The Lisbon Treaty, or A Rose By Any Other Name
Finally, the Lisbon treaty has been ratified by the last member state and the European Union has a chance of working properly in its expanded form. The treaty-writers can finally heave a sigh of relief; their services won’t be needed again for some time as the EU at long last has an up-to-date legal basis.
You might like to call it a “Basic Law.” For this is the translation of the German term Grundgesetz, which is what West Germans have called their ‘constitution’ since 1949. They didn’t use the normal German word for constitution to emphasise the temporary nature of the measure, the idea being that Germany could have a proper constitution only when the East was reunited with the West.
20 years ago the German Democratic Republic ceased to exist as a result of huge popular protests and its territory was annexed by the Federal Republic of Germany. The West German Grundgesetz was imposed wholesale on the East Germans without any kind of debate as to what foundation a reunited German state should really have. In any case, this constitution, which was never meant to be a constitution, is no longer considered temporary by any of the three big German political parties.
As it happens, part of the inheritance of the new united Germany was membership of the European Union. History does sometimes repeat itself, not in a perfect way but rather as distorted echoes, and in this way Europe now has its own constitution in all but name.
The word ‘constitution’ has been erased. The flag and the anthem have been removed. The Irish have won certain concessions. This has all, thankfully, made no real difference to the workings of the treaty. The EU, as we all know, has had a flag and an anthem for years. And the detractors of the historic document struggle to find fault with the rest of it, perhaps because they are mostly ignorant of its content.
One clear focus of their anger is the Charter of Fundamental Rights, because respecting universal human rights supposedly undermines national sovereignty. To the extent that they would like to commit human rights violations in the name of the state, they are of course right, but some of us think that universal human rights are a pretty cool idea.
Apart from defending the rights of the individual against the whims of the national governments, the treaty also speeds up notoriously slow decision making, but also balances this with greater involvement of the European Parliament – the only institution directly chosen by the European electorate – in the legislative process.
The fact that such an incontrovertible improvement of the structures of the European community is perceived so negatively by most of the population – for I am in no doubt that any referendum in the UK in the last month would have rejected the treaty – says more about the quality of information the electorate receives, and in particular the influence of the tabloid press, than it does about the Lisbon treaty itself.
You might like to call it a “Basic Law.” For this is the translation of the German term Grundgesetz, which is what West Germans have called their ‘constitution’ since 1949. They didn’t use the normal German word for constitution to emphasise the temporary nature of the measure, the idea being that Germany could have a proper constitution only when the East was reunited with the West.
20 years ago the German Democratic Republic ceased to exist as a result of huge popular protests and its territory was annexed by the Federal Republic of Germany. The West German Grundgesetz was imposed wholesale on the East Germans without any kind of debate as to what foundation a reunited German state should really have. In any case, this constitution, which was never meant to be a constitution, is no longer considered temporary by any of the three big German political parties.
As it happens, part of the inheritance of the new united Germany was membership of the European Union. History does sometimes repeat itself, not in a perfect way but rather as distorted echoes, and in this way Europe now has its own constitution in all but name.
The word ‘constitution’ has been erased. The flag and the anthem have been removed. The Irish have won certain concessions. This has all, thankfully, made no real difference to the workings of the treaty. The EU, as we all know, has had a flag and an anthem for years. And the detractors of the historic document struggle to find fault with the rest of it, perhaps because they are mostly ignorant of its content.
One clear focus of their anger is the Charter of Fundamental Rights, because respecting universal human rights supposedly undermines national sovereignty. To the extent that they would like to commit human rights violations in the name of the state, they are of course right, but some of us think that universal human rights are a pretty cool idea.
Apart from defending the rights of the individual against the whims of the national governments, the treaty also speeds up notoriously slow decision making, but also balances this with greater involvement of the European Parliament – the only institution directly chosen by the European electorate – in the legislative process.
The fact that such an incontrovertible improvement of the structures of the European community is perceived so negatively by most of the population – for I am in no doubt that any referendum in the UK in the last month would have rejected the treaty – says more about the quality of information the electorate receives, and in particular the influence of the tabloid press, than it does about the Lisbon treaty itself.
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