TO REFERENDUM OR NOT TO REFERENDUM
The current debate about whether there should be a referendum on the proposed EU Reform Treaty isn’t really about the precise arguments for or against it at all. Rather it’s about people’s different conceptions of what the EU is about or what it’s for.
If you’re a Eurosceptic who thinks the EU should be a loose trading relationship with little or no political super-structure, you’ll support a referendum in the expectation that it will be lost, which might then open the way to leaving the EU and achieving the neo-conservative goal of closer alignment with the US.
However, the arguments actually used are that having an elected EU President for a 30-month term, creating an EU Foreign Minister in all but in name, making the EU a legal entity in certain contexts, and sacrificing the veto by the switch to QMV in 60 (mostly minor) policy areas constitutes a shift of power to Brussels – which it is – though whether it’s a significant shift is a fine judgement. It’s also argued too that Blair promised a referendum on the EU Constitution before the 2005 election (to keep the Murdoch press sweet) and that this Reform Treaty is almost the same– which it is – though it involves nothing like the leap in integration agreed in the Single European Act in 1986 and the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 when there were no referendums. And anyway Blair changed his position on having a referendum 6 times in his last 5 years as PM, so there’s plenty of evidence to quote for his supporting either side of the argument.
What drives the pro-referendum lobby therefore is not their ostensible claims, which are anyway not as strong as they pretend, but rather their underlying view of Europe and their hostility to any move towards even the slightest pooling of sovereignty, whatever the corresponding gains might be.
If you’re a Europhile, the argument will be that there’s no loss of power since Member States will still have to reach unanimous agreement over common policy objectives and a declaration confirms that foreign policy will remain under the control of Member States – though the declaration is not legally binding. It will also be argued that Britain retains an opt-in if it wishes to co-operate with other States in tackling such issues as terrorism and crime – though if Britain did opt-in to an agreement and then found that the final draft was unacceptable, it might not be able to opt out again.
Again therefore the anti-referendum lobby is equally motivated less by force of argument over the minutiae of the Treaty than by their underlying concept of Europe and their sense of Britain’s purpose within it. The key issue here then is how precisely that purpose is delineated.
There’s been far too little debate about our real vision for Europe – though that’s where the heart of the referendum question lies – no doubt because it would so quickly descend into acrimony. But it still needs to be faced up to. Most Eurosceptics don’t want a complete break with the EU, and very few Europhiles in Britain are clamouring for a federalist super-state. But between these extremes there is a real need for clarification about our actual long-term objectives.
It is surely a goal that should unite a large majority that Europe should be able to speak more effectively with a common voice whether on issues like trade, the Middle East or climate change. In the absence of that, Europe will be sidelined as the new super-powers of the US, China and Russia increasingly emerge to stake their bid for power and influence in the new polycentric world order. As a globalised economy becomes ever more dominant, the EU States will only be a major force for democracy, aid and development, planetary sustainability, and moral and political leadership if they can unite as a single cohesive force. It is a prize for which some limited sharing of sovereignty is surely well worth it if otherwise individual EU Member States are fragmented and marginalised.
However, that does still leave two difficult and highly contentious questions. What degree of transposition of power to Brussels does genuinely warrant reference to the people before it is transacted? And what is the desired trajectory for Europe – is it a neo-liberal marketplace or is it a community of nations balancing market efficiency with social democracy? It is differences on these fundamental underlying questions which are fuelling the current rancour over this Reform Treaty, and it is these that should now be brought out into the open by a much wider debate on the future of Europe, not closed down by a much narrower referendum which will obfuscate the real issues.
One last curiosity remains. The Charter of Fundamental Rights, which is part of the Treaty, has been accepted without demur by all 26 other EU Member States, yet Britain sought an opt-out (at the instigation of the CBI), though it is much disputed whether the protocol that Britain secured really does exempt the UK from the application of these new employment rights. It’s all the more ironic therefore that some Left trade unions oppose the Treaty when accepting it, if the European Court of Justice were later to override the protocol (as many suspect), might then repeal some of the more extreme Thatcherite anti-trade union laws as they have always sought. But that’s just one oddity in this tangled saga.
