The current Triomphant class is currently under deployment to replace the former Redoutable class. In 1953 France received a request from…

Interesting, though that Weber used ‘legitimate’ and not ‘legal’ and here lies the rub maybe – it’s not just about what is legally possible or not, but where there is moral case/force behind action, and that’s why the emphasis in on ‘legitimate’.

With regards to which war is illegal or not, is subject to which international laws we break , but in addition to that we could ask whether a war illegal but legitimate, and that takes us into the dark and murky field of morals. Good jobs we know what’s legal or isn’t, because morals and ethnics, are relative.

Interesting, also that say, Banda Ache’s case for seperation is not treated as a legitimate case, and perhaps won’t be supported by the international community, but Kosovo’s might be seen as legitimate – both might have just claims for autotomy but depends on internatinal backing whether we deem it legitimate.

So even a case for state autonomy, and seperate isn’t just about legality – but legitimacy – and legitimacy ultimately boils down to who morally upholds those claims. Hence Kosovo might be successful in declaring independence as state, but say, Banda Ache, and Taiwan might not be.

Quite a lot of people use the phrase ‘illegal war’ with respect to Iraq, but not Kosovo or Afghanistan. China and Russia say no: whatever. France and Germany say the same, that’s not right.

Presumably, those people are reserving the right to use _legitimate_ force to some kind of Europe-wide consensus. They just haven’t established the institutions that could write that intuition down as a rule.

and the (largely mistaken) belief that it was democracy, i.e. the mob, that brought the likes of Hitler to power

Democracy did bring Hitler to power?!

It is more than a tidying up exercise though. There is a consolidation and strengthening of powers, are well as new roles like that of EU president.

This depends on what you mean by ‘consolidation and strengthening’ whilst new positions would have been created their practical usefulness was almost non existant. Maastricht was far more revolutionary in what it actually created than the constitution, but the EU parliment is a neutered asylum that doesn’t do much.

It also has to be pointed out principles like conferral and subsidiarity would have been explicitly written into the constitution. It was hardly a declaration of a new super state.

I would not support the idea of becoming part of a European state where Westminster is abolished, but neither do i see any merit in raging against shadows. I am a sceptic of the grandiose European dreams, but i very much hold myself apart from ‘eurosceptics’ – whom i feel have become little more than conspiracy theorists.

I’m not disagreeing with your fears about what Europe could become; rather im disagreeing whether things like the consitution are bringing those fears to reality.

You are an ace writer on here. I quite liked you when all you did was comment, but frankly, you have moved up a gear or two.

So, expect the worst, for that is what you are about to get.

I said: (and I’m giving up on all that HTML stuff until you tell the ruling classes that it is a complete disgrace that Preview has disappeared)

Whew!

Anyway.

What I actually said, and what you quoted in full, was this:

“How about substituting the words ‘Westminster elite’ in place of ‘EU elite’? Exactly the same arguement would stand. As it would indeed for those bastards who oppose us on the tea committee.

Again, pooled sovereignty is not weakened sovereignty.”

To which you responded:

“Pooled sovereignty is weakened sovereignty, by definition. It may be that pooled sovereignty is best for some countries some time, but it still weakens their own sovereignty (as opposed to their power, which may actually increase).”

In what way is pooled sovereignty weakened sovereignty? What evidence do you have to suggest that that is the case? I’d have thought that the exact opposite was probably the case. Viz a viz the fact that the country you live in operates on the basis of pooled sovereignty. He might have been your James the First, he was oor Jamie the sixth!

“In fact if you strip away the Telegraph’s rather silly ‘OMGZ THE EU IZ FASHIST DICTATERSHIP!!!!!’ spin and look at what has actually happened in terms of security policy and what is actually being proposed, you’ll see that to claim the EU has (or is even close to having) a monopoly on legitimate violence in Europe really is rather absurd.”

No, that would probably come under the ‘things nation states can’t do by themselves’ in that when crime is international, the response to crime needs to be international. And while we’re on the subject, lets be a bit clearer what’s on the table here, as far as I can tell the COSI proposals (and they are still only proposals) involve greater co-operation between national police forces, including sharing of data and , on occasions, allowing foreign police to pursue suspects on our soil. Whether or not this constitutes a good idea, it is evidently not the same as the creation of a federal European police force with powers to operate throughout the EU. It should also be noted that neither Europol or the EGF represent anything along the lines of a federal EU police force. I’m not sure that the EGF is really anything to do with the EU at all.

In fact if you strip away the Telegraph’s rather silly ‘OMGZ THE EU IZ FASHIST DICTATERSHIP!!!!!’ spin and look at what has actually happened in terms of security policy and what is actually being proposed,

“As for trade negotiations, why can’t they be handled by individual countries?”

Well rather obviously because individual European nation states have bugger all leverage on their own and would have even less if they went into negotiations in direct competition with one another. When it comes to global trade negotiations (and perhaps international politics more generally) the UK has three options 1) Be part of a European bloc 2) Buddy up with a proper big power (probably the US) 3) Become a total irrelevance. I’m not sure anyone disputes this (well… maybe UKIP), as I recall a few years ago a senior tory nutcase suggested the UK should join NAFTA and form a bloc with the US. I’m not really certain a drastically unequal relationship with the US would give much more a say than as part of the EU and I doubt whether the US post-Bush would be especially up for it either.

“I wasn’t so worried about Britain, as I was about continental Europe. Look at the popularity of the far-right there.”

While I appreciate your englishman’s eye view of Europe being basically all the same, could you be a bit more specific? I suppose you could be talking about Le Pen getting to the second round 5 years ago, but to claim that that represents a surge in right-wing support would be to ignore the fact that he eventually got thumped by the not particularly popular Chirac and that the NF’s showing in 2007 was dismal. Furthermore such support that they do have appears to me to be largely anti-immigrant rather than anti-EU. I’d have said this is also probably true of nationalist parties in other ‘old’ Europe states, particularly Holland and Germany. As for ‘new’ Europe, the Romanian nationalists that I’m aware of are considerably more worked up about Hungarians and Russians than the EU. Indeed, as far as I can tell the general mainstream feeling is that when you have Putin’s Russia sitting just to your east, the EU looks like a rather good idea. Then there’s Serbia, where the promise of EU membership is a major reason why they just elected a moderate rather than a violently nationalist president. So, seriously, where is this anti-EU popular uprising taking place?

Your post is spot on in its history, apart from the absence of populism in your arguments. What we see today, when the EU disregards the people if they get the ‘wrong’ answer, is a legacy of WWII, and the (largely mistaken) belief that it was democracy, i.e. the mob, that brought the likes of Hitler to power. This being their viewpoint, the EU elites were bound to govern with the mindset that they knew better than the people, for look what the people had done in the 1930s.

As for the forming of the EU, I knew that it had gone through various names, but kept using the EU for the sake of consistency. Apologies for not mentioning it.

“Anyway after spending 50 years forming treaty after treaty after treaty the EU decided to write everything up in a constitution. And this is the main focus of the very controversial European Constitution – to tidy everything up. Whether that makes it more difficult to leave certain treaties or not is another debate.”

It is more than a tidying up exercise though. There is a consolidation and strengthening of powers, are well as new roles like that of EU president.

“None of the countries that fought at the end of the first world war were on the brink of war post 1918 either.”

The situation was different though. Post-WWI, it was clear to many that the Treay of Versailles was a terrible idea, and was only that way because France was sore that Germany had beaten them once again. There was massive potential for conflict. Post-WWII, there was not the same tensions (the focus now having shifted to the USSR).

Desi:

“Yes, so maybe we should take a step back– we are overreacting a bit, no?”

Perhaps my argument should have been that the EU was increasingly beginning to look like a state, rather than it having become a fully-fledged one.

Douglas:

The marble dome was an obscure reference to Stargate SG-1 (I was thinking that you meant Sunny original). Does ye wee lass have a ginger complexion, or is that just her hair? She probably would still be described as ‘wheatish’.

“How about substituting the words ‘Westminster elite’ in place of ‘EU elite’? Exactly the same arguement would stand. As it would indeed for those bastards who oppose us on the tea committee.

Again, pooled sovereignty is not weakened sovereignty.”

Pooled sovereignty is weakened sovereignty, by definition. It may be that pooled sovereignty is best for some countries some time, but it still weakens their own sovereignty (as opposed to their power, which may actually increase).

Soru:

I don’t agree that your three points are needed to start wars (as they can be started over almost anything), but I do think that you are right to say that it has been a number of factors which have kept peace in check in Western Europe post-WWII.

“I’m always a bit amazed at the extent to which people think national politicians are prepared to cede their power to the EU. Politicians are not especially well known for their habit of giving away power.”

The fac that politicians are normally reluctant to give up their power makes it all the stranger that they happily force EU treaties/constitutions through Parliament.

“If you look at what is actually done at the federal level in the EU, it tends to be the pissy little things that launch a thousand rabid Daily Mail editorials (e.g. the definition of biscuit, straight bananas and so on and on and on and on) or thing which individual European nation states couldn’t really do on their own (e.g. Trade negotiations).”

The sort of powers the EU has is not confined to small things. It is the small things that tend to make the headlines, because they are good stories, but EU powers like the ability to pursue criminals across borders can hardly be described as inconsequental. As for trade negotiations, why can’t they be handled by individual countries?

“Actually I was going to throw a crazy one at Rumbold’s “ultra-populist reaction against the EU” nonsense, but after a few deep breaths and a cup of tea I am instead going to post this link.”

I wasn’t so worried about Britain, as I was about continental Europe. Look at the popularity of the far-right there. Britons aren’t the sort who like revolting. We just tend to throw a few stones at the prime minister’s house (the Duke of Wellington, who had to install iron shutters in his house, hence his nickname, ‘The Iron Duke’).

Agree with Soru, an excellent post indeed.

Soru, I think you are very very good at expressing complex ideas succinctly.

My guess as to why there hasn’t been a major war in Europe for 60 years is that it’s due to neither solely the EU, or solely NATO, but the separation of concerns between them.

You get a war when the military, economic and popular reasons all line up:

1. economic: some theory says ‘kill them and take their stuff’ might just work this time.

2. military: there is a plausible worry ‘they’ might attack first, or otherwise change the balance of power.

3. popular: people believe that, want it to happen, and/or fear it being done to them, so support a leader with a plan…

I don’t think you ever get a mass-participation war without all three.

In Europe:

NATO is the unit of major war-fighting, deterrence, military balance.

EU is the unit of economics, trade,

nations are the units of popular nationalism, democracy, politics

As long as it stays that way, there won’t be a major war. Turn the EU into the US, line up the three factors so they can all point in the same direction at the same time, all bets are off.

Not quite sure who ‘the man with the marble dome’ is. The Pope perhaps? Or this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhode_Island_State_House

No, that don’t work.

My comment was just a cheap reference to Romeo and Juliet. Or West Side Story or something.

I am going to get killed for this.

Heh. I do not write for the Telegraph (I am a bit left-wing for them anyway). Is your daughter in need of a husband? Put her on Shaadi.com (and describe her complexion as ‘wheatish’).

No, she’s sorted for the moment, so I was just jesting with you. But, as she’s actually ginger, would that be a good thing or a bad thing on Shaadi.com? Better or worse than ‘wheatish’?

The continuing arrogance of the EU elite, combined with an increase in their powers, could well lead to an ultra-populist reaction, as people become more disconnected from the centre. Then it won’t be countries fighting one another, but civil war. I know that it sounds farfetched, but the popularity of far-right parties derives partly from this very feeling.

How about substituting the words ‘Westminster elite’ in place of ‘EU elite’? Exactly the same arguement would stand. As it would indeed for those bastards who oppose us on the tea committee.

Again, pooled sovereignty is not weakened sovereignty.

“That’s just because you like to see me fail…I still blooming need it though. Folk like Desi will know I’m an idiot, rather than just suspecting it…”

You’re not an idiot, just emotional. We are all emotional, though– just look at my comments over at the Punjabi thread. Having more than a few drinks helps get the emotions going where things are generally rough, and PP is hardcore

Meaning, we are overreacting about the EU taking over all of Western and Eastern Europe, and quite possibly the Middle East (with the Palestinians as stateless people, but somehow a “part” of the EU).

“you are right to point out that the majority of a EU member’s revenue does not go to the EU.”

Yes, so maybe we should take a step back– we are overreacting a bit, no?

“Yay- my post got through to at least one person.”

Well, the EU can be seen as another empire, esp. with the EU elites. Or, it can be seen as NAFTA, SAFTA, etc, which are kind of like economic empires too.

B’shalom.

Just answer me one thing: were the countries who formed the original EU on the brink of war post-1945? If none of them were, then I think that you have your answer.

None of the countries that fought at the end of the first world war were on the brink of war post 1918 either.

I think you’ve touched on a key problem with Europe generally; a big issue is that a lot of people (myself included) don’t fully understand how it works, the various tiers of power and how it objectively affects our lives.

Essentially its about WWI and WWII.

At the end of the second world war virtually every political philosopher in Europe and many many others in the rest of the world were trying to theorise why Europe was continually at conflict (it was the problem continent long before Africa). In the space of 30 years they’d seen two major wars that had sucked in the entire planet. Imagine a period between 1977 and 2008 that had seen the deaths of tens upon tens of millions of people of all nationalities and ethnicities the world over without anyone really knowing why.

Everyone understood that this time it simply couldn’t be allowed to happen again so the ‘plan’ was to get some debates going that would sift out the root causes of all the fighting; institutions could then be built along some core philosophy (which is what the American founding fathers did) and we’d have integration and peace.

Unfortunately they couldn’t come to any conclusions that everyone agreed upon and broadly split into two different philosophical groups each with their own theory of integration (yes they saw the irony):

a)The cause of conflict was essentially linked to tyranny, a lack of accountable democracy and ignoring the rule of law.

b)The cause of conflict was essentially linked to competing economic factors that in certain instances (steel and coal initially) led to mounting friction.

Its important to realise these differences were across nations and not between them (ie every country had people who favoured both points of view).

Basically the first lot (who Churchill agreed with) went on to form the institution they felt addressed the most important issues. This became the Council of Europe. It is there to protect democracy and the rule of law. It is there to prevent the tyranny of Hitler or Mussolini. It doesn’t depend on outside elections rather its organs are made up of the ministers of government or parliamentarians that have already been elected by its member states. The European Court of Human Rights its main judicial organ and is there to explicitly protect every individual in every member state in the Council of Europe.

Meanwhile the second lot of people wanted to avoid the ‘commercial tension’ they thought contributed to Europe’s problems (mainly between Germany and France) so they separately set up the European Coal and Steel Community. They particularly saw those two areas as being friction points and wanted to create a common market, stability of employment, stable economic growth that avoided social tensions etc. It formed around a treaty (this will be important later on). Eventually as is the case with all economic endeavours other treaties were needed to either update or expand on this initial ‘coal and steel’ focus. So they formed a European Atomic Energy Community and a European Economic Community. Then they thought ‘hang on this is confusing’ so they made another treaty that merged the three into the European Community. When the Iron Curtain fell they decided to celebrate by making another treaty, called the Maastricht Treaty which added other bits and streamlined the bits that already existed, and THIS is when the European Union was formed.

The EU was only formed in 1993.

The important thing to remember is the rationale for the original ECSC still fundamentally underpins the EU. It is there to stabilise and encourage the economies of all its member states, and it feels that doing so prevents war. Every nation pays into a pot and the poorer nations in Europe are helped out.

Britain didn’t join the ECSC it believed in the Council Of Europe and was a founding member of that but not the ECSC. Eventually though money talks and we saw the benefit of open markets and free trade so we barged our way in in 1973, the French were nervous about this, and they had every reason to be. We’ve been bastards since the day we joined. See we’re not there because we believe this philosophy of integration is the method to solve Europe’s problems; we’re there because of the open markets. We ignore virtually every important development and thump anyone that threatens the open market. We don’t believe economic integration (remember its the core) is to our benefit so we don’t join the Euro. We don’t believe that open borders are our thing so we didn’t sign up to Schengen.

All we want are the open markets.

Understandably this pisses more than a few people off. After all the underlying premise of this school of integration was inclusive of all aspects of economic growth. Yet we ignore things like a common currency. For what its worth though I think its hilarious.

The European Parliament is the widely known directly elected parliamentary body of the EU but you can almost completely ignore it. It has no legislative initiative – that’s why it does nothing. The European Commission which does have legislative initiative is made up of people nominated by their member states (this is what Peter Mandelson does in Europe – he’s a commissioner). The EU parliament is full of crackpot lunatics from every corner of the continent. Failed politicians and rabid morons are all it attracts. There’s no point in listening to anyone from UKIP because they aren’t going to be ABLE to do anything as an MEP even if you vote for them. All MEPs do is talk but nobody listens because they don’t matter. They can’t make laws.

Anyway after spending 50 years forming treaty after treaty after treaty the EU decided to write everything up in a constitution. And this is the main focus of the very controversial European Constitution – to tidy everything up. Whether that makes it more difficult to leave certain treaties or not is another debate.

The confusion between the Council of Europe and the European Union arises mainly because the artards keep using the following words for everything;

Europe
Council
Commission

So you have the Council of Europe, the Council of the European Union, European Council, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, European parliament, European Commision, Congress of the Council of Europe etc. They then compound the problem by using the same symbolism for everything – the blue flag with yellow stars was originally associated with the Council of Europe, but the the European Union (when it was the Community) also adopted it.

So you have a wide range of things that look the same, and sound the same but act very differently.

Contrast and compare this approach to integration (in the widest use of the word) with what the Americans did. As much as I criticise them I cannot deny some of the greatest statesmen that ever lived formed a coherent argument as to why independence was needed and how all the problems they were encountering could be dealt with via institutions whose functions were thought out before hand. They formed a stable union.

What Europe has is a Confederation where the judicial aspects of its integration are essentially separate to the entity that’s creating what amounts to its Civil laws. Not only that its directly elected parliament is utterly pointless and the entire thing is run on a day to day basis by 27 people in a commission most of whom we’ve never heard of.

At the moment the EU takes note of what the CoE does – especially what the ECHR does but they’re still separate entities (even though being a member of the latter is a requirement of joining the former). That’s best illustrated by the fact that there are many members of the Council of Europe that are not members of the EU. If you take the example of Turkey theres a lot of controversy about them joining the EU even though they’re already members of the CoE. Turkish judges have been adjudicating on matters that concern us for years without any problem but we’re reluctant to let them join an entity which concerns trade.

On the other hand Russia fights with the EU all the time but its part of the CoE – in fact a significant rationale for them not using the death penalty is because of the CoE.

My point is to highlight the issue of ‘who is European’ isn’t as clear cut as people think.

Personally what I want is open trade and the ECHR but all other aspects of sovereignty kept to the UK. So heres the plan we form a new third way. The Commission for the Counselling of Europe. Essentially everyone will sit around a big table and talk about our problems. The flag will be blue stars on a yellow background.

Actually I was going to throw a crazy one at Rumbold’s “ultra-populist reaction against the EU” nonsense, but after a few deep breaths and a cup of tea I am instead going to post this link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/jan/26/uk.polls

and calmly walk away.