Klaus Is Right

The Czech president's objections to the European Union's latest power grab deserve to be taken seriously.

BY MARIAN L. TUPY | OCTOBER 16, 2009

In recent weeks, Czech President Vaclav Klaus has received a great deal of criticism from both domestic and foreign opponents for his continued refusal to sign the Lisbon Treaty on European integration. Much of this criticism took the form of ad hominem attacks portraying the president as an eccentric provocateur, selfishly seeking media attention for his "extremist" views. (In fact, 65 percent of Czechs agree with him.) Virtually none of his opponents have actually bothered to engage the president on the substance of his arguments.

That is, alas, typical. Proponents of closer European integration seldom acknowledge criticism of their project, let alone address its problems. Take, for example, waste and corruption in Brussels. The European Court of Auditors has refused to certify the EU budget for 14 years in a row. Yet no visible action has been taken to make EU accounting more transparent. If the European Union were a corporation, its top management would have been jailed long time ago.

Or consider the state of democracy in Europe. Klaus is hardly the only one to argue that Brussels is increasingly unaccountable and unanswerable to anyone. In its June judgment on the Lisbon Treaty, for example, Germany's Federal Constitutional Court criticized the European Union's democratic deficit. The court warned that the Lisbon Treaty failed to fill the gap between the growing powers of the European Union and its undemocratic internal decision-making and appointment procedures.

The European Union started off as a simple free trade area, but today it increasingly resembles a nation-state with its own flag, anthem, currency, and, if the Lisbon Treaty comes into force, its own president and diplomatic service. Yet, remarkably, this amalgamation of 27 cultures, polities, economies, and histories into one superstate ruled by an unelected technocracy in Brussels is proceeding apace regardless of public opinion. Thus, when the Dutch, French, and Irish refused further integration in referendums, they were simply ignored.

Indeed, the cause of an "ever closer union" excites almost religious passions among EU enthusiasts. To be against the EU project is portrayed as not simply wrong, but evil. Opponents of integration are often dismissed as nationalists or xenophobes. In fact, it is the lack of open discussion about the European Union that pushes some people whose voices are consistently ignored to the extremes of the political spectrum. It is no coincidence that the increasing power of the European Union has been accompanied by increasing polarization in the European Parliament -- the only EU body that reflects the preferences of European electorates.

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Marian L. Tupy is a policy analyst at the Cato Institute's Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity and the author of the Cato report, "EU Enlargement: Costs, Benefits, and Strategies for Central and Eastern European Countries."

GERONIMO

4:18 PM ET

October 17, 2009

Klaus is right

Tupy cites European Commission Vice President Margot Wallstrom. During a 2005 visit to a former concentration camp in the Czech city of Terezin., Speaking there Wallstrom linked the rejection of the EU constitution to the return of the Holocaust. Actually Klaus stands for the contrary of that. His distaste for the Brusselization of his country in good part rests in his fear of a resurgent German paramountcy in Europe--which he somewaht uncharitably may just be linking with Terezin, and the likes of the old Gemran footprint.

 

SOPHIA

5:41 AM ET

October 18, 2009

Tupy on Klaus and EU

Tupy can hardly be said to use solid arguments himself. The reasons Tupy gives for Klaus' resistance against the Lisbon Treaty are waste and corruption as well as a lack of democracy. Mr Tupy would seem to base his assumptions on articles in the British tabloids, for if he had made a closer study of the reports by the European Court of Auditors, he would have found that the overriding reason for not signing off on the accounts is that forms often have not been filled in properly. Moreover, the governments of the individual countries of the EU are responsible for 85% of EU spending. I would not like to make the comparison between the use of the EU budget and e.g. the budget of the Czech Republic, using exactly the same criteria, including fraud and corruption.

Citing a lack of democracy as a reason for not signing the Lisbon Treaty is very curious indeed. This new treaty aims to extend parliamentary scrutiny to virtually all EU policy areas, while national parliaments gain more influence (even though all of them already can - if so wish - give instructions to their ministers when the latter go to Brussels for decision-making meetings. And EU citizens can put issues on the agenda when they gather one million signatures, which should not be too hard in a EU of nearly 500 million people.

The idea that any European country would be able to go it alone, would be able to tackle environmental, investment, security, financial, production or employment problems on its own and to compete economically or politically with Russia, China, India, the US, etc., is simply absurd.

 

GERONIMO

3:54 PM ET

October 18, 2009

Klaus Is Right

Sophia writes.

Oh? The EU and its precursors have operated, indeed flourished, over the past half.century without a Treaty. The EU has been notable for its political pretenses as well as for its economic achievement.The principal nations of the EU are very practiced in running fuzzy operations: The British are a monarxchy that's run like republic and the French a republic that's often run like a monarchy. The Poles and the Czechs are put their trust in NATO but deep-down can't abide their most muscular EU partner, Germany. And Germany, which is both in NATO and in the EU is fundamentally neutralist. Go figure, but be sure to use fuzzy logic.