From: delval@scottie.Stanford.EDU (Alvaro DelVal)
Subject: Re: Swiss Vote on EES ! Democracy worse than bureacracy
Followup-To: alt.politics.ec,alt.politics.europe.misc
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University, CA, USA
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 92 04:51:29 GMT

In article <1992Dec18.190407.10632@polaris.utu.fi> Olli-Jukka Paloneva <opaloneva@abo.fi> writes:
>In article <5481@disuns2.epfl.ch> Guy Genilloud, genillou@litsun.epfl.ch
>writes:
>>the 6th of December, are not ready to give up direct democracy. In fact,
>the 
>>Swiss hope that Europe will evolve towards more democracy, and possibly
>>towards some sort of direct democracy.
>>
>>
>>Guy Genilloud
>
>One man - one vote -rule without structuring a very complex federative
>rule in
>Europe, could make life unbearable in cold Northern countries of Europe
>which
>according to the statistics can be considered as rich ones.
>
>Countries of the southern Europe, which once have been great powers could
>vote
>more subsidies to be paid by Northern countries if democracy existed.

Excuse me? As far as I know, the population of southern Europe is not
a majority in the current EC, not to say anything of an enlarged EC.
So the danger of direct democracy is perhaps that selfish northern
Europeans attempt to have their cake and eat it too by slashing
anything that attempts to compensate for the imbalances produced by
allowing them open access to the markets of the quickly developing
southern countries. You know, the direct benefits of mutual open
access are much greater for the stronger, more competitive economies,
for rather obvious reasons.  As a result of this, southern countries
have seen in the last few years their trade imbalance with the rest of
EC increase by huge amounts. But, sure, some ("northern") people seem
to think that northern companies are making no profit out of it. I
guess they think it's just fair that we allow them to sell us anything
they want no matter what destructive effects this might have on our
economies, but that for us to ask for anything in return for this just
shows that we are a gang of beggars.

(By the way, for all the publicity they get, transfers to southern
countries are quite small, so you should put the amounts in
perspective: Never mind that about 50% of the EC budget, if I remember
right, goes to agricultural subsidies, most of which is spent in
northern countries. Never mind that the EC budget is less than 1.2% of
the EC GDP, whereas the participation of the public sector in the
economy of any EC country is at least 40% of the GDP. Never mind that
EC contributions to a country such as Spain amount to a not quite
impressive 0.3% of the spanish GNP, and that if we had not protested
loud enough we could have become a net contributor to the EC budget,
due to the disproportionate weight of the VAT in EC finances.)

So the point is: southern countries have little to gain, and much to
loose, if the EC is conceived merely as a free trade area. Southern
countries are not asking to live off subsidies for ever (anyway, they
couldn't do that in view of the amounts involved), but some help to
modernize their economies so that the unified market becomes a more
even field.

A good deal is one from which everybody involved benefits. Northern
countries benefit from the unified market, and they would benefit more
if the southern economies became bigger and more dynamic. Southern
countries can benefit from a more open market, if (and that's a
crucial "if") they are allowed to catch up in infrastructures, etc. So
we can all benefit.

Oh, and I forgot to talk about social justice, wealth redistribution,
and other notions that for some reason many people seem to think cease
to be reasonable when you cross national borders. I must admit that
this connection between justice and nationality escapes me. Never
mind.

I do know that the southern countries' stance on these issues is not
popular up north, so I'd be glad to hear your opinions on this.

 - Alvaro

PS. If you thought this was a "private" joke for soc.culture.nordic, next time
check the newsgroups line :-) I've reset the followup to the
appropriate groups.

>Sorry for
>Confederatio Helvetica!
>
>- olli -



Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic