We have just witnessed how right French President Emmanuel Macron has been in his determination to revise the EU treaties eliminating the vestiges of post-war nationalism, the veto.
That 27 countries, and soon maybe 30+, should be restricted in essential matters like foreign affairs, defence, taxation, health and enlargement by a veto from some member is absurd in this day and age. After all, all countries that form part of the Council of Ministers and the European Council, the decision-making organs of the EU, are there because a majority of their citizens have voted them into power.
They are not there because no one citizen has applied a veto. A democracy by its own definition is the rule by majority. We apply this in our own countries then why should we not apply it when we transfer our sovereignty to a larger body like the EU?
In order to be able to compete with China and the US or with Russia in the future, the EU needs to be able to speak on all matters with the force of 27 or 30 countries which, together, have the strongest GDP in the world and with (once Ukraine, Scotland, Macedonia, and others will be allowed to join) over 500 million citizens.
That a country like Hungary or Luxembourg should be able to veto and stop action decided by the representatives of these 500 million will only lead to the breakup of the EU. When launched, the world was a different place and the European Project was the largest peacetime project in economic and political joint action by independent countries that had fought several major wars with each other for centuries. ‘Never Again’ was the motto that drove the founding fathers.
Now that we have a terrible savage and inhuman war within our continent, the fears of a breakup of the EU take front stage.
Yet, when the Conference on the Future of Europe ended last week and proposed the elimination of the veto on existing reserved areas, Oops! Who jumped up and joined ranks to keep the status quo? We find our own country, unfortunately, in the protesting group. I am not surprised by the position of Malta. Malta has always been a leech within the EU, taking funds and assistance but constantly defrauding the other members with its taxation system, ship register and attracting oligarchs and criminals to become EU citizens by selling passports.
With Malta, surprise, surprise, we find 10 countries that joined in 2004 with Malta or later as well as Denmark, Sweden and Finland that joined in 1996 just a few years before Malta. None of the founding six countries of the EU are against reforming the Treaty. Only countries that are afraid of losing funding for breaches of the rule of law or migration or be forced to join the euro or other national interest reasons are against change.
None of these countries think that Europe working to change the world through economic and trade measures or to force the rest of the world that wishes to trade with us to follow social and employment fair rules, follow rules on fair competition or apply climate change measures to save the planet is worth while giving up a national interest.
The 21st century that is soon a quarter gone will be the century of a battle between ‘liberal and market economic and socially and environmentally responsible legislative systems’ and ‘ultra-liberal systems’ of countries like the US that are solely market driven and lack social and general healthcare systems or equality of treatment for all Americans of whatever race or colour and ‘the autocratic and quasi communistic systems’ of Russia and China where information is controlled and workers are treated like flies.
Our system has to prevail in the medium and long term. This is in the lifetime of our children and grandchildren. The EU acting as a force for good, together, is our only hope. The veto and its defenders are turning from loyal Europeans to the fifth columnists for the autocrats in China and ultraliberals in the US.
Fighting for the veto is fighting for the end of the EU- John Vassallo
This is the dilemma that faces Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the other 14 member states. Removing the veto and creating the final act envisioned in the 1957 Rome Treaty of a perfect Union of Independent countries able to speak, act and work together in democratic fashion by taking all decisions by some form of majority or qualified majority of states and populations is the only way forward. Without this change we are doomed.
What are the keys that Macron holds? On the Nordics he has the NATO key. They are now afraid of Russia and wish to join NATO. They tried to keep out of NATO to assuage a Russia which looked like becoming closer to us after Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin but now facing Vladimir Putin who seems more demonic than ‘RasPutin’ before him. These could be persuaded by Macron.
The former Eastern countries of Czech Republic, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, Poland and the Baltic states fear a dilution of their newly found national sovereignty after 70 years of Russian occupation. Yet, the war in Ukraine and the four million refugees in Poland may change their mind about deeper relations with Brussels.
Malta and Denmark are the only ones that protest treaty change for purely greed reasons. Without EU membership we would not have been able to grow our economy the way we did. By skimming the system, cheating our fellow member states that pay in the funds we receive from their taxes.
We protest only for greed. We have no principles and this was amply expressed in our response to the request from the President of Ukraine about Russian oil on Maltese flagged ships and calling the occupation a “conflict” or from our blatant refusal to hear the cries for help from refugees stranded on sinking boats in our rescue zone.
Our attraction to lucre overcomes our belief in democracy or the principles of fairness between nations that are the basis of the EU.
Fighting for the veto is fighting for the end of the EU. Viktor Orban and Boris Johnson will applaud all the obstacles you put into the way of the Regeneration of Europe. Putin and Xi Jinping, Donald Trump and Narenda Modi will all applaud you but our children and grandchildren will curse you.