to the strength and timeliness of the international reaction, the Chinese government has recently released Wan Yanhai Si, the leader of the battle against Aids and against the blood transfusions scandal in the province of Henan, after one month’s detention. Third point: democratisation at local level. The process of reforms aimed at the democratisation of the local institutions, a difficult task in view of the size of the country, seems to have seen a slowdown in the “correction” of election results by the Chinese Communist Party. Candidates from outside the Communist Party have been elected as mayors or councillors in various places around the country. Fourth point: the social question. Although there are conflicting signals on this subject, too, there seems to be a change in the reaction of the Chinese authorities towards the growing number of social conflicts, a more frequent recourse to dialogue and negotiation, with arrests for short periods rather than the automatic recourse, as in the past, to violent repression and long years of detention in prisons or labour camps. Fifth point: changes in power. Hu Jintao becomes head of the CCP in November, President of the Republic at the end of the next session of the People’s Assembly in March 2003. Jiang Zemin is sidelined, and his supporters in the Central Committee are unable to block Hu Jintao. The door to reforms is open. b) society is changing but everything remains the same in the halls of power... First point: Tibet, the Chinese government manages to stall for three more years. By granting some (as yet vague) concessions to the Dalai Lama, the Chinese government has managed to take the heat off the only issue that still mobilises the general public and the media in the Western capitals, with demonstrations and initiatives that disturb the visits of Chinese leaders to the West. The first result achieved is that the Tibetan government in exile has advised all the supporters of the Tibetan cause to begin a twelve-month moratorium on demonstrations against Chinese leaders, beginning with Jiang Zemin’s visit to the United States in the coming weeks. On their part, the Chinese authorities have no intention of giving Tibet a status of real autonomy, comparable to that of Hong Kong or Macao, but are only interested in gaining time to complete their policy of resettlement, and thus to complete the (already advanced) process of the “Sinoisation” of Tibet and the emargination/ghettoisation of the Tibetan population. The superficial nature of the new approach of the Chinese authorities to the Tibetan issue is further demonstrated by the repression of the Uighours and the Southern Mongols. It is difficult to understand why the Tibetan government in exile has agreed, in this context, to enter into dialogue with China. Simply out of exhaustion, perhaps? Or, as is stated in a number of documents published by the Tibetan government in exile, to save the environmental heritage of Tibet, severely threatened by the Chinese policy of turning it into a rubbish tip for the whole of China? Or to “offer something up” to the Tibetan people - both in exile and in Tibet – after forty years of fruitless attempts? Second point: civil battles. Only the gravity of the Aids question and the strength of the international protests led the Chinese authorities to release the leader Wan Yanhai. There is no structural change in the reaction to the requests made by an increasingly aware, well-organised and courageous civil society. There are no legislative changes, no improvements in the respect of rules and procedures, in other words in the implementation of the Rule of Law. The change is partly due to the particular moment (the importance of the political appointments coming up in the next few months: the CCP Congress, the People’s Assembly, ...), and maybe partly due to the emergence of a new form of Communism that Yves Chevrier has called “communisme distendu”, where control at a distance takes the place of crude domination, where, according to Frédéric Bobin, the party-state entrusts the task of “recreating the social link”, the task of performing social tasks no longer assured by the party-state, to the organisations of civil society, providing that they have been proved to be politically innocuous. Third point: democratisation at local level. On careful reading, the so-called process of democratisation at local level is much more superficial. On the whole the party authorities have managed to maintain control, although they have sometimes been forced into cosmetic operations. Fourth point: the social question. The movements of social protest are unable to achieve unity. The official unions and the other authorities manage to prevent the birth of any other union organisation, exercising selective, albeit effective repression. Fifth point: changes in power. Hu Jintao becomes head of the CCP in November, while Jiang Zemin becomes President of the Military Committee. In the Central Committee Jiang Zemin’s men are able to block all the initiatives of the new head of the party. In March the People’s Assembly elects one of Jiang Zemin’s men as President of the Republic. Deadlock ensues, and the status quo reigns. The door to reforms is closed. In the face of these two opposing scenarios and the many possible combinations, the risk is that we might become trapped by them and therefore paralysed. But the role (or one possible role) for an organisation like the Transnational Radical Party should, in my opinion, be to create opportunities for dialogue for all those, in China or elsewhere, who wish to reflect and work out solutions that can allow the whole of Chinese society to make concrete steps in the direction of democracy and, even more importantly, of the Rule of Law. In my opinion, the big question concerning China today is to understand how to inscribe in law the advances made by a whole range of battles for civil, social and environmental rights. By opening up channels of dialogue with Chinese figures both inside and outside the current ruling classes - as Roberto Cicciomessere has proposed - but doing so on the basis of extremely precise proposals and objectives for reflection and action, by tackling all the issues, without any taboos, beginning with the questions of Aids, East Turkestan, Southern Mongolia, religious freedom, and social and union issues. An approach which, as Marino Busdachin has rightly pointed out, can hardly be pursued without a direct Radical presence in loco, as we conceived and realised it in Central and Eastern Europe and in the former Soviet empire in the second half of the 1980s. This direction would undoubtedly represent a change in our approach to the question of China that will force us - without being afraid of taking risks - to seek a wider range of interlocutors. For this reason it will be important to hear what our Chinese friends or sinologists like Wei Jingsheng, Cai Chongwo, and Marie Holzman, our Uighour friends, beginning with Enver Can and Erkin Alptekin, our Mongol friends and our friends from the Falun Gong have to say. 2. The question of South-east Asia The situation is completely different as far as South-east Asia is concerned. Although we are faced with situations that are very different one from the other. Burma seems to want to leave behind - albeit slowly - the recent past of fierce repression followed by dark immobilism; Thailand is continuing, on the whole, to move along the path of the consolidation of democracy; Cambodia, “half-democratic”, with the party of Hun Sen in power, after taking refuge in Hanoi and being brought back to Phnom Penh with the “Vietnamese liberators”, the heir of the Communist Party, which is now very powerful, though challenged by a vigorous opposition, in particular from the party of Sam Rainsy and, to a lesser extent, by that of Norodom Ranariddih. The situation in Vietnam, on the other hand, is tragic and very serious: it can be summed up in the eloquent words of the Prime Minister Van Khay at the end of the official visit which he made a few weeks ago to the EU institutions in Brussels. In the final press conference, held together with the President of the European Commission Romano Prodi, Van Khay pointed out that “they” were the winners and that they therefore had no reason to agree to the proposals and requests made by the international community in general, and by the European Union in particular. But then the domestic situation is sadly well-known: ferocious repression of the freedom of religion, the continuing existence of concentration camps, harsh repression of ethnic minorities, in particular the Montagnards in Vietnam and the Hmong in Laos, raging corruption, a disappointing economic situation, and barely veiled occupation of the nearby Laos, where for obvious reasons the situation with regard to the respect of the fundamental rights is exactly the same as, if not worse than, that in Vietnam, the Laotian quislings outdoing their Hanoi masters for zeal. Which way forward? Considerable progress has been made, and now needs to be consolidated. In particular, we must develop the ideas and proposals that emerged during the conference "South-east Asia: democracy and civil liberties denied: the situation in Burma, Laos and Vietnam” and the co-operation between the various movements fighting for democracy and freedom in the five countries (Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam), which have already taken concrete form in the world day for Vietnam on 21 September 2002. A second example of this pooling of resources should be seen on 26 October with the demonstrations in Brussels, Canberra, Moscow, Paris and Washington for “ freedom, democracy and reconciliation in Laos” and for the release of the five student leaders, Thongpaseuth Keuakoun, Seng-Aloun Phengphanh, Khamphouvieng Sisa-At, Bouavanh Chanmanivong, and Keochay, on the occasion of the third anniversary of the demonstration of 26 October 1999. Again starting out from the conclusions of the Brussels Conference, we should develop the idea of establishing a movement for the democratic integration of South-east Asia along the lines of European integration, reinforcing contacts in Thailand and Cambodia and among the diaspora and oppositions of Vietnam, Laos and Burma, thus also moving away from the framework of integration inherent in the ASEAN. We should also, as the Brussels Conference concluded, carry out an urgent study and critical analysis of the type of relations that currently exist between the European Union and the Member States on one hand and Vietnam, Laos and Burma on the other, and of the role which relations of this type have in maintaining or reinforcing the anti-democratic ruling classes in power in these countries. In view of the closure of the Vietnamese and Lao regimes, we must increase pressure both on these regimes themselves and on Western governments, beginning with the questions of concentration camps, torture, the imprisonment of religious leaders (the Ven. Thich Huyen Quang, the Ven. Thich Quang Do, and Father Van Ly in Vietnam), the oppression of ethnic minorities (Montagnards, Degar, But, Koho, Chill, Jarai, Muong, Bahnar, Sedang, Dao, Ede in Vietnam, Hmong in Laos), taking further initiatives at the UN – like the initiative undertaken this summer in the UN Committee on Human Rights in Geneva by Que Mê: action for democracy in Vietnam and, to a lesser extent, by the TRP – and parliamentary and militant initiatives under the slogan “Freedom, Democracy and national Reconciliation”. In a climate in which many people in Laos and in Vietnam, both from the ruling classes and from dissident circles, and in the important communities of the Lao and Vietnamese diaspora, continue to look back to the oppositions of the 1970s, the opposition between North and South Vietnam, between the Laotians who feel occupied and the Vietnamese who hide from the occupation of Laos by their country, it is important to develop opportunities for dialogue that will allow these causes of division and rancour to be faced and, thanks to common initiatives, gradually overcome. Last but not least, in view of our failure this year to push through amendments during the EU budget debate, for next year we should plan a serious battle for the suspension of the funds earmarked for Laos and Vietnam. 3. The question of the death penalty in Asia In the framework of our battle for the establishment of a universal moratorium on executions, and also in the context of the new battle we are launching for the creation of a World Organisation of Democracies (WOD), we should give priority to the aim to introduce moratoriums on executions in the five Asian countries where democracy is most firmly established: Japan, Thailand, India, South Korea and Taiwan. This would also be an opportunity to strengthen the few contacts we have in Japan, Thailand and South Korea and to develop new contacts, and to affirm (also in terms of our political commitment as a party) the principle of “positive discrimination” towards democratic States – that is of special political and economic relations - which must, I am firmly convinced, also be affirmed in relations between States at both bilateral and multilateral level. 4. The Gateway to Asia To discuss, and above all to take action, in Europe or in the democratic countries for freedom and democracy in Asia gives us a further reason to discuss and to take action for democracy and freedom in a region that represents the “gateway” to Asia: the Caucasus. A region of Europe included in the Council of Europe, both the southern part (Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia), and the northern part, including areas that are still colonised, like Chechnya, due to the fact that the Russian Federation belongs to the Council of Europe. The fact that this region belongs fully to Europe is an important point, often deliberately overlooked. As happened in recent times with Bosnia, Croatia or Kosovo - “pieces” of Europe subjected to barbaric acts following the outbreak of the war declared by the Serbian dictator Milosevic and to the complicity, at least by virtue of their failure to react, of most of the European democracies - a piece of Europe has been subjected in the last few years to a full-fledged campaign of genocide. The Chechens are not blameless, true: after the ratification of the Lebed-Maskhadov peace agreements of 1996 they failed to create solid institutions, capable of neutralising factions, clans, warlords, and mafias. But who would deny that the Kremlin, with much more imposing means, is still faced with this type of issue not only in Chechnya but throughout the territory of the Russian Federation? A new peace agreement between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Chechnya must inevitably provide for a period of transition, with the creation of an interim international administration with sufficient resources to create state structures able to guarantee democracy and the Rule of Law and to neutralise the power of the former warlords and of the mafias that have grown up around the war. This was possible for East Timor and Kosovo. There is no reason why it shouldn’t be possible for Chechnya, too. If, however, we return to the present, if we try to understand the reasons behind the genocide currently in progress, we are inevitably led to one conclusion: the war in Chechnya is essentially the result of power struggles between opposing factions of the Russian establishment. The same power struggles that the West – and Europe in particular – refuses to see, preferring to protect “stability” in Russia and its own economic interests (especially in the energy sector). Even if we may be alone in saying so, the target of widespread irony and sarcasm, I believe that we must continue, as we did for Bosnia, to say that “Europe will die or be reborn in Grozny”. On the way in which Europe and the West as a whole respond to the question of Chechnya depends nothing less than the (democratic) future of Russia, the future of Georgia and the entire southern Caucasus, the destiny of the tormented Chechen people and the very survival of a political Europe. It is, therefore, a matter of the soul of Russia, and indirectly of the soul of Europe. The future of the Caucasus - like that of the Balkans or of South-east Europe, albeit in different ways - depends on whether the Union is able to give it a European prospect. The current EU policy, based on the substantial emargination, political and economic, of these two strategic regions – emargination concealed behind wide, spectacular policies of military stabilisation and bureaucratised co-operation, as in the Balkans – serves only to trap the countries of these regions in the vicious circle of crime, the brain drain process, trafficking, and regional or sub-regional conflicts, factors that create the climate of instability that clearly prevents any type of investment except that fuelled by the mafia, ... The soul of Europe has been confiscated by its leaders in the political world and in the media, who have managed to make enlargement to the ten countries of Central and Eastern Europe unpopular, detaching it from the responsibilities of the Western countries in the tragedy that has beset those regions for over 40 years. Even more seriously, as well as being incapable of “selling” the historical reasons that make enlargement the Union’s duty, the political and media powers have even failed to explain the economic advantages of enlargement. This is also true of the case of Turkey, whose balance of trade has tipped heavily in favour of the EU since the Turkey-EU customs agreement came into force. Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria, excluded from the first wave of new EU members, are at least still on the list of candidate countries. The prospect of membership is still alive, therefore. This prospect, albeit linked to the ability of the candidate country to satisfy the criteria for admission, has so far been denied to Croatia, Bosnia, Albania, Macedonia, the post-Milosevic Montenegro, and also, of course, to Georgia (subject to powerful pressure from Russia), Azerbaijan, Armenia and Moldavia. The European Union must pull its head out of the sand and deal with the question of membership for the European countries of the Balkans and the Caucasus, the countries which probably most need EU membership. It must put an end to its “divide and rule” policy, proposing different treatments more or less “under the counter”, as it is now trying to do with Croatia, unofficially offering to include it on the list of countries that will form the second wave of new members (together with Bulgaria, Romania and, who knows, Turkey). All these countries must be included on the list of candidate countries, on the understanding that they will only become members when they have satisfied the economic criteria (the acquis communautaire) and the political criteria (the so-called Copenhagen criteria). This is the demand made in the appeal launched by the Transnational Radical Party and already signed by 135 parliamentarians from Albania, Armenia, Croatia, Georgia and Kosovo. Text of the Appeal Appeal by parliamentarians from Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Croatia, Georgia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldavia, and Montenegro for the inclusion of their countries in the list of candidate countries for membership of the European Union To the Members of the Convention To the Members of the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament The European Union will soon welcome around ten new member countries. A historic event which, from many points of view, represents Europe’s reconciliation with itself, the end of the divisions that have marked it so deeply in the course of the centuries, and especially in the last century, the final result of a long process of unification launched by the founding fathers of the European Union in the wake of the Second World War. Who, in fact, can forget that less than fifteen years ago our friends in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and other countries were still living under the oppression of a dual tyranny, dictatorial and imperialist? And who can deny the importance of this moment and the importance for these countries, during the often difficult years that followed the fall of the Iron Curtain, of the prospect of the arrival of this moment? Not us, that’s for sure. For like them, we experienced the tragedy of this dual tyranny. And like them, we have experienced and continue to experience the immense difficulties involved in reconstruction. And even less so those of us who have experienced the tragedy of war after the fall of the Berlin Wall. And yet while all of us are now working hard, in the face of countless difficulties, to establish freedom, democracy and the Rule of Law in our respective countries, we continue to be kept on the margins of Europe, to be excluded from the true process of European unification. As if we were not Europeans, or as if we were second-class Europeans, unworthy of taking part fully in the institutional and political life of the European Union. All we ask is that you recognise us as Europeans, as we are. All we ask is that you recognise that our countries, like the other countries of Central and Eastern Europe, are included on the list of candidate countries for membership of the European Union. All we ask is to be able, like these other countries, to benefit from the great “trump card” represented by a clear prospect of membership of the European Union. We are aware that for each of our countries membership will depend on our ability to satisfy the political requirements known as the Copenhagen criteria and the economic criteria established by the Treaties and by the "Acquis communautaire". We are not asking, therefore, for special treatment, we are not asking for privileges or favouritism: only to be allowed to work to reach this fundamental goal. Freedom of movement between Russia and the European Union The Union must, however, also develop a radically different policy towards Russia. Instead of viewing the freedom of movement of the Russian population of Kaliningrad with apprehension, it could accept the proposal made in August by President Putin to create a common area of free movement of people between the whole of the Russian Federation and the European Union, abolishing the need for visas. This gesture, more than any other co-operation project, would demonstrate the extent of the concrete desire of the EU to establish a strategic partnership between the two parts of the European continent, and would also be a concrete response to the problem of the declining work-force in the EU from 2006 onwards, when the “piramide des âges” will be inverted, that is when the number of people leaving the labour market will be greater than those who join it. I have no doubt that on the basis of a project of this scope the European Union would have the strength to demand and obtain radical changes from its Russian counterpart, beginning with the decolonisation of the Chechen Republic, the creation of a joint agency for the recycling of the nuclear waste left in various places around the Russian Federation, new guarantees on investments and respect of the fundamental rights in line with European law. 5. Voice of Europe Much is said about the “prevention of conflicts”, less about the affirmation of democracy and of the Rule of Law as the principal (though not always sufficient) means of preventing conflicts. And even less about the importance of information, in undemocratic countries, to affirm these principles. In this respect, last year the Radical MEPs managed to win funding from the EU budget for a “Radio Free Europe”, that is a European radio station that would produce and broadcast radio programmes, in the local languages, in authoritarian or dictatorial countries. This year a series of initiatives – in parliament and elsewhere - have been undertaken to urge the Commission to implement the request of the EP. Using specious arguments, the Commission has, however, refused to act on the request, and has not included the item in the 2003 budget. Unfortunately the Radical amendment calling for the re-introduction of the item was turned down by the EP. The objective cannot, however, be abandoned. We must take further initiatives to press the Commission and the Parliament to make the creation of the EU radio station a priority in the 2004 budget, which will be discussed next autumn. 6. The future of the European Union: the indispensable and the possible Speaking of Asia, of the gateway to Asia, we are already in the heart of the question of Europe, the question of the European Union, its future, and therefore also the political and institutional appointment represented by the Convention on the reform of the treaties and the subsequent Intergovernmental Conference. As we have seen continually in the course of the last 6 or 7 years, the European Council, the European Commission, and most of the governments of the Member States have pursued a policy towards Asia which, as far as China is concerned, is defined as “critical dialogue” (and the same definition could also apply to all the other anti-democratic countries of Asia). This policy has not led to any changes in the direction of the establishment of democracy and the Rule of Law in these countries. On the contrary, in most of these countries the situation of the fundamental rights has only got worse. It should also be noted that this policy has been pursued against the explicit requests of the European Parliament, many political parties or movements, and organisations and associations for the defence of human rights, requests that call on the EU to intervene actively not only to “solve” particular cases of serious violation of the fundamental rights, but also to support the democratisation of these countries in an unequivocal manner. There is not the slightest doubt that if changes were to take place in the People’s Republic of China, or in some other country now ruled by a dictatorial, authoritarian or totalitarian regime, then these institutions and these political leaders would rush to claim responsibility. Just as they did in 1989, when they claimed responsibility for the collapse of the Soviet regime even though they had had close dealings with the Kremlin oligarchy for 70 years, right up to the day before. We are used to hearing this sort of nonsense, and will therefore not be surprised when we hear the same sort of thing in the future. However, while the problem is mainly political, a question of political will, it is also institutional. The current institutional system of the European Union is, in fact, an incitement not to assume collective responsibility and to promote national interests. Because the decision-making mechanisms for foreign policy are of intergovernmental type, they always allow individual states to pass responsibility to other Member States, or to another EU institution, or to use the excuse that “common” policy inevitably requires compromise. What we actually have today is 16 non-foreign policies: a non-policy for each of the member states (soon to be 25), plus a common non-foreign policy. A situation that the authorities of other countries, especially the most anti-democratic countries, have understood even better than foreign affairs experts and observers, and which they are often able to use to gain considerable political, diplomatic and economic advantage. One of the ambitions of the Convention for the reform of the Treaties chaired by the former President of the French Republic, Valery Giscard d’Estaing, is to give the Union a European foreign policy worthy of the name. This is part of the more general ambition to come up with a reform capable of allowing the 25-member Union to face important political challenges, both internal and external, in a rapid, effective manner. Ten months after the beginning of discussions, we are beginning to see some indications of the directions that some members of the Convention, beginning with the President, and some “shadow-members”, like Heads of State and Government or Foreign Ministers, intend to take. And there is every reason to be worried. The institutional fossilisation of the Union First of all, the reform drafted by the Convention, which must then be confirmed by the Intergovernmental Conference, will not be a case of “work in progress”, with some positive aspects and others less so or even negative, as we have become used to with the intergovernmental conferences of the last 15 years. Because of its methods, and also because of the further difficulties that will result from enlargement to the ten countries of Central Europe, the direction given by this reform – which, it should be remembered, will replace all the previous treaties with a new treaty – will mark the institutional evolution of the Union for many years to come. In other words, the risk is that we will see a process of institutional fossilisation of the European Union. The extent of the negative effects of this fossilisation will depend on how far the institutional system chosen by the Convention and adopted by the Intergovernmental Conference fails to give satisfactory answers to several fundamental questions: the balance between the institutions, the functioning of the various institutions, and the institutional system on which foreign policy will be founded. Montesquieu, help! The arguments between federalists and “souverainetistes”, and above all the way they are used by Euro-enthusiasts - by Euro-enthusiasts I mean both the advocates of the intergovernmental way, as impenitent as they are careful to hide their intentions, and the "naive enthusiasts" - do not leave much room for hope about the solution to the real problem, as old as Montesquieu and the American revolution: that of the balance between powers, in other words the balance between the various EU institutions. The widely expected sacrifice of the European Commission - advocated by some national leaders like Aznar, Chirac and Blair, with the unwitting but important contribution of President Prodi and the conscious, active contribution of the President of the Convention Giscard d’Estaing - is now almost an accomplished fact. It is true that these leaders can count on many allies, not least the powerful bureaucracies of the foreign ministries of the five large nations. Genuine “technostructures”, in the course of the over 40 years of the development of the European community these bureaucracies have accumulated enormous power and have taken over many of the competences of the traditional national ministries. From Brussels and from their own capitals, they haggle continually to protect a vast web of interests which they have no intention of giving up. What matters here is not the legitimacy or otherwise of these interests, but the lack of awareness of the existence of this European technostructure and its enormous, unquestioned, uncontrolled and uncontrollable power. If we have no perception of the existing powers, it is difficult to talk of counterpowers. Is there a way out of this a-democratic or anti-democratic drift? Is it still possible to put the European Union back on a democratic course, where powers are balanced by counterpowers, where the competences of the various institutions are clearly defined, delimited and controlled? The question is highly pertinent, for ultimately it concerns nothing less than the future of democracy and the Rule of Law for the citizens of the Member States of the Union, now and in the future. The escape route from this drift, so deeply entrenched in the minds of those who govern (and also of those who are governed), is in any case extremely narrow. I am absolutely convinced that the salvation of the Union – that is of a democratic Union – now depends on the salvation of the Commission. And to save the Commission means to save the mechanism that saw the Commission as the place where the policies of the Union, as approved by the Council (and also, since co-decision-making was introduced, by the European Parliament) are “mises en oeuvre“, implemented. With the invention in the Maastricht Treaty of the 2nd and 3rd pillars, a radically different mechanism has developed, one which has robbed the Commission of this fundamental role as the promoter and guarantor of the European interest and replaced it with an institutional system that favours meditation between national interests rather than the emergence of European interests. If this analysis is correct, any further modification of the EU system that accentuates this new mechanism at the expense of the initial mechanism that saw the Commission as the place of European interest risks becoming a point of no-return. There are two grounds on which this battle will be played out (and is already being played out). That of “JAI” (Justice et Affaires Intérieures), justice and internal affairs policy (which concerns matters that are now the competence of internal affairs and/or justice ministries), and that of foreign policy. Of the two, the second is far more significant, both because of the highly symbolic aspects that characterise it and, above all, because of the fact that it constitutes, as we have already seen, the stronghold of the European technostructure. Paradoxically, it is only apparently possible to state that the struggle for the affirmation of a true EU foreign policy is a necessary, almost sufficient condition to save the future of the process of European integration, and that the possibility of fighting strong, winning battles for the affirmation of democracy and freedom all over the world, and consequently also the possibility for individual citizens and associations of citizens to take an active part in the political life of their own countries, and of their own European Union, instead of merely watching from the sidelines, will also depend (unless we are happy to settle for token battles) on the further progress of European integration, with the birth of a full-fledged European foreign policy. The indispensable and the possible If the European technostructure has managed, as seems increasingly clear, to gain the support of several influential heads of government, as well as of eminent members of the Convention, it is necessary to work for a compromise which, bearing in mind the fears of the former and the interests of the latter, manages not only to maintain the fundamental principles of democracy, but also to set off a virtuous mechanism that will help in the space of a few years to dissipate the fears and to transcend the interests that are now perceived as conflicting. It is therefore a matter of finding a balance between the Council and the Commission, resolving a few institutional problems: that of the so-called “Presidency” of the Union, and those involving foreign policy, above all that of the institutional figure responsible for its “mise en oeuvre”, its implementation. As with all the areas of competence that have gradually become that responsibility of the Union, the key to success has almost always – with the notable exception of agricultural policy – been the creation of mechanisms and phases of transition that ensured a gradual “communitisation” of policy, and consequently a democratisation of the procedures for its definition and implementation. The Maastricht Treaty, on the other hand, with the invention of the 2nd and 3rd pillars that regard foreign policy and internal and justice policy, abandoned this practice, partly on the basis of the (false) premise that it was not possible to envisage “transitory” mechanisms for an area as sensitive as foreign policy. It is for this reason that an ad hoc institutional figure was conceived, that of the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy. Some believe that there is a simple remedy to this problem: it would suffice to merge the offices of the High Representative and the Commissioner for External Relations, and make a Vice-President of the Commission. Technically this solution is perfectly possible. It would be a return to the traditional system in which executive functions are assigned to the Commission. It fails, however, to address the fears, some of them well-founded, of the Member States. To allay the doubts that exist in some Member States, it would not, in fact, be enough to give the Council the power to choose this Vice-President and Commissioner for Foreign Affairs. It is the overall institutional framework for foreign policy that must be tackled. First of all, drawing in this field, too, on the example of the United States, and in particular of the role and the prerogatives of the U.S. Senate, the task of defining foreign policy, not least through budget policy, must be kept separate from the task of running it, entrusted to the Vice-President of the Commission and Commissioner for Foreign Affairs. However, not even the attribution to the Council of the power to define and control foreign policy would be enough. It is necessary to identify intermediate stages of a scenario which might appear, if introduced ex abrupto, as the simple communitisation of foreign policy. In this respect the experience of Mr. Pesc with the case of Macedonia in the last two years is instructive. Probably for the first time, a crisis in a third country has been tackled not by the single Member States, but by the Union. The Council defined a policy on the issue, and gave a precise mandate to the High Representative to implement this policy. There were no protests, nor “parallel” games, on the part of any of the Member States. All the Member States seemed to view the whole process positively. Other mandates of this type could happily be given by the Council to the Vice-President of the Commission and Commissioner for Foreign Affairs. The real step forward, however, would be a true integration of foreign policy with respect to certain third countries. The 15 (or the 25) would decide to entrust the Union with the responsibility for conducting their relations with a certain number of third countries, obviously beginning with countries with which none or few of the Member States have bilateral relations (such as Bhutan, Nepal, New Guinea, East Timor, Mongolia, Pacific Islands, Benin, São Tomé, Gambia, Malawi, Equatorial Guinea,...), continuing with those that for obvious reasons constitute a problem for the international community without being a bone of contention between Member States (Rwanda, Burundi, Burma, North Korea, Afghanistan, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Laos, Sudan, Comoros, Eritrea, Liberia, Bielorussia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan...), and then those for which there is no particular divergence of approach or conflict of interest between the Member States of the Union (Uruguay, Paraguay, Guyana, Ecuador, Bolivia, Suriname, most of the countries of Central America and the Caribbean, Bangladesh, Lesotho, Cape Verde, Namibia, Sierra Leone, Maldives...). A scenario of this type would have many advantages. In the first place, it would not touch on situations in which there are powerful, entrenched oppositions of interest between Member States. Secondly, it would allow us to commence the process of the construction of a full-fledged European diplomacy, beginning with the transfer of experienced diplomats and national diplomatic corps to the new European diplomatic corps, and thus dealing at the same time with the justifiable criticism that some of the current staff of the EU delegations are not suitably qualified. This solution would also allow the process of adaptation and reinforcement of the structures of the Directorate General for External Relations of the Commission to begin. Thirdly, it would allow the creation of mechanisms for working relations between these “embassies” and the Commissioner for Foreign Affairs, and between the Commissioner for Foreign Affairs and the Council (and thus the capitals of the Member States) and the European Parliament. Finally, it would allow many of the “small” Member States to be able to make use of diplomatic and consular offices in countries where up to now they have not, for economic reasons, been present. Furthermore, a system of this kind would not be incompatible with the maintenance by individual Member States of “economic and cultural representations” in these countries (as already happens with the federate bodies of some Member States). What we must find, therefore, is a compromise between the understandable fears of the Member States in the face of the renouncement of their prerogatives with respect to foreign policy and the need to create a virtuous mechanism that would allow us gradually to “communitise” foreign policy. It is clear that the definition of the list of third countries with which diplomatic relations and the foreign policy of the 15 would be “communitised” would give rise to long discussions. The lists proposed above are purely by way of example. However, if we analyse the diplomatic presence of the 15, we discover that only 4 countries (France, the UK, Germany and Italy) have more than 100 embassies and representations in the world compared to the total of 191 members states of the United Nations. It is therefore not at all unthinkable that the 15 could come to an agreement on an initial group of around fifty countries for which foreign policy, and consequently diplomatic relations, would become the exclusive competence of the Union. It goes without saying that this initial nucleus of countries could gradually be extended by the decision of the Council. The question of the Presidency of the Union Even if we were to see the true beginning of a communitisation of foreign policy (and at the same time a communitisation of some areas of justice and internal affairs policy, though this raises problems that are easily overcome), there is no doubt that the Member States will need time before they accept the process for all their relations - including the most sensitive aspects, therefore - with third countries. It is one thing to define and implement a common policy towards Bhutan, but quite another to do so with respect to countries with which one or more of the Member States has established special, complex relations over the course of history. We need only think of the history that links some of the Member States with African, American or Asian countries. There are then the fundamental questions of relations with the United States, the important economic relations with countries such as Japan, China, and Brazil, whether or not to belong to NATO, and the status of two Member States as permanent members of the UN Security Council. It will thus be necessary to strengthen the “community” mechanism in the various institutions (the Council, the Commission, Parliament) before the Member States trust it enough to give up the exercise of foreign policy in the forms we know today. What all this means is that the Convention must not work on the basis that Europe has reached a level of development that would allow a final, definitive decision on the responsibilities and the articulation of the various institutions. What it must do, in my opinion, is propose a working system that would not only improve the current system and increase the level of democracy of the European construction (by introducing co-decision-making for communitised issues, and then majority vote of the Council on these questions, application of the principle of subsidiarity, simplification of the treaties...), but also create dynamic mechanisms that would allow the reconvocation of the Convention in 7 or 8 years’ time, on the eve of enlargement to the countries of the Balkans and the Caucasus, to move forwards towards the communitisation of all foreign policy and defence and security policy, and some sectors of internal and justice policy. For all these reasons, I am deeply convinced that nothing positive would come, at this moment in time, of a battle to see who - the Council, the Commission, or another institution - is to “guide” or “preside over” the Union. I believe, rather, that we must bear in mind three considerations: - as well as its role as the representative of the Member States, in a phase of transition such as the present the Council plays a key role; - the role of the Commission as the guarantor of European interests is irreplaceable; - with the introduction of the mechanism of co-decision-making, the dialectical relationship between the Council and the Parliament has shown itself to work; it can and must be extended to all the “communitised” spheres, including the CAP, foreign policy, and internal affairs and justice policy (those parts that are communitised). A possible balance From among its members, and for a period of two years, the Council elects a President, who in addition to chairing the Council is also - in this transitional phase - the President of the Union. He represents the Union, accredits ambassadors, and so on. For “communitised” matters, the Council, together with the EP, has the task of defining EU policies - by means of the budget or other legislative and procedural means - and verifying the execution of these policies by the Commission. For non-communitised areas of foreign policy and internal affairs and justice policy, the Council continues to decide by unanimous vote on the definition of these policies, and by majority vote on their implementation. A European Congress, composed of European deputies and an equal number of national deputies, elects the President and the Vice-President/Commissioner for Foreign Affairs, for a 5-year mandate and with the ticket procedure. The vote-of-confidence procedure is abolished and replaced by an impeachment procedure. The Commission is charged with proposing the policies of the Union, in the sectors for which it is competent, to the Council and the European Parliament, and with implementing the policies of the Union. The President of the Commission chooses a number of commissioners that cannot exceed 15, not including the President and the Vice-President. States that do not have a Commissioner will have at least one Vice-Commissioner. The Vice-Commissioners can attend all the proceedings of the Commission and take part in them whenever the questions discussed come under their competence. The Vice-President and Commissioner for Foreign Affairs is assisted by 8 Vice-Commissioners (for Eastern Europe and Central Asia; for West and Central Africa; for East and Southern Africa; for South Asia; for East Asia; for South-east Asia and the Asian islands; for Central and North America; and for South America). The portfolio of Commissioner for Co-operation and Development is abolished. The Parliament takes part, together with the Council, in the definition of all policies, with the exception of non-communitised subjects, on which it can only express an opinion which is not binding for the Council. For the relaunch of an old Radical front We cannot continue to remain on the sidelines of this appointment, outside, or almost outside, the current debate on the future of Europe. It would be politically irresponsible. And it would also be proof of a lack of sense of opportunity. In Europe today there are political forces and citizens who are trying to escape from the swamp of the cosmetic debates and reactionary proposals within which certain leaders and potentates hope to confine the discussion on the future of Europe. This is happening, in particular, in some “small” Member States. It is happening in many of the ten states that will soon become members of the Union. It is happening in many of the states that the Union persists in marginalising, in excluding from any prospect of integration, beginning with the countries of the Balkans and the Caucasus. It is happening in some national parties, especially in opposition parties, in those countries where the position of the government is most reactionary. The Transnational Radical Party can and must work to ensure that these forces unite around a project that can confirm the reasons that form the basis of the process of European integration, and uphold the reasons that have still not found responses to match their importance: the affirmation at European level, at the level of the European institutions, of democracy and the Rule of Law. |
