Jens Tomas Anfindsen, HRS
En historisk utvikling finner sted i EU og medfører endringer som vil påvirke både demokratisk praksis og ytringsfrihet innen EU. Men utviklingens gang er trygt skjermet fra demokratiske prosesser.
Etter et par års tenkepause er EUs grunnlov tilbake for fullt, riktignok
under en annen betegnelse, EUs reformtraktat. I dag vet vi at alle henvisninger
til at grunnloven var død var bare spill for galleriet. Helt fra de første
tanker om den politiske utviklingen i Europa etter andre verdenskrig, har en
føderal statsdannelse stått på dagsorden. En av EUs fedre, Jean Monnet, sa i
1953 at en snarest mulig måtte få en europeisk føderal statsdannelse, før folk
forsto hva som foregikk. I dag ser vi at det indre marked (EØS) og ikke minst
en felles valuta (Euro), trenger en sterk sentral politisk makt.
Det arbeidsdokumentet, som etter mye spetakkel ble godkjent under EUs
toppmøte i juni, skal bearbeides videre som EUs reformtraktat. De som har hatt mulighet
til å sammenligne grunnloven med reformtraktaten, hevder at 96 – 99 prosent av grunnlovens
innhold fortsatt er med. Bare 10 av 250 paragrafer er endret. La oss se nærmere
på detaljene i forslaget.
Prinsippet om EU som en juridisk enhet ligger fast, med samme tekst som i
grunnloven. Prinsippet er avgjørende for om EU skal være en statsdannelse eller
en internasjonal organisasjon med sterke overnasjonale regler. En må kunne
hevde at reformtraktaten er like mye en forfatning eller grunnlov for en føderal
statsdannelse, som grunnloven som ble avvist ved folkeavstemmingene i Frankrike
og Nederland.
Dette skriver Olav Boye, tidligere fylkesleder i
Buskerud Nei til EU, i en artikkel der han redegjør for noen av de vesentligste endringene den nye reformtraktaten vil
innebære for EU-samarabeidet, dersom den blir ratifisert. En enda grundigere
innføring i samme emne leveres av professor Anthony Coughlan i en artikkel i
The Brussels Journal. Det kan være verdt å merke seg at også tilhengerne av en europeisk føderasjon vedgår at de
vesentligste nyvinningene fra den forkastede grunnlovstraktaten, videreføres i
reformtraktaten.
På tross av at flere eksperter advarer om at EU nå slår inn på en farlig, anti-demokratisk kurs, har altså samtlige EU land unntatt Irland vedtatt å gå inn for
Reformtrakteten uten å gå omveien om en konsultasjon med folket. I Irland
krever grunnloven at nasjonal suverenitetsavståelse sanksjoneres gjennom
folkeavstemning, og det er da også eneste grunnen til at irene vil få sjansen
til å si sin mening. Trolig vil den irske regjeringen legge folkeavstemnigen
så sent som mulig på året i 2008, etter at alle andre medlemsland har ratifisert avtalen, for
slik å legge maksimalt press på folket til å velge ”riktig”. Irland er nå EU-skeptikernes siste og eneste håp.
Skulle irene avvise traktaten, er hele prosessen like langt; da vil forsøket på
å skape en EU-superstat være foreløpig hindret, enda en gang. Stemmer irene for Reformtraktaten (=grunnloven), vil Europas Forente Nasjoner se dagens lys i 2008.
Det som skjer i Lisboa i dag er av historisk betydning og
har dyptgripende implikasjoner for demokratiets rolle i EU-systemet. En av de fundamentale endringene i den nye reformen er at det meget kontroversielle
Charter of Fundamental Rights
– et rettighetscharter som kan komme til å gjøre kritikk av islam forbudt – blir en
del av EUs traktatgrunnlag (= grunnlov), og altså overordnet nasjonal
lovgivning. Likevel er omtalen av reformprosessen nærmest fraværende i norsk
presse. VG-nett
er den eneste nettavisen som ser ut til å ha noe om denne saken i dag.
Stillheten rundt reformtraktaten i Norge er ganske
merkverdig tatt i betraktning av at det ikke behøver å herske noen som helst tvil om at EUs
statsledere utmerket godt vet at den pågående reformprosessen er dypt udemokratisk,
og at Reformtraktaten (=grunnlovstraktaten) ikke hadde blitt vedtatt hvis den
hadde blitt lagt ut for folkeavstemning i EUs medlemsland. Saken er tydeligvis og simpelthen den,
at europeiske ledere mener at denne reformen er altfor viktig og presserende til at vanlige
folk kan få lov til å være med å fatte avgjørelser om den. Den EU-skeptiske
bloggen The Brussels Journal har samlet et knippe sitater fra fremstående
europeiske statsledere som uttaler seg om Reformtraktaten (=grunnlovstraktaten),
og disse utsagnene bør kunne få det til å gå kaldt nedover ryggen på noen hver:
France was just ahead of all the other countries in voting
No. It would happen in all Member States if they have a referendum. There is a
cleavage between people and governments […] A referendum now would bring
Europe into danger. There will be no Treaty if we had a referendum in France,
which would again be followed by a referendum in the UK […] It would be a
mistake to think that with the simplified Treaty we have sorted everything, we
can sleep easy and that no other issues are pending […] Now we have got to
resolve the political issues and to broach them without fear. We have got to
debate them without taboos: budgetary policy, trade policy, monetary policy,
industrial policy, taxation, all policies, any policies.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, at a meeting of senior
MEPs, EUobserver, Telegraph, 14 November 2007
The difference between the original Constitution and the
present Lisbon Treaty is one of approach, rather than content […] The
proposals in the original constitutional treaty are practically unchanged. They
have simply been dispersed through the old treaties in the form of amendments.
Why this subtle change? Above all, to head off any threat of referenda by
avoiding any form of constitutional vocabulary […] But lift the lid and look
in the toolbox: all the same innovative and effective tools are there, just as
they were carefully crafted by the European Convention.
Valery Giscard D’Estaing, former French President and
Chairman of the Convention which drew up the EU Constitution, The Independent,
London, 30 October 2007
«I think it’s a bit upsetting […] to see so many
countries running away from giving their people an opportunity», Irish
prime minister Bertie Ahern said on Sunday 21 October, according to the Irish
Independent. ‘If you believe in something […] why not let your people have a
say in it. I think the Irish people should take the opportunity to show the
rest of Europe that they believe in the cause, and perhaps others shouldn’t be
so afraid of it,’ he added.»
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, EU Observer, Brussels, 22 October
2007
They decided that the document should be unreadable. If it
is unreadable, it is not constitutional, that was the sort of perception. Where
they got this perception from is a mystery to me. In order to make our citizens
happy, to produce a document that they will never understand! But, there is
some truth [in it]. Because if this is the kind of document that the IGC will
produce, any Prime Minister – imagine the UK Prime Minister – can go to the
Commons and say “Look, you see, it’s absolutely unreadable, it’s the typical
Brussels treaty, nothing new, no need for a referendum.” Should you succeed in
understanding it at first sight there might be some reason for a referendum,
because it would mean that there is something new.
Giuliano Amato, former Italian Prime Minister and
Vice-Chairman of the Convention which drew up the EU Constitution, recorded by
Open Europe, The Centre for European Reform, London, 12 July 2007
Public opinion will be led to adopt, without knowing it, the
proposals that we dare not present to them directly […] All the earlier
proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden and disguised in some
way.
Valery Giscard D’Estaing, Le Monde, 14 June 2007, and Sunday
Telegraph, 1 July 2007
The most striking change [between the EU Constitution in its
older and newer version] is perhaps that in order to enable some governments to
reassure their electorates that the changes will have no constitutional
implications, the idea of a new and simpler treaty containing all the
provisions governing the Union has now been dropped in favour of a huge series
of individual amendments to two existing treaties. Virtual incomprehensibilty
has thus replaced simplicity as the key approach to EU reform. As for the
changes now proposed to be made to the constitutional treaty, most are
presentational changes that have no practical effect. They have simply been
designed to enable certain heads of government to sell to their people the idea
of ratification by parliamentary action rather than by referendum.
Dr Garret FitzGerald, former Irish Taoiseach, Irish Times,
30 June 2007
The substance of the constitution is preserved. That is a
fact.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, speech in the European
Parliament, 27 June 2007
The good thing is that all the symbolic elements are gone,
and that which really matters – the core – is left.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Danish Prime Minister,
Jyllands-Posten, 25 June 2007
The substance of what was agreed in 2004 has been retained.
What is gone is the term “constitution.”
Dermot Ahern, Irish Foreign Minister, Daily Mail Ireland, 25
June 2007
90 per cent of it is still there […] These changes haven’t
made any dramatic change to the substance of what was agreed back in 2004.
Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, Irish Independent, 24 June
2007
The aim of the Constitutional Treaty was to be more
readable; the aim of this treaty is to be unreadable […] The Constitution
aimed to be clear, whereas this treaty had to be unclear. It is a success.
Karel De Gucht, Belgian Foreign Minister, Flanders Info, 23
June 2007
The good thing about not calling it a Constitution is that
no one can ask for a referendum on it.
Giuliano Amato, speech at London School of Econmics, 21
February 2007
Referendums make the process of approval of European
treaties much more complicated and less predictable […] I was in favour of a
referendum as a prime minister, but it does make our lives with 27 member
states in the EU much more difficult. If a referendum had to be held on the
creation of the European Community or the introduction of the euro, do you
think these would have passed?
Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, Irish Times, 8
Feb.2007; quoting remarks in Het Financieele Dagblad and De Volkskrant,
Holland; also quoted in EUobserver, 6 February 2007
It is true that we are experiencing an ever greater,
inappropriate centralisation of powers away from the Member States and towards
the EU. The German Ministry of Justice has compared the legal acts adopted by
the Federal Republic of Germany between 1998 and 2004 with those adopted by the
European Union in the same period. Results: 84 percent come from Brussels, with
only 16 percent coming originally from Berlin […] Against the fundamental
principle of the separation of powers, the essential European legislative
functions lie with the members of the executive […] The figures stated by the
German Ministry of Justice make it quite clear. By far the large majority of
legislation valid in Germany is adopted by the German Government in the Council
of Ministers, and not by the German Parliament […] And so the question arises
whether Germany can still be referred to unconditionally as a parliamentary
democracy at all, because the separation of powers as a fundamental
constituting principle of the constitutional order in Germany has been
cancelled out for large sections of the legislation applying to this country
[…] The proposed draft Constitution does not contain the possibility of
restoring individual competencies to the national level as a centralisation
brake. Instead, it counts on the same one-way street as before, heading towards
ever greater centralisation […] Most people have a fundamentally positive
attitude to European integration. But at the same time, they have an ever
increasing feeling that something is going wrong, that an untransparent,
complex, intricate, mammoth institution has evolved, divorced from the factual
problems and national traditions, grabbing ever greater competencies and areas
of power; that the democratic control mechanisms are failing: in brief, that it
cannot go on like this.
Former German President Roman Herzog and former president of
the German Constitutional Court, article on the EU Constitution, Welt Am
Sonntag, 14 January 2007
If it’s a Yes, we will say “On we go”, and if it’s a No we
will say “We continue.”
Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxemburg Prime Minister and holder of
the EU Presidency, Daily Telegraph, 26 May 2005
The Constitution is the capstone of a European Federal
State.
Guy Verhofstadt, Belgian Prime Minister, Financial Times, 21
June 2004
Are we all clear that we want to build something that can
aspire to be a world power? In other words, not just a trading bloc but a
political entity. Do we realise that our nation states, taken individually,
would find it far more difficult to assert their existence and their identity
on the world stage.
Commission President Romano Prodi, European Parliament, 13
February 2001
[Kilde for ovenstående sitater: The Cleavage Between the People and Their Governments, The Brussels Journal].