From: livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec
Subject: Re: Advantages and Disadvantages
Date: 15 Oct 1992 17:45:27 GMT
Organization: sgi
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: solntze.wpd.sgi.com
Keywords: Denmark, Maastricht

In article <mikael.79.719157427@udac.uu.se>, mikael@udac.uu.se (Mikael Lundgren) writes:
|> 
|> Subsidiarity (thanks for writing that word ;-) is a good concept, however
|> I think it should be formalized by laws (constitution ?), we all (?) know how
|> bureaucracies have a tendency of always wanting MORE. Without the 
|> constraints of laws it will be very difficult to draw the line (I understand 
|> that the Commission is of the opinion that subsidiarity is a principle but 
|> that it cannot be coded into a law because it would be too difficult to draw 
|> the lines). I also think that people in Europe will want to see some 
|> guarantees that national power and independence will completely vanish to 
|> Brussels.

As a European, I tend to believe that arrangements like 
subsidiarity work as long as people see value in them and 
want to make them work.    I see little value in written 
Constitutions except to record what one generation thought 
was a reasonable way to run things.    I believe that when 
you use the word "Constitution" and the word "guarantee"
in the same sentence, you are just setting yourself up for
disappoointment.   The way to get your children to emulate
your ideas on running the country is through education.
Writing them down in a Constitution is something you do
for the tourists.


|> I think the point is obvious, Europe is certainly not unique. Its 
|> uniqueness is the kind of war that we would have if one ever came 
|> to pass, just think about it for some time .....

There's a war going on in Europe now, and it's much like any
other war.   The "kind of war" you seem to be hinting at is,
IMHO, more likely to happen in the Middle East or in Asia.

|> This might be true, but we won't know if the debate that is going
|> on will stay at its current general level of just predicting 
|> catastrofies (sp?) either way.

I'm not aware of any credible prediction of catastrophe for
Europe.   We not erecting the EC because we have ten years to
go to the Big One.   The consequences of failure are more
likely to be stagnation than warfare.   If the countries of
Europe cannot agree to merge, they won't just fall to arms
in reaction.


|> Perhaps people just want to slow down and think this thing 
|> through, maybe it is a question of giving some time to a 
|> discussion without a political campaign going on at the same 
|> time (which probably would rise the level of the debate 
|> considerably).

Well, I'm an enthusiast for the EC but definitely a skeptic
on a United States of Europe.    I see no reason why the
European countries need to ape the US by forming a federal
state, while the current generation - we don't know what the
next one will think - has feeling of uneasiness about losing
national identity.    If we can get most of the economic
benefits of cooperation by agreeing to free trade, free
movement of labour, dismantling border controls, joint
industrial and scientific projects, then of course we
should do that.   Also, it seems that cooperation between
still-sovereign countries up to now has *not* aroused deep
feelings of insecurity among ordinary Europeans.    Yet
the step to full Union *does* seem to make a good many
people uneasy in ways that they sometimes can't express
very coherently, so why don't we leave that step until
people feel a little more relaxed about it.    It won't
destroy Europe to keep its separate flags and currencies 
for another generation, but it might destroy Europe if we
try to force people into a Union they don't want to be in.

jon.
Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec