Sovereignty and Democracy in the European Union Essay Example

to escape the armed mob.

Another good example occurs in Henry IV Part One: "I can call spirits from the vasty deep" says Glendower. "Aye" replies Hotspur "And so can I. Or so can any man. But will they come when you do call for them?"

I do not want to turn this into an undergraduate essay on political philosophy especially in such company. But these reflections are relevant to the current debate about the future of Europe because there has been a tendency in this country to treat sovereignty as some mystical absolute. A birthright of every Briton handed down through the generations like a sacred flame, indivisible and unalterable. Every question about how best to represent the national interest in the European context can be resolved by applying one simple test: does the proposal require Britain to surrender any more of her birthright? In this conception, the country is giving itself away, piece by piece: "drifting ever closer to its own destruction" (to quote from the Conservative Party's recent production "Believing in Britain").

Yet 'sovereignty' in the sense of unfettered freedom of action, is a nonsense. A man, naked, hungry and alone in the middle of the Sahara desert is free in the sense that no-one can tell him what to do. He is sovereign, then. But he is also doomed. It is often preferable to accept constraints on freedom of action in order to achieve some other benefit. Britain is severely constrained by her membership of NATO. She is committed to intervene in the common defence if another member is attacked, and accepts a foreign (US) commander for such an operation. As Mrs.Thatcher so rightly

said at the time of the 1975 Referendum on Europe: "Almost every major nation has been obliged by the pressures of the post-war world to pool significant areas of sovereignty so as to create more effective political units."

My own conviction, as I shall argue, is that in our national debate we have focussed too much on sovereignty. The more important concept is that of democracy. Constitutional authority, or de jure sovereignty, may very well be divided between several institutions both within the country and outside it, if the authority thus divided can maximise the common good.

So the proper question is not whether participation in the EU is a treasonable abdication of sovereignty, as some opponents have sought to prove in the courts. It is how the emerging polity can best represent, and be felt to represent, the will of the people. Only if people accept the legitimacy of the changing political order will they willingly accept the obligations imposed by it. If they do not feel adequately involved and consulted, they will eventually question their political obligation.

That raises the whole question of democratic support and accountability, which is my principal theme today. But before I come to that, let me enlarge a little further on why I feel that the obsession with sovereignty misses the point.

Britain's sovereignty in the European Union

In the 1950s Britain stood aside as the European Community began to take shape. The reasons for that are legion. I have no doubt, however, that one important strand in British reluctance was the wish to preserve national sovereignty. It was all very well for the rest of Europe to combine forces and to develop

supranational institutions indeed it was a good thing. But Britain should remain captain of her soul. Licentious foreigners could engage in increasingly federastic practices. But we should preserve our virginity.

Yet by standing back at that time; by seeking to preserve our de jure sovereignty, did we maximise our de facto sovereignty our influence over our own destiny? It is now generally accepted that we did not. By staying out, we allowed the Community to take shape without us, and according to principles that were alien to us. Once it became clear that we had no future as a serious European player outside the political and economic construction that was to dominate the second half of the 20th century, it was too late. We knocked at the door. We were rebuffed by de Gaulle. We had to sue for entry. And we got in on terms that were very much less favourable than what had been on offer more than fifteen years before.

The same could be said of the French debate at the time of Maastricht. Opponents demanded "l'independence de la politique monetaire" or de jure sovereignty. But the franc fort already belonged to the DM zone. So de facto French sovereignty could be maximised by accepting the single currency. The Bundesbank, quite rightly, takes account only of German interests. But the French have a seat on the European Central Bank, which has to look to their interests too. This, indeed, is the logic of the whole European project. The nations, by sharing de jure sovereignty, gain de facto sovereignty, or influence over their destiny.

Opponents of the EU often point to Switzerland or Norway to demonstrate

that Britain could be perfectly successful, economically, outside the Union. They are not wholly wrong. Those who argue that we would lose more than 50% of our market, that we risk allowing jingoistic chants to lead us to the romance of the workhouse, exaggerate their case. We would suffer a bit, depending upon the terms we could negotiate for our trade outside the Union. Inward investment would fall.

Unemployment might tick up. I have no doubt we would be less well off outside than in. But there would be no catastrophe; no Biblical plagues. The more important point is that far from gaining sovereignty, in the de facto sense, Britain would actually lose it. In international trade we would have to follow WTO rules with little opportunity of shaping them. That would be left to the heavy hitters: the EU and the US.

Most of our trade, of course, would still be with countries of the European Union. We would still have to meet Single Market rules (as Switzerland and Norway must). But we would have no say in the shaping of those rules. And when we ran into barriers, for example when we were told that if we wanted to market our milk chocolate within the EU in future we would have to label it 'vegelate' rather than 'chocolate' we would just have to lump it. We would lose our ability to reduce the absurdities of the Common Agricultural Policy (as we have done with remarkable if unrecognised success over the years, gradually eliminating the principle of unlimited support for unwanted production). Above all, in my view, we would betray our heritage by abandoning the leadership

of Europe to a continental combine.

And much the same, I suspect, applies to the Euro. For years the British debate has been about the pros and cons of a single currency. That was, and is, an interesting question. But the debate should always have been about whether Britain was better off inside or outside a project which was going ahead anyway. In little more than a year's time Euro notes and coins will replace national currencies in most Member States of the EU. And already the advent of the Euro is having a profound influence on decision-making. Britain is no longer part of the inner circle of economic policy-making in the EU the so-called Eurogroup. Gordon Brown does not always bother to attend the traditional meetings of the 15 Finance Ministers (the ECOFIN Council). That is perhaps understandable insofar as the most enticing smells are starting to emerge from the Eurogroup kitchen - with some of the ECOFIN menu pre-cooked there. British diplomats hover about outside the Eurogroup and pick up what scraps they can about plans for economic and monetary policy but they have no say.

There is growing pressure, of course, for closer economic co-ordination in the EU. Britain can resist indefinitely the extension of majority voting to new areas, and thereby maintain her veto on sensitive issues like tax. But as greater consensus begins to develop in the Eurogroup on economic, monetary and even fiscal issues, I suspect that the economic and competitive pressures upon Britain to come into line, in her own interest, could become very great.

Britain is a member of the Group of 7, G7, in which the Americans, the major

European countries and the Japanese consult at the highest level, not least on monetary issues. It is, if you like, the 'top table'. But what if G7 were to begin to give way to G3, bringing together those with responsibility for management of the dollar, the Euro and the yen? Would we still be invited to dine at high table if we were outside the Euro zone?

Britain's dilemma

Britain sort of knows all this. Leader after leader including Mrs.Thatcher set out with the best of intentions to engage positively in the European enterprise because they knew that it was in Britain's long-term interest. But each has quickly run into heavy political seas. They have wanted to keep their options open, and they have resented the feeling that they were being pushed faster and farther than they wanted, or than public opinion would readily accept.

Churchill expressed the dilemma perfectly in an essay he wrote as long ago as 1930 : "The conception of a United States of Europe" he wrote, "is right. Every step taken to that end which appeases the obsolete hatreds and vanished oppressions ... which encourages nations to lay aside their precautionary panoply, is good in itself". But he was not, of course, thinking of Britain, at that time. For "We have our dream and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked, but not compromised."

Yet there is no linkage without compromise. That is Britain's dilemma. And we are stuck on the horns of it as firmly as ever. Nor will we feel comfortable again until there is more affection for the European enterprise, and more sense of

engagement in it. Which brings me to my principal theme the need for greater democratic underpinning.

The 'democratic deficit'

At present people feel sullen and alienated from the EU not just in Britain, but more widely. The recent Danish referendum vote was further evidence of that alienation. And it is dangerous, because it could eventually lead people to question their political obligation. If people feel that they have no say; that policy is being made over their heads; that the law is a scourge rather than a protection they will eventually revolt. As Edmund Burke said : "People crushed by law have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws."

If a cricketer asks why he should obey the umpire by what right he is given out you can answer by explaining the rules, and even the position of the MCC. Beyond that there is nothing to be done but to say : "You must return to the pavilion because this is a game of cricket." That is the knock-down argument. You must obey because we are operating within an accepted set of procedures.

The growing problem regarding perceptions of Europe in Britain (and the metaphor could be applied elsewhere if it was understood!) is that too many people are coming to think it is not cricket (in the sense that there is something unfair about it). Cricket, they discover, has sprouted all sorts of new rules while they were not looking. They pine for the game they used to play, and love, in which Westminster stood proud and unchallenged at the centre. But that is like a conservative cosmologist during

the Renaissance pining for the Mediaeval model of the universe which was comfortably geocentric; where the planets moved in perfect circles; and where there were no loose ends. The game has moved on. We are still building the new model. But there is no going back to the old one.