EU Constitution Summit Fails

[Kellanved]

EU Leaders failed to work out differences over a new constitution for Europe on Saturday, despite a last-ditch effort by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi for a compromise over voting rights.

Berlusconi, current holder of the EU presidency, was apparently unable to avoid the scuppering of the talks designed to pave the way for a new EU constitution.

“At this time the conference has determined there is no agreement,” a spokesman for the Italian government told the Reuters news agency on Saturday afternoon.

European Union leaders meeting in Brussels this weekend had made little headway on the first day of the summit. At the heart of the dispute is the reluctance of Poland and Spain to accept newly weighted voting rights in the draft text, which would greatly reduce the influence of the two countries.


...

http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1433_A_1059815_1_A,00.html

[AP]

1. Notice it was all Bush's friends who fucked this up -Italy, Spain & Poland

I understand that this is a rolling thing and they can reopen it any time. It looks like they should wait until Bush is gone and stops making promises to these stupid fuckers, like the Duck, Berlusconi, and the Poles who are getting bribed with the Generaly Dynamics (?) factory.

[loudsue]

2. Is that John Edwards changing a diaper????

Kewl!!!

About the EU constitution....from what I understand of what has been proposed...it sounds like it sucks, to me.

It didn't sound very Democratic at all...more like too much power in too few hands, with little room for change. That's why I'm surprised shrub & co. didn't like it. Makes the "Pres" of EU like a dictator..and shrub LOVES purchasing dictators.....with our tax dollars.

Whassup with that?

:kick:

[T_i_B]

16. Chirac blames Blair

Although personally I actually agree that we ought to take time over this and make sure we get it right. Mind you, we Brits seem more interested in the matter of whether or not we should have a referendum on the subject then we are in what is actually in the constitution in the first place.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/12/14/weu14.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/12/14/ixportaltop.html&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=5900

The European Summit in Brussels collapsed in failure yesterday after talks on a new EU constitution reached deadlock over the voting rights of smaller countries.

Tony Blair insisted, however, that the humiliating inability of heads of government to get beyond the first items on the summit agenda did not spell doom for the constitution. "We have got to find a way through. We have got the time to do it," he said.

The meeting failed to resolve a highly technical dispute between Germany and Poland over the voting rights of less populous countries.

In private, Jacques Chirac, the French president, blamed Britain for not supporting the Franco-German position. Publicly, he indicated that a hard core or "pioneer group" of states would push ahead with European integration regardless of how the new members of the EU behaved.

[aneerkoinos]

17. Pioneer group

That's a real threat. That's how Blair agreed to common defence policy - because the four were not just talking. I must say I understand German position. Germany has been putting the interest of the union before her own interests and pays how much for the union -30%? And they get no respect for that, politically idiotic Poland playing nationalistic card (OK Chiraq is not helping either and Blair is just a poodle).

If Germany decides to say f*ck you you ungratefull bastards, it's hard core federal union from now on, I can only wish they accept my country in...

[Radioactive]

3. Bush celebrating

I bet Bush is popping open the Champaigne as we speak.

[Wonk]

4. NYT

European Union Can`t Reach Deal on Constitution

[Wonk]

5. Forbes

FACTBOX-Questions and answers on the EU summit

[Wonk]

6. Scotland Sunday Herald

Europe faces crisis after summit split

[kodi]

7. now have a better appreciation of the beauty of US Constitution?

and its two legislative houses?

[Kellanved]

8. the EU-members have constitutions

Some with a two-house system, some without.

The idea was to create an European nation, now it looks like it'll become a Franco-Allemand vore union - that might even be a good thing.

[kodi]

9. the beauty of the US Constitution is the result of the "Great Compromise"

unfortunately it also meant that slaves were 3/5's a person.

[Dirk39]

10. It's just the same in Europe,

VW-Daimler-DeutscheBank-Schröder and Chiraq wanted the smaller countries to become 3/5 Europeans. But don't mess with Poland...
The constitution is nothing but a neoliberal attack against democrazy.
I'm just happy that it didn't happen. Until now, every attempt to make europe more democratic failed. Even the french socialist failed, when they were asking for minimal standards on social justice.
It rather looks as if corporation-whore Schröder is the one, to manage the third attempt of german corporations to dominate large parts of the world. 2 worldwars didn't archieve that goal. And France starts to dream of their lost empire again. This isn't an alternative to Bushs' USA at all. It's just the perfect counterpart. The resentment against Europe among the europeans, and esp. the smaller countries has much more to do with a complete lack of tranparency. It's just about some people sitting in Brussel listening to lobbyists of big corporations and banks all day long and deciding for us.
Berlusconi, Schröder, Blair, Putin and Bush. This just looks like worse than the romean empire shortly before it collapsed.
Hello from Germany,
Dirk

[kodi]

11. if you are from germany perhaps you are unfamilar wit the US consitution

the senate and house were the compromise between the small/large population state delegates.

the senate gives 2 votes per state, the house representation is based upon population.

however, for laws to pass, BOTH houses have to pass the bills.

this prevents high population areas from controling the agendas.

as to the roman empire, circa 400AD there was virtually local control over economies by then in western europe and Rome was unable to dicate terms due to the the attacks by Alaric and the Goths throughout Moesia, Thrace and finally Italy and Rome itself.

administration of the western provinces had long before evolved to local magistrates and indigenious legionaire troops after the time of Constantine, reversing Caracella's earlier ideas on constitutional models of imperium curatores.

[aneerkoinos]

12. Constitution

Poland and Spain are not fighting for the small countries, they just wan't to be big countries and fuck the small countries, even more than the big four. Small countries were fucked in Nice, and now Spain suggested a compromice of 66% population majority. Poland has unpopular governement that is doing the Maggie thing, playing tough in EU to nurture nationalistic feelings at home. I hate that kind of divisive populism.

Small countries want 50% population majority and 50% country majority, simple and just. 60% population majority is doable compromise. Nice-system must go, it's good for two countries (gues who) and bad for everybody else.

The constitution is no more neoliberal than the previous agreements, and there might be some development on deciding some social issues with majority vote. That would be a good thing, if one believes representative democracy has a chance. Also the EU referendum/parliamentary motion with 1 million signatures is interesting, to say the least.

I get very frustrated when the radical left sees EU as a threat and not an opportunity. Nationalistic left is Stalinism, true progressive left must be international. The right wing nationalists fear EU even more and call it socialist. It is not (yet), but let's make it so!

Another world is possible, another EU is possible. It won't happen by itself, it takes time and cooperation.

[annagull]

13. Great analysis, aneerkoinos

I can see dirk's point about the corporations trying to take huge advantage, but that is exactly why we must get a seat at the table, and use whatever influence to install worker and environmental rights into the mix. Face it, the U.S and China will dominate the entire world, this is just a preview. If Europe can unite along with Russia, then there will be a stop-gap at least..

[kodi]

14. 2 houses, one based on nationality, one based on population seems easier

each with the ability to prevent the other from controlling the agenda seems the best compromise.

let me know when you are able blot out nationalism, or even regionalism, because political theories from either the left or right haven't been able to do it yet.

different cultures project different accents on human values.

same as it ever was.

[aneerkoinos]

15. Europe is not US

And EU member states will never become as weak as US states, even if EU federalism increases. Bun in effect, there are two houses, the EU parliament and the Counsil. EU democracy has lot of room to improve, but by any standards EU is more democratic than US.

>let me know when you are able blot out nationalism, or even regionalism

Europe has done pretty good job on nationalism, if one compares to the situation few decades ago. The fight is not over, and blotting out nationalism does not mean giving up cultural identity, but nation state as the first political identity. There's no need to blot out regionalism, local identity and sense of community is just as important as global identity.

>different cultures project different accents on human values.

Yes, but those values are universal and different accents is a good thing. Monocultures are more fragile than a tolerant multicultural approach.

>same as it ever was.

Times they are a' changing...

[Dirk39]

19. I agree with Negri and Hardt on Europe...

"The most damning charge critics can level, then, is that the United States is repeating the practices of old European imperialists, while proponents celebrate the United States as a more efficient and more benevolent world leader, getting right what the Europeans got wrong. Our basic hypothesis, however, that a new imperial form of sovereignty has emerged, contradicts both these views. The United States does not, and indeed no nation-state can today, form the center of an imperialist project. Imperialism is over. No nation will be world leader in the way modern European nations were.

From our standpoint, however, the fact that against the old powers of Europe a new Empire has formed is only good news. Who wants to see any more of that pallid and parasitic European ruling class that led directly from the ancien régime to nationalism, from populism to fascism, and now pushes for a generalized neoliberalism? Who wants to see more of those ideologies and those bureaucratic apparatuses that have nourished and abetted the rotting European elites? And who can still stand those systems of labor organization and those corporations that have stripped away every vital spirit?"
Hi from Germany,
Dirk

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. This seems contradictory

first: "Imperialism is over."
then: "a new Empire has formed"

which do they believe?

[Dirk39]

21. Their approach is different...

"By "Empire," however, we understand something altogether different from "imperialism." The boundaries defined by the modern system of nation-states were fundamental to European colonialism and economic expansion: the territorial boundaries of the nation delimited the center of power from which rule was exerted over external foreign territories through a system of channels and barriers that alternately facilitated and obstructed the flows of production and circulation. Imperialism was really an extension of the sovereignty of the European nation-states beyond their own boundaries. Eventually nearly all the world's territories could be parceled out and the entire world map could be coded in European colors: red for British territory, blue for French, green for Portuguese, and so forth. Wherever modern sovereignty took root, it constructed a Leviathan that overarched its social domain and imposed hierarchical territorial boundaries, both to police the purity of its own identity and to exclude all that was other.

The passage to Empire emerges from the twilight of modern sovereignty. In contrast to imperialism, Empire establishes no territorial center of power and does not rely on fixed boundaries or barriers. It is a decentered and deterritorializing apparatus of rule that progressively incorporates the entire global realm within its open, expanding frontiers. Empire manages hybrid identities, flexible hierarchies, and plural exchanges through modulating networks of command. The distinct national colors of the imperialist map of the world have merged and blended in the imperial global rainbow. The transformation of the modern imperialist geography of the globe and the realization of the world market signal a passage within the capitalist mode of production. Most significant, the spatial divisions of the three Worlds (First, Second, and Third) have been scrambled so that we continually find the First World in the Third, the Third in the First, and the Second almost nowhere at all. Capital seems to be faced with a smooth world-or really, a world defined by new and complex regimes of differentiation and homogenization, deterritorialization and reterritorialization. The construction of the paths and limits of these new global flows has been accompanied by a transformation of the dominant productive processes themselves, with the result that the role of industrial factory labor has been reduced and priority given instead to communicative, cooperative, and affective labor. In the postmodernization of the global economy, the creation of wealth tends ever more toward what we will call biopolitical production, the production of social life itself, in which the economic, the political, and the cultural increasingly overlap and invest one another."
Dirk

[pinto]

22. guten abend, appreciate your posts dirk...American neo conservatives

are attempting to forge an American "expansion" that is bound to fail, not under the weight of terrorism (which thay actually need to maintain momentum for military expansion) but under the weight of world economics and world trade. Their actions are based on an ideology that incorporates militarism and corporatism.

We could and did conquer Iraq. There was no question about that outcome. But the "meaning" of that success, and I feel, other planned successes, is lost on neo-cons. Lost in a blunt unilateral view of the world that requires our determination to make it right.

They are a throw back to Trotskyites more than main stream colonialists in that they believe in the power of the state over all, without any window dressing. And for that, they are very dangerous.

[Dirk39]

23. Hallo!

Negri and Hardt are often misunderstood as if they would use the term "empire" as a label for the USA, it's the opposite. And the reason that many mainstream democrats, not to mention Soros, are so angry about Bush and his administration migth be, that Bush and his administration are not just having illusions about nation-states or the special role of the USA, they're even quite nostalgic with their ties to the oil-industry.
It's exactly how you describe it: (the) American "expansion" is bound to fail, not under the weight of terrorism but under the weight of world economics and world trade. The most money might still be in the USA along with the strongest military the world has ever seen - although they have problems leading real wars. But even the wall street don't work like in good old imperialism with its' nation-states and protectionism. The big global players, might they be "american" or "european", wouldn't even throw a penny into G.W.Bushs' hat, if he can't guarantee their profits anymore. And at least for me, this whole Europe against the USA thing, is as nostalgic as Bushs' ties to the oil-industry. Offer Europe some profits, and they're on your side as they did, when it was about to destabilize and later buy up Yuguslavia.

Dirk

[muriel_volestrangler]

24. Thanks for the clarification

it seems to me that 'Empire' is a poor choice of word. It sounds like they're talking about 'global capitalism'.

[Orrin_73]

18. Poland is the Trojan horse

in the EU.

http://www.deanforamerica.com/
http://www.clark04.com/
http://www.kucinich.us
http://www.sharpton2004.org/

[Yerta Bulti]

25. Isn't it a little arrogant

to assume that the Polish are the puppets of the US? There is also a simple reason for their recalcitrance, it's quite simple, they were offered a deal in the Nice treaty, they then had a referendum on whether to join the EU, partly based on this Nice treaty. Now after the referendum the terms of their joining are being altered. Although I understand the grievances of France and Germany I can certainly understand the Poles wanting to keep what they felt they had already won. For the Polish government to lose their voting power in the EU would be political suicide at the next polish election.

If the French and Germans are so intent upon the weight of their populations being represented then why on earth did they agree to the terms of the Nice treaty in the first place? I would seriously like to know why the unfairness of the arrangements have so suddenly dawned upon them after 3 years.

Anyway, there should be some bicameral compromise as there is in the US and here in Australia.