the European Constitution

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

OK lads.

I know politics is a touchy affair but I have this concern in the back of my mind for quite a few weeks already (like a good lot of the frenchies currently). Sorry but I couldn't resist.

The story:

There's a big process going on in Europe right now. Some politicians have written a draft for a Constitution for the EU, with the goals of giving Europe more political power (for it was merely until now, only an "economic" power. Not a political one). The text is written, and now all the member states are required to approve it, either by votes of their parliament or by a popular referendum.

A few of these states so far have approved it, most of them by parliamentary means (meaning that the people has not been consulted for that). Only Spain had a referendum so far : the spanish population approved the text, sort of... but with 60% abstention. 9_9

Sunday the French people are required to vote. It's our turn.

Our president (who is a VERY notoriously crafty liar, guess what - if he hadn't been re-elected last time, he'd be in trouble with the justice right now) thought that it would have been a good idea to ask the french people instead of making our parliament approve the text discretely : he was expecting a plebiscite, and that would have been somewhat good for his fame too. Unfortunately for him, the recent polls show about 52% of intents for a NO and 48% for a YES to the "European Constitution" text.

What they probably didn't expect was that the french would actually read it before voting I guess.

I will vote no, and I will explain why. After that, I'd like to hear your opinion. Because it's an affair concerning the Union as a whole, and not just france.

This subject has been so important for me that I had written down a list of arguments and sent them by email to every frenchman I know. Here's a translated version.

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Europe, does that ring a bell to you ? A big and beautiful Europe full of happy people inside, does it ? Well, this does for me, and it happens that we're not talking enough about it. For the first time in the history of mankind, nations are willing to unite altogether willingfully, peacefully, without firing a single cannon, and we are about to grant ourselves a constitution - a CON-STI-TU-TION - and there is no debate ! There is no discussion ! The 29th May will be voted one of the most important referendums in our history in the middle of an astounding silence !

Then there are two possibilities. Either the answer to the question we are asked is so obvious that it would be useless, ridiculous, or even frankly awkward to debate it with real arguments, or else nobody gives a shit.

Of course, one can very well let things go on alone, and not give a shit at all, i.e. exempt oneself to "make politics", because politics is a boring thing : it comes down to exempting oneself of dealing with one's own business. Very well. If you are in that case, no need to continue reading beyond that paragraph. Follow the herd, graze conscientiously and bleat when you are told to. The twentieth century has suffered from 2 ideological dictatorships, which happened exactly like that ; but that's the past, of course, it cannot happen anymore ; democracy is forever granted. Let's forget quickly Nuremberg in the 30's and these thousand people raising the arm, screaming salutes loud enough to make the sky collapse.

Europe deserves better than that.

What is the point ? The point is to tell whether we allow our parliament to grant its agreement to the "Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe". Concretely : some folks laid a text for us and we are asked to agree on it.

About giving a constitution to Europe, everyone agrees. Europe NEEDS a constitution. But hold on a bit before voting THAT text, folks, and let's at least take the time to take a closer look ! Have you seen the implications ?

For myself, I've just read it. Okay, right. Not completely. In fact I COULD NOT finish it. I admit. At least I hope to have managed to understand the essential. But even in spite of that, there is in this project (our Constitution) at least FOUR monumental aberrations, that concern ALL the political opinions, and I believe it is of the duty of a citizen to discuss about it. It is MANDATORY.

Successively:

1. A CONSTITUTION, the people establish it by electing a CONSTITUTIVE assembly, whose purpose is JUST THAT, and that is disbanded JUST AFTER. Here, this text has been written ARBITRARILY, by men who are ALREADY in power, and validates dispositions established for fifty years by THEMSELVES.

2. A Constitution, by defining a legal boundary by the citizens FOR their government, shall thus be READABLE. This text is TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY PAGES LONG (without the annexes !), which makes it perfectly UNREADABLE. For comparison, the length of the Constitution of the United States of America is merely 20 pages long. I defy you to claim that you've read it, that text we're supposed to give our approval to.

3. A Constitution shall be REVISABLE. This one is NOT : to change the slightest comma, you have to gather the unanimity of ALL the governments of Europe (25 states!), then the unanimity of ALL their people (by referendum or by a vote from their parliament). Put it another way, it is not a Constitution, it is a STRAIT JACKET.

4. A Constitution must be a NEUTRAL text. This text is POLITICALLY ORIENTED : even the politicians in their speeches confess it shamelessly, this Constitution is about defining the "rules of the game" : monetary policy, financial policy, defense policy, everything. That it be liberal, nazi, bolshevik or stalinian is not the question ! It is PARTISAN.

Now, discussion:

(because the forum would not allow me to post the whole text I will develop each point in a separate post).

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

Argument n.1:
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A Constitution should be established by a CONSTITUENT assembly.


A Constitution is not parachuted from the top by the kings for their loyal subjects. It is the NATION itself, precisely here the population of Europe, that CONSTITUTES itself. The assembly thus constituted is called a CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY. Its goal: write the constitution, and only that. That is to say, tell the governing people WHAT ARE THE BOUNDARIES of their power.

A constituent assembly is an ELECTED assembly (very important) composed of people who are INDEPENDENT of the existing powers. Why that ? To avoid, precisely, that the governing people do themselves the rules to which they will need to comply. It's common sense ! That's also, accessorily, an heritage of the Revolution.

Once the Constitution is written, the Constituent is disbanded. We don't need it anymore.

But here, the european institutions are ALREADY done, for fifty years, by the politicians of that time (and those, since they were in power, have necessarily been biased : they have until now fixed THEMSELVES the rules to which they should obey, they have NECESSARILY been partial !) These institutions ALREADY FUNCTION, with the low transparency and technocracy we know, presided by the SAME people, or nearly, as those who created them.

And today it would be the SAME people who would establish the text of our Constitution ? No way. A Constitution shall be established by a CONSTITUENT, an ELECTED assembly.

To say that this brave Mr Giscard d'Estaing effectively gathered a work group to build that constitution (that we called the "Giscard Convention") is by no means receiveable :
- Its members have NOT been elected for that (and by the way, WHO elected them ???),
- Its members were NOT at all independent from the existing powers.

In any case, a Constitution doesn't get written by a Convention, but by a Constituent. Read your history books again. What difference ? A fundamental one. They DID NOT HAVE the powers to write that text. This "Constitutional Treaty" is simply illegitimate.

I hope you realize HOW SERIOUS it is : if you don't care about approving an illegitimate text as important as YOUR CONSTITUTION, because you think that what matters is the contents, and that those brave Mr. Giscard and self-proclaimed members of his "Convention" could only have put good stuff in it for your own interest, your reasoning is a POLITICAL SUICIDE. DEMOCRACY is of PUBLIC interest, NEVER LET ANYBODY USE IT ON YOUR BEHALF !!!

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

Argument n°2:
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A Constitution should be READABLE.


This one is not. Objectively. Read any other Constitution that you can get a hand on, the Constitution of the United States of America, the French Constitution of 1793, the bolshevik Constitution of the USSR, the Constitution of your own state, any one you want, it's contained in a reasonable number of pages - generally between ten and twenty -, it's understandable by virtually anybody, it's clear and simple.

This one is that unbearable that I couldn't even finish it !

On the PDF file that I downloaded from the official site, it does in fact... 250 pages (Legal/A4), and still, without preambles nor annexes. The total text, does FOUR HUNDRED FUCKING EIGHTY FIVE PAGES. It is the Longest Constitution in the World. It would deserve an entry on the Guiness Book of Records.

I know some will say : this length was necessary, it is the reflect of the complexity of the Union, it was impossible to do shorter, we already struggled hard to find consensuses, etc. etc. Stop right here, buddy. For a CONSTITUTION, that should say what are the powers and the counter-powers inside the European Union (and that should say ONLY that), one couldn't do shorter ? Pathetic. Take any 16-year old student, explain him how Europe works and tell him to sum it up in his next paper and you'll get a Constitution in fifteen pages, very acceptable.

And in any way, if that Constitution had been written by a Constituent, we should NEVER have needed to aim for such consensuses between states. The ONLY FACT that this question was risen reveals by whom and especially FOR WHOM this Constitution has been written. Obviously, not for the citizens.

Such a long text, what does it imply ?

It implies that nobody wants to bother reading it.

How then complain about the lack of any debate ? Howdya want to emit critics on a text if you don't have read it ? And even stronger, howdya want to emit the single critic on a text when you've understood nothing ??

This constitution is not criticizeable... BECAUSE it is not readable. If you see so few ministers and politicians from the left wing or from the right wing criticize openly, in good or in bad, this project of Constitution, it is quite simply because most of them... DIDN'T EVEN READ IT.

When you sign a contract, you gotta READ to UNDERSTAND what you sign. Or else, do not sign at all.

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

Argument n°3:
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A Constitution shall be REVISABLE.


ALL the Constitutions have a reasonable procedure of revision. One can reasonably not lock oneself up ALONG WITH the future generations in an institutional lockout that is the product of the epoch in which we are living. One thus forethinks of parliament majorities, petitions, veto rights, anything as long as we are certain that the Constitution will succeed in evolving in the future to always guarantee the Common Good, which means roughly the interest of the majority of the nation.

This Constitution DOES have a revisional procedure, goddamn yes : to change anything one must
1°) gather the UNANIMITY of the member States' governments,
2°) gather the UNANIMITY of the nations they represent.

Which comes down to saying that at TWENTY FIVE States with different or even completely contradictory interests and affinities, we will NEVER BE ABLE TO CHANGE THE SLIGHTEST COMMA IN IT. If in a hen house you have twenty-four hens and a fox, to find some unanimity in there you gotta wake up early ! Now, take out some hens and put in one or two foxes. Here's the Europe.

The Giscard Convention has given birth to a concrete block. Never seen before, anywhere.

I don't know if you realize that we are readying to sign the order of our own STRAIT JACKET, and YOUR CHILDREN'S !!!

Now, those who would still want to vote yes because they are repeated over and over again that this Constitution is not perfect - okay, but that it represents a "progress" compared to the previous treaties, I hope these people are realizing that they are commiting hara-kiri. Nowt can supercede a Constitution. No text. No treaty. This is THE ultimate text in a democracy. It HAS to be as perfect as possible from the start.

Some months ago, the "yes" vote was taken as granted. Now, we're being explained that France must not become the "black sheep of Europe", that the Union cannot be stopped regarding the other member states, ALL the media (but the communists ones), TV, radio, newspaper, call for a "yes" vote and certain personalities even proclaim to be persuaded that the French will rally a "yes" of reason.

I also hope everybody realizes that this is a manipulation.

Who owns the media ? What type of individuals are these ? Are they rich ? Poor ? Do they care more about solidarity or their own interests ?

We are told "if the approval fails, we'll all get back to the previous treaty" (which is particularly horrible). Wrong. This treaty has a horizon of validity that stops in 2009, that is to say that before four years, the Union will need to ratify another one (hopefully this time, a TRUE Constitution with the election of a TRUE Constituent assembly !). On the other hand, this "Constitutional treaty", if it passes, not only will supercede all the national treaties, but its validity will have NO limitation in time ! To break it, one will need to break EUROPE HERSELF !

Historical.

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

Argument n°4:
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A Constitution must be a NEUTRAL text.


Which means that one must not find in it the SLIGHTEST political reference NEITHER to right-wing policies NOR to left-wing ones. Turn your TV on. What do you see ? Liberals publicly claiming : "Look ! We must vote yes because capitalism is WRITTEN in the Constitution !", and socialists who also claim : "Look ! We must vote yes because this text contains SOCIAL ADVANTAGES !"

And the worst of it is that it's true.

You wanna know the contents of that text ?

It all starts by the usual enumeration of the inalienable rights of man and of the citizen, all men are born free and equal, blah blah blah, while remaining very vague : no new institution, no new structure is defined. Normal. Nothing unexpected, it's usual, pleasant and well tied. One could nearly say humanist. Although we will note two partisan appearances in such a republican text.

First thing : an explicit reference to a market economy "where concurrency is FREE and UNDISTORTED" as the only possible means to exchange goods and services between beings. THIS IS NOT A DETAIL ! It means that it will be from now on useless to think about alternatives, for they would automatically become anticonstitutional (exit the world social forum, socialism : free and undistorted concurrency and the market economy are WRITTEN in the FIRST PART of our Constitution. Think well about it.)

Second thing : private property and CAPITAL become an "inviolable right" of the human person (at the same level as dignity and liberty, for example). This being the pending of the previous reference, we do with one shot two strikes : exit communism, proudhonism, anarchism. They become anticonstitutionnal.

Finally, in the second and third part, we are told about the institutions. Generally, in a Constitution, that's in this part that are described the balances between the three powers (executive, legislative and justice) and their respective counter-powers. Here, the three European powers are those we know already, but their means of action are finally explained, and this in a very simple way :

Everything to the executive.

The INITIATIVE of the laws, their APPLICATION, and the initiative of LEGAL ACTION are EXCLUSIVELY GIVEN... not even to the Parliament, no. Not even to people you elect. They go ALL to the COUNCIL OF MINISTERS and to the EUROPEAN COMMISSION.

Not only the powers are NOT separated (a typical feature of a dictatorship!) but furthermore they go to the ONLY European politicians that you DO NOT ELECT ! An effectively :
- the Parliament does NOT have the initiative of the laws (READ THAT AGAIN SLOWLY !!!)
- the Parliament has almost NO means to control the executive
- the Parliament CANNOT oppose the Council of Ministers
- the famous "popular initiative right" only has a CONSULTATIVE role (and thus not committive)
- all that the Parliament can do is voting the budget !!! (and in all that is already... the only improvement in the text.)

THREE QUARTERS of this Constitution (on a tad more than 400 articles) define a policy. Actually, the whole third part (the one meanwhile, that citizens are told to ignore because it is "so complicated!"). I WILL NOT LET ANYBODY SAY THAT THIS CONSTITUTION IS NOT ULTRA LIBERAL.

All the public services must be subject to the laws of concurrency.

Temporary state help to a company in difficulty is forbidden.

Freedom of establishment is written in the Constitution. Which means that a low-paid East European will be able to come to our country and do his business, while benefacting of the laws and (low) social regime of his original homeland, and rich western investors will be able to go and plunder Poland and the rest of the newcomers while still benefacting of the laws and social protection of a rich Western capitalist country.

The Central Bank of Europa has ONE goal : fight against the inflation of prices. Like any national central bank, it should also be allowed to sustain the economic growth and the employment, but here it will be FORBIDDEN because ANTICONSTITUTIONNAL.

And to finish, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) becomes the "elaboration and implementation boundaries" of the European Defence. But NATO, that's also... the United States of America. This text gives POWER to the United States of America over the military policy of the European Union ! We grant a FOREIGN POWER the responsibility to warrant our OWN DEFENCE ! That will be WRITTEN IN OUR CONSTITUTION !

This text is not only PARTISAN, it is complètely IRRESPONSIBLE.









If you've come to read down here, now you know what I will vote and why. In any way, even if the no wins, the game will be far from being won. On the contrary. I already say it and now I repeat myself: GREAT things will happen in this century. Europeans, if that rant made you think, pass it forth. If you have a contrary opinion, develop your argumentation and PASS IT FORTH TOO. We need a CONTINENTAL DEBATE and so far there is NONE. >

[HangFire]

Long read.

Anyway, I don't live there, but if I did I'd vote 'no'. Granted, I'm getting all my information from one who is stronly against it, but you do have very good points. After reading your arguments against it it surprises me that its going through and that there isn't more opposition to it.

You've not got me a bit worried about it, what affects such a large nation as Europe will have a huge impact over here.

The media's strong support of it also bothers me. Its no secret that mainstream media is controlled by a small group of wealthy and powerful individuals, and their messages about this new constitution is probably having a hige impact on why there is little opposition or debate about it.

[stefanhendriks]

I have to vote wednesday the 1st of june. I will vote no as well.

Basicly pmb sums it up , even better then i could. I did not even try to read the entire constitution because it was so **** long. Our goverment has tried to make a small docuemnt to make it 'easier' to understand that thing, but even that is 15 pages and it is vague.

Even with the points PMB described. I do not see any POSITIVE thing about this constitution. The only thing i keep hearing is political power. HAH! What a show! Iraq anyone? If we want to be ONE, we should think as ONE and agree on each other. By simply saying yes to a constitution will not somehow make us more believable...

also, since i am dutch, i will see that our country will have nothing to say. Greater countries like Germany, France, and in the future Turkey (they are coming, i am sure of it)... they will make the rules, and i will just watch and see my country which i am pride of (of its euthenasy , its history, etc) go under. The Netherlands, will never be the same.

When i vote NO, and i sure hope France will vote NO. Then there will be no constitution. And with no constitution, there is nothing for the moment to be afraid of at this rate.

Funny how local politics influence something bigger then that. And more funny is, those same people elect the people who are in our european parlement.

[von Ryan]

*sleep*... Huh? What? The speech is over?
I understand you, this year we'll have a plebiscite on firearms sale here in Brazil... And next year we'll have elections for the house of representatives (federal deputies), the senate, state deputies and president.

[Cpl. Shrike]

Im voting NO to.

Not that i don't like Europe.
But this has got notting to do with it.
It describes laws that should not be in a constitution.
A constitution is about fundamental rights and not about burocracyrights.
The laws they developed now are just plain madnes.
It might be good for one country but bad for other.
In my view Europe Union can exist without a constitution.

The European union is about trading and free travel.
For me its not about having the same laws all over.

I can only say this.

VOTE NO !!!!

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/* edit */

Some politicians here spoke about the united states of europe.
That guy must be totaly blind. Just few years ago major war broke lose because of that. .... Jogoslavia.
And other european coutry identities would never work like the usa.
To much deferences between cultures.

Just vote NO !!!

[stefanhendriks]

imo if the amount of people who vote are below 50% then automaticly there should be a rejection. I have heard they will count votes on 30% already. Thats ridicilous, it never represents the country that way.