EU Referendum: Protecting The Democracy

[AlmostCivilized]

I'm thinking of things like the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, access to the Court of Justice, and human rights ensured by various EU treaties and laws. British citizen have rights ensured by the EU that can be asserted against their local government, but if the UK opts to leave the EU then the citizens will lose that assurance.

ECHR receives cases from across all Europe, so its possible that ECHR will rule on a scenario before it has been tried in UK courts. By that measure your statement cannot be wrong.

However, the UK has an excellent track record on human rights and an accessible court system. There is no reason to think UK courts would not have come to the same conclusion. In general the UK is one step ahead of the ECHR, but neither court system is at fault here. Thankfully, issues of judiciary have nothing to do with democratic accountability.

 

[AlmostCivilized]

Cute choice of smiley. I need to add highlighting to your quote, "In terms of raw numbers, since 2004, Britain has been outvoted in the Council 105 times ..." means that other states have voted against Britain. This happens when smaller neighbouring states band together against the larger ones, which they are inclined to do because their concerns are closely correlated, and they are sometimes compromised. Statistics show that Europeans want to work in the UK and gain UK rights that they do not have in their home EU country, and perhaps the EU would be more balanced if the European Council did not exist.

And what do you mean "for days"? You mean "for years"?

Years of careful preparation with bilateral agreements made in principle, followed by days of intensive negotiation when those agreements collide.

 

[Yeekim]

Yes, and out of those 105 times, Britain itself has voted "No" on 48 and "Abstain" on 57 occasions.
EDIT:

Years of careful preparation with bilateral agreements made in principle, followed by days of intensive negotiation when those agreements collide.

Speaking as someone who has been representing his country in council working parties over a few years, this process is anything but "bilateral".

 

[AlmostCivilized]

Yes, and out of those 105 times, Britain itself has voted "No" on 48 and "Abstain" on 57 occasions.

You have misunderstood what it is saying. European Council votes normally need to be unanimous, so if Greece votes NO then any proposal is stopped with 1 vote.

The quote does not say who voted NO. The quote is saying that on 48 occasions, some other county has voted NO to a UK proposal; and on 57 occasions, some other country voted ABSTAIN to a UK proposal. It is possible that the UK voted NO to its own proposal, but that is very unlikely.

 

[AlmostCivilized]

Speaking as someone who has been representing his country in council working parties over a few years, this process is anything but "bilateral".

There are bilateral agreements away from the table. For example, if you agree my proposal tomorrow, then I will buy more of your bananas next year. Perhaps a better example, if the proposal is important to my friends, then I am likely to vote with them knowing that they will buy me a beer afterwards. To my mind, these are bilateral agreements that are not seen at the table. The agreement at the table is not bilateral, but it is part of a complex network of bilateral understandings.

 

[Yeekim]

You have misunderstood what it is saying. European Council votes normally need to be unanimous, so if Greece votes NO then any proposal is stopped with 1 vote.

The quote does not say who voted NO. The quote is saying that on 48 occasions, some other county has voted NO to a UK proposal; and on 57 occasions, some other country voted ABSTAIN to a UK proposal. It is possible that the UK voted NO to its own proposal, but that is very unlikely.

No, I have not.
Council votes by qualified majority, btw.
Only very rarely in unanimity required.

A note of terminology - one needs to differentiate between The European Council (comprises heads of EU states), Council of Europe, (wholly separate institution of 48 countries) and Council of the European Union, a.k.a Council of Ministers, a.k.a simply Council.
Only the latter is a legislating institution and that's what we're talking about.

 

[AlmostCivilized]

No, I have not.
Council votes by qualified majority, btw.
Only very rarely in unanimity required.

A note of terminology - one needs to differentiate between The European Council (comprises heads of EU states), Council of Europe, (wholly separate institution of 48 countries) and Council of the European Union, a.k.a Council of Ministers, a.k.a simply Council.
Only the latter is a legislating institution and that's what we're talking about.

I agree with all of your added points. I also agree to secede on the 48 votes matter. I need to check the details, but this by no means changes the fact that this council creates significant democratic deficit in the EU.

 

[Yeekim]

I really haven't. The simplest way for you to understand that should be that there really can't be any "UK proposal" for other countries to vote against, because, as you yourself noted, only Commission can propose legislation.
EDIT: k, nice to have that settled.

As for democratic deficit...yes and no.
Similarly one could say that UK creates significant democratic deficit for people of Northumberland or wherever.

 

[uppi]

I am glad I read your post. My personal take on democracy is that we respect each other's views, and we compromise in order to progress together. The EU does not ask for our views.

The EU provides us with a means to scrutinise the EU policy, but we cannot influence the direction of EU policy. EU bodies are protected by treaty, and EU bodies write their own policies. Those EU policies are dictated to the EU parliament and that is not democratic. The British are being asked whether or not they are willing to continue with the status quo, and I think its wrong to coerce the British public to endorse a system that is very undemocratic.

Of course you can influence the direction of the EU policy. Almost everything has to pass the Council of the European Union (actually a different body than the European Council. Who ever thought that was a good idea???). And that contains a representative of your supposedly democratically elected government. If that representative does not represent the will of the majority of your country's voters, then this is the failing of your supposedly democratic system, which you can fix yourself.

If that representative does represent your views, but gets outvoted, then what are you complaining about? Voting is the way to solve issues in any democratic system. I get the general vibe that many UK citizens are upset that the UK does not get its way. But that is not going to be solved by making the system more democratic. If you are in the minority, you tend to get outvoted by the majority in a democracy. And the voting is weighted by population (which is actually more democratic than the distribution of seats the the European Parliament), so you cannot complain about a bunch of smaller countries overruling the big ones, either.

I agree that there is a problem with this indirect pattern and it is the dishonesty of the politicians. For unpopular policies that they nevertheless like, they tend to go to the EU and negotiate a directive. Some time later, when they implement it, they can then blame the EU and hope that the population ignores that they were the ones negotiating it in the first place (and most times the population does just that). In other words, the government of every country benefits from the impression that the EU is this almighty thing that can implement unpopular policies at will, because it prevents the people holding them accountable for their actions. That does not make that true, though.

This is exacerbated by the fact that there is no such a thing as an European press. There are only national presses that are all to easily led to lay the blame on everything else. The German press blames the Greeks, the Greek press blames the Germans and the English press blames the Germans, the French, and, while they are at it, the rest of the EU. A European press would call politicians out, when they accuse the EU for their own shortcomings. Unfortunately, language is a very big hurdle that has to be overcome until we can have a European democracy with real political discussion on the European scale.

 

[innonimatu]

This is exacerbated by the fact that there is no such a thing as an European press. There are only national presses that are all to easily led to lay the blame on everything else. The German press blames the Greeks, the Greek press blames the Germans and the English press blames the Germans, the French, and, while they are at it, the rest of the EU. A European press would call politicians out, when they accuse the EU for their own shortcomings. Unfortunately, language is a very big hurdle that has to be overcome until we can have a European democracy with real political discussion on the European scale.

When even small, long established nations such as Italy, Spain or the UK are having serious problems with regional nationalisms that threaten to break those countries apart (and others have recently broken apart in Europe: Yugoslavia, Serbia, the USSR, Czechoslovakia) what strange optimist possesses people to believe that an European Union as federal state can be made to work and stick around? It won't work. There will be countries breaking apart, and the only way to prevent that will be through the application of threats and, ultimately, brute force. The former is already being deployed. The later I believe it will turn out to be impossible to deploy (see the example of some of those european countries that broke apart).

The EU will either disassemble itself peacefully and go back to its origins of a series of trade and political treaties that bind countries together with a high degree of flexibility. Or it will break apart in a catastrophic way under the strain of yet another "escape forward" into a federation impossible to stabilize politically.

 

[Agent327]

Subset of the democratic accountability issues:

• Autonomous EU bodies (EIB, ECB, etc.) do not take instruction from EU parliament
• EU parliament cannot initiate legislature
• EU parliament can only seek amendment to proposed legislature
• Voter visibility of parliamentary/commission/council debates is poor to non-existent
• Voter turnout in European elections has declined in every election without exception
• European Council could be coercing national governments to vote for its legislation and voters cannot know

- Autonomous EU bodies (EIB, ECB, etc.) do not take instruction from EU parliament.

No, obviously not. Central banks and such institutions rarely do.

- EU parliament can only seek amendment to proposed legislature

It can also reject legislature. Which is a rather decisive instrument.

- Voter visibility of parliamentary/commission/council debates is poor to non-existent

That seems rather normal for commissions.

- Voter turnout in European elections has declined in every election without exception

Sounds like the US presidential elections. Perhaps the US should abolish the presidency? Voter turnout has little do with any kind of accountability. It does have something to do with voter interest in elections.

- European Council could be coercing national governments to vote for its legislation

That's simply incorrect. The EC has no power whatsoever to do so. (In fact, there's very little the EC or EU can do about national laws that violate EU treaties, except legal procedure.)

Which leaves:

- EU parliament cannot initiate legislature.

On which Britain leaving the EU will have zero influence. Also, while this is, strictly speaking, correct, the EU parliament can request the EC to initiate legislation.

For the record, I do not think the EU was founded on the principles of the Third Reich. Johnson and I are very different people: we can agree on one point and disagree on another.

That's good then, because Mr Johnson has some very quaint opinions.

The fact is we are being asked to endorse the current system as it stands today. There has been no discussion of what it will become. Cabinet has suggested there are more changes to come this year, and even that something has been agreed between UK and EU, but voters are not being told what exactly those changes will be.

Not really, the referendum is to decide to stay in or get out. You may interpret it differently, of course.

The vast majority of British voters support the EC, but their views on the EU are less certain.

Obviously. My views on two different phenomena might also be quite different.

This is off-topic. British voters select their representative based on policy pledges, and voters scrutinise their chosen representatives as and when they initiate or debate policy. Example: The Lib Dems made policy pledges and many of them were elected, and after backtracking the Lib Dems learned the meaning of accountability: they were not re-elected.

A result of the British district system, as mentioned. But I gather this paragraph is off topic.

That is democratic accountability.

No, a district system is one means of democratic accountability. There are others. (In fact, the British system is somewhat of a peculiarity in Europe.)

Please use full bodied descriptions because I genuinely try to understand your point, and I often find it hard to understand what you are trying to say.

Gold plating is rather easily googleable. I'm not a reporter, who explains every term to his readers presuming they may not know what is being discussed.

 

[AlmostCivilized]

- Autonomous EU bodies (EIB, ECB, etc.) do not take instruction from EU parliament.

No, obviously not. Central banks and such institutions rarely do.

One of the biggest complaints about the recent HM Treasury report on Brexit is that its content reflects current UK Gov policy. Here is a succinct and concrete response from BOE:

The Bank’s monetary policy objective is to deliver price stability – low inflation – and, subject to that, to support the Government’s economic objectives including those for growth and employment. Price stability is defined by the Government’s inflation target of 2%.

- Voter visibility of parliamentary/commission/council debates is poor to non-existent

That seems rather normal for commissions.

When I have needed to check findings of a UK Commission or the UK Parliament, I have been able to find the meeting minutes (or at least a chronology with quotes); the same is true of EU Parliament that often discloses its internal communications. In contrast, I find EU Commission dialogues unacceptably opaque.

- Voter turnout in European elections has declined in every election without exception

Sounds like the US presidential elections. Perhaps the US should abolish the presidency? Voter turnout has little do with any kind of accountability. It does have something to do with voter interest in elections.

Are you asking, as the EU public does not need to vote for its president, why should the US for theirs? Or maybe you feel the EU public should vote for their president so that we can measure voter interest on equal terms?

I would like to shift the discussion from democracy to democratic accountability:

CEO: "Last year EU restrictions and tariffs pushed our raw material costs up by nearly 40m euros (£31m) alone, turning what should have been a good profit that we would all share into a 25m euros loss.

CEO: "We pay as much as 3.5m euros of import tariffs to the European Union on some of the boats of cane sugar that unload at our refinery, only for the European Union to then send that money to subsidise our beet sugar producing competitors in Europe."

CEO: "I can confirm that we have no influence whatsoever in the shaping of Europe's protectionist laws and regulations. Believe me, we've tried."

EU: "That's democracy because there are more beet producers than cane refiners in Europe".

CEO: "That is not the sort of democracy I want to be part of".

I heard similar complaints being voiced about the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) decades ago, in which many UK farmers were forced out of business because traditional UK farming practices were different to their French counterparts. The EU consistently determines that one size fits all, and their fundamental assumption fails in the domain of food production because the differences that exist between regions are the result of different weather climates, different trade routes, and different historical trading partners. Furthermore, in the policies I have seen, the EU stands opposed to the notion of strength in diversity.

The problem recently disclosed by the Tate & Lyle sugar refinery (via BBC News) shows why Democratic Accountability in the EU is necessary to protect businesses. I am certain this is not a UK-only problem within the EU, and even the largest businesses struggle to be heard on multinational political projects, making it difficult for anyone to measure the scale of these types of problems or identify which regions are being most damaged.

 

[AlmostCivilized]

AlmostCivilized: The fact is we are being asked to endorse the current system as it stands today.
Agent327: Not really, the referendum is to decide to stay in or get out.

If this is a one-off referendum and final say on the matter, then aren't the two issues joined together?

 

[really]

The problem recently disclosed by the Tate & Lyle sugar refinery (via BBC News) shows why Democratic Accountability in the EU is necessary to protect businesses. I am certain this is not a UK-only problem within the EU, and even the largest businesses struggle to be heard on multinational political projects, making it difficult for anyone to measure the scale of these types of problems or identify which regions are being most damaged.

Sugar is interesting. It was heavily protected but is slowly being opened up to imports.
The intervention price has been cut and now roughly matches the market price.
Quotas are going next year.
Export subsidies are going.
Compensation has been paid to close inefficient producers - the last Irish refinery closed in 2006 and our sugar now comes from... Tate & Lyle amongst others.

Quota and duty free imports are possible from a large group of african and carribean countries - why doesn't he source from there?
Perhaps the Tate & Lyle brand owners (including the sugar cane growers cooperative of florida) want him to source from them.

Edit: Is he saying that he had no influence on the above reforms?

 

[AlmostCivilized]

Edit: Is he saying that he had no influence on the above reforms?

The CEO of any large firm is an expert salesman. That CEO is on record as saying he has had no success in reforming EU policy. You might be making him look bad. Do you a link for the reforms?

 

[Agent327]

One of the biggest complaints about the recent HM Treasury report on Brexit is that its content reflects current UK Gov policy. Here is a succinct and concrete response from BOE:

Apart of this being somewhat beside the point, why would a central bank not be supportive of government policy?

When I have needed to check findings of a UK Commission or the UK Parliament, I have been able to find the meeting minutes (or at least a chronology with quotes); the same is true of EU Parliament that often discloses its internal communications. In contrast, I find EU Commission dialogues unacceptably opaque.

So you had no trouble in actually finding them. Which is rather diametrically opposed to your original claim.

Are you asking, as the EU public does not need to vote for its president, why should the US for theirs? Or maybe you feel the EU public should vote for their president so that we can measure voter interest on equal terms?

I made no such suggestion; I was merely using an example. What you said had little to nothing to do with democratic accountability. Hence the example.

I heard similar complaints being voiced about the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) decades ago, in which many UK farmers were forced out of business because traditional UK farming practices were different to their French counterparts. The EU consistently determines that one size fits all, and their fundamental assumption fails in the domain of food production because the differences that exist between regions are the result of different weather climates, different trade routes, and different historical trading partners.

Not really a very good example. British farming has been more advanced than the rest of Europe ever since the start of the Industrial Revolution. So 'protecting traditional farming' (which runs counter to trends in global farming, by the way) has been in the interest of France and other countries where such outdated production modes are still being employed.

That said, EU farming policy is somewhat counterproductive. But that wasn't your argument.

The problem recently disclosed by the Tate & Lyle sugar refinery (via BBC News) shows why Democratic Accountability in the EU is necessary to protect businesses. I am certain this is not a UK-only problem within the EU, and even the largest businesses struggle to be heard on multinational political projects, making it difficult for anyone to measure the scale of these types of problems or identify which regions are being most damaged.

I have no clue what you are arguing here. But if you are in favour of democratic accountability, leaving the EU will have zero effect on that, since the UK will no longer have a European vote period.

 

[AlmostCivilized]

..if you are in favour of democratic accountability, leaving the EU will have zero effect on that, since the UK will no longer have a European vote period.

Apologies. No time to respond to everything but you mentioned the above several times, and this is my view: Leaving would be voting with our feet.

If the UK leaves then the UK is no longer subject to the EU policies that are being determined without democratic accountability. Example effects:

• UK solicitor firms relocating from London to Paris (EU Patent Court est. in Paris)
• GM companies relocating from UK to US (EU opposes GM, but UK does not)
• And many more...

 

[AlmostCivilized]

That said, EU farming policy is somewhat counterproductive. But that wasn't your argument.

It is not my argument, but it does highlight the democratic deficit.

 

[AlmostCivilized]

Apart of this being somewhat beside the point, why would a central bank not be supportive of government policy?

I am beginning to think you argue for the sake of argument.

The EU recognises one central bank (European Central Bank - ECB) and the EU recognises multiple sovereign states. This creates a point of contention within the EU.

The ECB does not support UK economic policy or the GBP. The Bank of England (BOE) works with the ECB to enhance stability in the EU, but BOE is not protected (or even recognised) in an EU Treaty. This was of immense importance to the UK Gov before the referendum debate.

The UK attempted to negotiate protection for all non-Euro currencies, and the UK attempted to negotiate protections for all member states that are not committed to the Economic Monetary Union (EMU) ahead of this referendum. The EU rejected UK proposals and we should be considering the EU position in today's vote.

Where does ECB stand when two Euro-states have conflicting national economic policies? Or is ECB dictating economic policy to Euro-states in the first step towards an emerging super state? The UK has no problem with there being an ECB, but the UK has a big problem with an EU that sanctions only one central bank and only one currency.

 

[AlmostCivilized]

AlmostCivilized: I find EU Commission dialogues unacceptably opaque
Agent327: So you had no trouble in actually finding them

For clarity, I found the diaglogues are not accessible to the public. I could not access them.