...and if the Irish say no?

There are 40 something days till the referendum in Ireland. The opinion polls are positive for the Lisbon Treaty. All commentators seem convinced that Ireland will not risk saying no to the EU in the times of crisis. The government and the oppossition seem engaged to convince the citizens to say yes. The institutions and media are already speculating about the new President of the European Council and the 'Foreign Minister'. Everything seems so nice.

Of course everybody adds, just for politeness and diplomacy ...'if the Irish say yes, Polish and Czech Presidents sign it and Germans push through the Parliament a new Parliament scrutinity bill. All the political elites are ready for the new treaty which will apparently solve so many problems, improve democracy, make the Union more accountable to the European Parliament, and European Parliament cooperate closer with the national ones. The long saga started after the night of 'short knives' in Nice seems to be heading to the close. Since December 2000 and the post-Nice package Europe has been discussing about its institutions, structures, mottos, values. The Convention on the Future of Europe (an almost democratic and almost representative body) came with a proposal of a Treaty establishing the Constitution. Ok, you say. The French and the Dutch did not like this package and had doubts about the content.

We got rid of some of the symbols, we have repackaged the whole thing and we all agree all the key elements of the 'Constitution' have survived the popular disbelief and disenchantement. Mr Sarkozy convinced his Parliament that the French cannot risk another referendum. Mr Balkenende did the same. Leaders agreed to push the ratification quickly, before the elections to the European Parliament in June 2009. All faces were saved. The problem was solved. Europe could start dealing with the real issues like climate change, Doha round and l'Europe puissance a la francaise. There were some troublemakers like Mr Klaus and Kaczynski who do not get what it means to be a well educated European. But a mix of carrot and pressure should solve the issue. After all they are from the Eastern Europe only and they have already missed one chance to stay silent.

The only real problem remained the Irish with their stubborn Constitution. - What? They rejected the Treaty? Our beautiful solution to all! Can not they read that we actually took into account of the demands of their government? Cannot they read 400 articles and understand how important it is to move from unanimity to QMV? Do not they see that the power of the European Parliament has increased? They are afraid of being forced to abandon their agreed values? Why? They are represented in the European Parliament by 12 MEPs. Among 736 MEPs? Hmmm... these are the rules of democracy...
- What? They do not trust their politicians charged with corruption? They should not blame Europe for this... Just go and vote yes for this bloody Treaty and let us move on! We need a President of the Europe... sorry European Council. This could be Blair or somebody else... This is the real issue who shall take this job! So what that there is no job description... anyway he/she will find her ways. We would never agree on his competences upfront. Too many controversial issues at stake....
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Ok, so now when you heard this internal dialogue I want to get out of the obvious and politically correct and imagine what the consequences of NO would be. I do not mean I am against the Lisbon Treaty and want the Irish to reject it. After all it is a moderate compromise pushing the EU ahead in some issues and creating a couple of new, interesting jobs and services. But if on 2nd October we find out that the Irish did not share this point of view... what would the consequences be?

1. This would be a trauma for all the political elites who consider European integration as a sort of new utopia solving all the problems and creating remedies.
2. The Europe of projects of Mr Barroso would sound like a prescription of fitness centre for a patient suffering from dementia and sclerosis.
3. The Swedish presidency would have to go back to the drawing board and ask some serious questions about what democracy means and what happens when one small demos rejects a reform of elitist demoi-cracy in the making.
4. The Conservative and Reformist group in the EP would get a serious boost as their sceptic approach would seem to be winning.
5. Mr Cohn-Bendit would start talking about the voters who deceived the domocracy and rejected their European credentials.
6. Mr Sarkozy would claim that the Irish cannot block his political masterpiece and maybe we should have a Europe of 2 speeds: the faster ones would be everybody but Ireland, UK, Poland and Czech Republic. And of course he does not mind taking the role of President of Europe ad interim.
7. We would have a trully European debate about why EU is important and how we should fix it.
8. All the scholars that wrote something about democratic deficit and questions of legitimacy would take their articles from the drawers and publish immediately these hot potatoes.
9. Andrew Moravcsik would recall all the copies of his famous article 'EU ain't broke. Why fix it?'
10. Valery Giscard d'Estaing would propose to chair the next Convention which should get a real Constitutions for the fast track Europe within 6 months.
11. The heads of Communications Directorates in the European Parliament and Commission would go to Canossa or Santiago de Compostella.
12. Ms Walstrom would increase the number of interviews in non-Swedish media.
13. Couple of heads would fall down... first probably the Taoiseach in Ireland... then hmm who was guilty for all this mess?
14. Last but not least, if the EU had survived this vote of non-confidence, we would have a serious debate about what the citizens of Europe want it to do... And maybe one of the results would be a new treaty/statement of principles/statute clarifying in 100 articles what the EU is, what are the objectives and who does what?
15. Last but not least... Any enlargement would be blocked untill we sort out this mess. So the Croatians would have more incentives to talk to Serbia and discuss the solutions for Bosnia and Hercegovina.

Dangerous, scary, destabilising... Europe does not have a plan B but it should start thinking that if you ask somebody for his opinion you should be ready for a yes/no answers. Otherwise it is not a question. In Polish we call it 'dictatum' and it does not sound too democratic.

Do you want to join my list of other possible consequences. Let's do a proper brainstorming! Europe does need it! Use your head!

Economic crisis and the meaning of politics

I have read an interesting interview with George Soros. For those who do not know he is a Hungarian financial invester who earned a lot of money on currency speculation (British pound in the 1990) and parallely started giving a lot of money to the developement of democracy in Central Europe (Open Institute). He warns that we still do not know the real magnitude of the economic crisis and that he believes it will be much deeper than we imagine.
For some years now the Chinese model of state capitalism will prevail. The role of China, India and Brasil will grow while that of US will fade. Nothing will be the same cause the fundamental belief of recent 20 years - that markets tend to automatically seek equilibrium has proved false. And that living on credit has finished when nobody wants to risk another credit.

What is the impact of the above on the politics in general? I think that politics will have to move back to the area which it has left to the specialists - bankers, insurers etc. The new agenda will paradoxically be: not only 'better regulation' but we cannot trust markets - financial markets especially.

But unfortunately Barroso, who put better regulation as a paramount preoccupation of his first term as Commission President, he failed to deliver in the view of the public (at least from our current perspective). I do not want to say that he is guilty for the financial crisis. The whole economists community is guilty for the epistemic mistake we took as a new truth. The problem with Barroso is that in normal times his conciliatory approach, niceness would win him another term. I am afraid (am I?) that this will not prove to be a winning policy this time. Politics needs scapegoats and somebody who has been perceived as supporting liberalisation and markets is a perfect bird to shoot at.

The paradox is that the subjective 'losers' of the last European elections - the Socialists are now rediscovering the meaning of confrontational politics. Probably to a large extent due to the approaching September elections in Germany, Mr Schultz is flexing his muscles in the name of Socialists. And as says Euobserver (http://euobserver.com/9/28374) the Socialists and Greens want to block a quick confirmation of Barroso for his new term. If this political position wins, there is a great risk that the grand coalition in the EP (PSE and EPP) shall be jeopardised once and for all. If Barroso is elected with the votes of EPP, Liberals and the New Conservative Block (together 401 votes - simple majority needed out of 732 MEPs) this will alter the consesus which has prevailed over the last 30 years (with the small exception of EP presidency by Pat Cox).

But coming back to the larger world context, this will not be business as usual anymore. Probably next 10 years will show an unprecedented level of international strain and conflicts. Soros predicts that international institutions will roll back - they will lack the backing of state leaders. I think there is great time now for a new analysis of the political consequences of the Great Depression. We talk about Hitler as the main cause of the WWII but we often forget in what situation he came to power. A situation when the German (Weimar) parliamentary democracy faced 25% of unemployment rate (6M jobless). But we often lose from perspective that the 30ties were the years of growing authoritarism and that international strains were partly a result of its use for domestic purposes (have to think more about this aspect...).

Coming back to the main thesis, politics will no longer be as we used to perceive it to be. It will step back into the areas of economics/monetary relations left to the markets.
Europe needs to prepare for increased tentions both inside and outside. This paradoxically can be positive for the legitimacy of EU as a political project. It will increase the political competition in the EP (more conflicts, more media coverage) and in the international arena there will be a need for a concerted action, otherwise no single EU state will be able to influence the situation. I hope only that the world will not repeat the short-term trade policy of 'beggar thy neighbour' of the 30ties. So far OECD has hailed the world leaders for sticking to the WTO rules and not increasing protection. But with the situation getting worse/stagnating, the quick wins such a policy might offer is a serious temptention. And as Oscar Wild once said: 'I can resist anything but temptation'.

To sum up, the next years will be far from boring. And both the next Commission and hopefully External Action Service shall have a lot of work to do. This is a test they cannot fail!

next Commission - hoping for waves

I hope that the choice of the next Commission's president and the college will not go smoothly. Why? Because Europe needs open conflicts and there is not a more stimulating conflictual situation as fighting for the jobs and portfolios.

Ideally Jerzy Buzek should become the President of next Parliament only after a tough battle with the Italian Mario Mauro. Jose Barroso should get a grilling during his hearings. And if he fails to convince that he did a good job during the last 5 years, he should not get a second chance. Conflict is a good topic for media coverage, so in this way EU should get a lot of attention. I do not mind a total blamage of the transitory Czech government. Europe has been consensual for too long.

I want the new Conservative fraction in the Parliament (British, Czechs and Poles) to question things that have not been questioned so far. And I hope that their criticism shall be rebuked with force by serious arguments from the other sides. We need heated debates in the Parliament. We need close votes where the result is not known until the very end and depending on appearance of one MEP (being ill or late). People and media like thrillers and circus. They should get it. We need dramas. A candidate in tears because he did not get the job he was promised. We need more spices and less consensus, meritocracy and diplomacy. Controversies are good. If we really want to create a debating space in Europe we need to create topics.

The Irish shall vote again on the Lisbon treaty. They deserve a big discussion before. They have shaken up the Union - this should be said openly. But we should not confuse the diplomacy, parliamentary adoption and referendums. There is space for each of them in the European polity. But the stakes should be clear. Referendums should be on clear issues and not on technicalities. I think that Irish politicians failed in their unability to decide to change the Constitution. XXI century will be a time to make tough decisions. And procrastination will have serious consequences. This comment should be addressed to Belgian politicians too, but this is another story for another time.

Personalities matter so let's choose those that appeal to us. I have made my mind already :).