Meine Eindrücke und Schlussfolgerungen hab ich in einem Gastbeitrag für zoomer.de zusammengefasst. Hier kann man ihn lesen.

Ireland has the choice. This Thursday the people of Ireland will be the only EU citizens voting directly on the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty. According to the latest opinion polls, the outcome is in no way clear. Therefore, I have decided to go to Ireland and try to convince some of the many undecided voters. To vote. And to vote in favour.

My initiative is a part of the wider “European Youth for an Irish YES” campaign of which JEF is a partner.

Check it out here.

Credits to Spinelli for having spent some of his best years on Ventotene and coming up with the famous manifesto there… to the Italian federalists for organising a fantastic seminar there each Septemer, to Anders, Jon and Malena for being inspired by this and writing Europe United – and to JEF France for lip serving to the federalist anthem together with the youth theatre of Grenoble! Fantastic.

However, life moves on – and so should I. A second term (has not been happening for ages in JEF) could have been possible, but in the end this is a youth NGO and with 28, I shall allow myself to look for new challenges. Maybe this will be in our “adult” organisation UEF or through the European Movement International (EMI) where we are preparing a platform for the 2009 elections. Who knows. But what is sure is that I will keep JEF in good memories and try to help it where I can. The nest step is the establishment of the Friends of JEF foundation to connect closer the “alumnus” of JEF with the current activities. More about this on www.friends-of-JEF.net

Obviously, I also hope to find more time to re-engage more on this blog with better and more EU-Brussels insight information and analysis.

The JEF president explained: “Today there is a lack of agreement and priorities between the institutions when it comes to communication policy. Instead of working together, each institution is more concerned with its own powers. This situation needs to be overcome for the sake of a common European approach that shows coherence but also the necessary lines of confrontation towards the citizens. Good political communication is a condition of a democratic society and it is time to take this issue as serious as Commissioner Wallström has suggested previously”.

JEF Europe therefore demands that the current Commission initiative will be backed up through new provisions in the Reform Treaty. – “Communication policy needs a proper legal basis within the Union”, Seifert demanded.

In a second step the inter-institutional agreement needs to be replaced by a proper programme along the European elections in 2009. “I expect the Commission to start working on such a legal base as soon as the relevant provisions are provided for in the Reform Treaty”.

For successful elections in 2009, European political parties and their top personnel in the institutions will hopefully show proof of new efforts. Seifert commented: “In order to truly stimulate the political debate in the member states and secure transparency in the political process, the European political parties should all keep their agenda open by announcing which candidates they support as President of the Commission. JEF Europe is currently preparing a platform for this demand”.

The draft communication of the Commission can be found on Euractiv’s website along with a good interview of MEP Helga Trüpel commenting on the new initiative.

It is a rainy summer week in Strasbourg. The Bearus opposition leader Milinkevich and his wife Inna are attending a summer university organised by the Council of Europe. Thanks to a friend a short-notice meeting between the Milinkevichs (Alaksandr and his wife Inna) could be organised.

Mr Milinkevich is very grateful that JEF has organised the Belarus action for the second consecutive year (see my entries with the Press Release here). Raising awareness for the situation in Belarus is and will be an ongoing challenge for all democrats. Asked about how JEF can further remain involved and useful, Mr Milinkevich suggested us to get in touch with his young advisers in Minsk. He was also convinced that some of his activists can be helpful in preparing the ground for a JEF section in Belarus.

Mr Milinkevich shares JEF’s goal of a European federation as a long-term vision. However, he admits that in a country like his the “nation-building” (e.g. Belorussians have not had the chance to study their own history in recent time) is a necessary prerequisite: “federalisation will happen, it is the right idea but some nations need more time to join”.

Russia will most likely remain to be a problem. Mr Milinkevich does not expect anything to change with the parliamentary and presidential elections in Russia in the next half year. The same group of people is to stay in power and continue with this autocratic system. Not only are most of them traditionally well linked to the secret service, it is their “empire-thinking” which complicates relations to neighbours and the rest of the world so much.

For the rest of Europe there are two ways to help the Belarussian opposition. On the one hand institutions like the Council of Europe and even more so the Commission should continue with their programmes and financial support and bring Belarussians in contact with other people, e.g. through summer universities and stipends. On the other hand it is at least equally important to continue the moral support. One such symbol was a phone call from EU High Representative Solana who called Milinkevich on his mobile during the protests in March last year. Solana told him “I am with you and you have all my support” – well-aware of the fact that the Belarus KGB was listening.

The one hour talk with Mr Milinkevich was a great experience. He and his wife (and chief adviser) Inna are reflected persons who have luckily kept their humour. However, it was quite an experience to go through the one-hour meeting with poor Kate having to translate between Russian and English.

Jan Seifert, President of JEF-Europe commented:
“The great innovation of today’s proposals is the introduction of European Political Foundations. These foundations can play an important role in further fostering the debate about Europe within and outside the networks of the European Political Parties. Developing further the European political space is a central task for the European political parties. We call on the parties to make use of the new opportunities the foundations offer to them also to increase their outreach to European NGOs.”

“The introduction and financing of European Political Parties has been an important step in the support for a European political space and the development of European democracy. The emergence of European parties is fundamental to create a true European discourse that is not hijacked by national politics.”

“However, the next logical step remains to be done from the side of the Political Parties. Given also the reconfirmation of the Reform Treaty, it is now obligatory for the European political families to present their candidates for the Commission President ahead of the next elections in 2009. This will increase EU democracy as finally the citizens’ votes for the European Parliament will be translated into a visible impact. But if parties do not live up to their obligations all financing of supranational party structures is not worth its money.”

The proposals from the Commission can be found here. – The call for proposals for the European Political Foundations will be launched here on Friday, 29 June 2007.

From what I hear it is the Greens who will be first to set-up their European political foundation in the next days.

The Young European Federalists (JEF Europe) are deeply concerned about the outcome of last night’s EU summit. Jan Seifert, President of JEF Europe, described the so-called Reform Treaty as “a sad end to the least democratic Treaty reform process in EU’s history“. He further commented: “The worst of nationalist-bureaucratic Europe has struck back. As a consequence of the Sherpa negotiations between unelected bureaucrats national parliaments, civil society and citizens have been completely side-lined.”

JEF Europe fears that EU leaders have forgotten their own bold promises from the Laeken declaration ­ and all subsequent summits. The JEF President commented:
“It has been repeated over and over again that Europe needs to match the challenges of the 21st century. With the envisaged new treaty, Europe will neither be able to speak with one voice in the world nor has it gained clear competences for energy and climate change in order to act in accordance with the self-proclaimed goals from only three months ago. Given the crucial decisions that have to be taken in the coming years, insisting to leave the current voting-mechanisms practically unchanged until 2017 makes the Kaczynski potatoes the most expensive EU leaders ever.”

Seifert expressed JEF Europe’s disappointment about the adopted procedure: “If anything becomes obvious, then it is the huge gap between the Europe of the bureaucrats and the Europe of the citizens. Europe’s governments have opted for a Europe in which citizens and parliaments are deferred to the audience without any chance to influence. The result of this: The ‘reformed’ EU is the biggest in ambition and the smallest in democratic oversight and delivery.”

“If there is one lesson to be learned from the Summit failure, then it is that no future reform can work with the same outdated principle of secret intergovernmental bargaining and unpredictable ratifications in 27+ member states. The veto right must be abolished!” Seifert stressed. He continued:
“JEF Europe demands that a future Constitution and future Treaty revisions have to be exclusively prepared through a Convention. It should come into force if either 2/3 of the member states have ratified the new proposal or citizens have approved the reform in a pan-European referendum with a double majority system.

Seifert concluded: “Europe should be a project by and for its citizens. Today, Europe’s leaders have chosen to diverge from this vision. We will keep on fighting for it!”

The summit conclusions with the IGC mandate are on the Council website.

JEF’s Open Letter on EU reform

Margot Wallström’s answer

The Sherpa consultations of the German chief negotiators Silberberg and Corsepius with their counterparts from the other 26 member states have been concluded last week. Now, they are preparing a draft paper for the European Council. To some extent surprisingly is that the paper for the summit will already include a very detailed overview of concrete decisions with a long(er) list of “non-negotiables”, i.e. agreed issues based on the Constitutional Treaty, and “issues for decision” with (two) concrete and well-formulated alternatives on which the leaders need to agree on the summit. A last Sherpa meeting on the 19 June will pre-discuss the conclusions of the summit. In practice the German presidency actually wants to decide on all unresolved political-institutional issues during the summit, while only leaving the legal formulations to a very short IGC (July-October). This IGC is so soon to be opened with the European Parliament already giving its opinion (formally required under article art. 48 EU Treaty) in the middle of July, a Commission statement on 10 July and a finalised Treaty during the Portugese Presidency. Ratification shall already be concluded during the following Slovene presidency, i.e. until summer 2008.

The Sherpa method has been the least democratic exercise since the EU’s existence

Even though many actors had strong hopes in the German presidency solving the constitutional still-stand, Chancellor Merkel and all her environment were very careful to point out that all they wanted to do, was to present a road-map. This has also been the mandate given to them – and the basis for the reports of the European Parliament – and national parliaments. The big surprise of the German presidency now is that they will present a very detailed solution to all institutional questions at the June summit already. This means in essence that the German presidency has outplayed even the least democratic mode of Treaty change – an Intergovernmental Conference (IGC). Such a conference at least means that national parliaments and the other institutions have a formal procedure and some means of democratic scrutiny available.

The Sherpa method has only promised to work on the organisation of an IGC – a road map. Consequently, parliaments have practically been excluded from the discussion of such fundamental changes to the Treaties – or the Constitutional Treaty. Not a single official paper has been presented during the past six months with any position or discussion framework for the institutional debate. When we published the unofficial questionnaire (12 issues) of the German presidency, we got even criticism from German officials for doing so. – On an informal level, Sherpas have obviously briefed central national parliamentarians concerned with EU issues in many member states – but even there you never know if they are actually providing you with the whole picture.

While the elected democratic institutions (national and European parliament) have practically been denied any democratic scrutiny of the whole process so far, the consultation of organised civil society has been even worse. The only one of the three institutions with some positive outreach has been the Commission which has granted at least a budget for debate inside its Plan D initiative from last year. Apart from that Commission officials still seem to be the most accessible to NGO representatives and media – while possibly also being those with very little practical influence on the whole Sherpa process.

The European Parliament has started big – and landed very low

The initial reaction of the Parliament after the no-votes was to task MEPs Duff and Voggenhuber with a report on the institutional crisis. Both started with very good and ambitious proposals by proposing a well-structured format for a European debate on the problematic issues of the referendums as well as a commitment to submit any future Treaty change to a consultative ballot. The latter issue has been killed by a majority of fear (or laziness) from the two big groups (and recently even been given up by Duff himself). The proposal of debate has partly been stopped by the letter of the three presidents of national parliaments (Khol, Lammert, Lipponen) who prevented the suggested Interparliamentary Forums from becoming a European forum of debate. Secondly, the Parliament – as so often – has been incapable of following up its own resolutions by not pushing hard enough for inter-institutional co-operation in order to facilitate a common European process of debate.

Between the adoption of the Duff-Voggenhuber report in January 2006 the EP has been silent until early June 2007 – i.e. 15 months of calm.

The Baron Crespo – Brok report on the road map which has been adopted now is unfortunately a renewed example of an institution that prefers to follow instead of leading: a) the report comes half a year late – if the EP had really wanted to influence the outcome of the German presidency negotiations, it would have to define its potentially more ambitious goals until January 2007 and get involved in the negotiations with at least some credible and ambitious own Sherpas; b) all the report is demanding (again) is to stick to the substance of the Constitutional Treaty – instead of defining a credible and much more ambitious agenda when it comes e.g. to new competences in the field of energy, climate change, immigration; c) the report has given up the idea of involving the citizens through means of European referendum / consultative ballot or indeed any other form of consultation; d) the pure invitation of two MEPs to the upcoming IGC is apparently enough to make the Parliament happy as a means of involvment. Why has this institution that has promoted the Convention so strongly for long, not called for some sort of mini-Convention starting during the German presidency and replacing the IGC and Sherpa consultations?!

No involvement of national parliaments

The lack of involvement of the European Parliament is possibly equal to a disillusion of formerly motivated federalists (who mostly run the show of the Constitutional Affairs committee AFCO). However, for national parliaments the missing engagement is somehow even more striking when looking at it from a European perspective. Apparently not a single national parliament has given any formal instructions to the negotiation position of its government and Sherpas during the consultations of the past half year (only from the Czech Republic I heard about the struggles between the pro-European Greens towards their eurosceptic government). To some extent you can possibly blame it on the fact that also national parliaments were believing that this process has only been chosen to prepare a “road map”. But at least during the last 4-6 weeks, national parliaments should have had a serious word with the governments they are supposed to hold accountable.

Strategy determines outcome

The underlying philosophy of the German presidency and key forethinkers of the Sherpa process has apparently been to avoid the “mistakes” of the past, i.e. the two lost referendums. Minimising the number and influence of national referendums was therefore the ultimate strategy of the whole process. – Keeping the citizens out of the process is obviously a concept that has worked very well in the past years in order to bring up public opinion and debate about Europe…

In the case of the Dutch, British and other situations a more fundamental Treaty change would have to be put for referendum for legitimate and political reasons. Since such referendums were expected to be lost, the central starting point has been to avoid referendums – implying a clearly less ambitious reform than originally foreseen. To think that such a process might not go down too well in countries that have said no to the Constitutional Treaty in the first place and are confronted with only a slightly slimmed-down new Treaty is not on the mind of the bureaucrats who rule in our European “democracy”.

My guess on an outcome of the European summit in Brussels

- The basis for Constitutional change will be the current hypercomplicated Treaties (EC & EU) and not the Constitutional Treaty. This means that the innovations will be put into the format of the old Treaties and inserted where applicable. The Germans are still hoping to somehow merge the two Treaties into one, but that probably simply remains as a technical exercise for some lawyers and will result in the hoped-for book I could take into a school class when discussing the EU.

- Legal personality is most likely to be granted.

- The symbols will go out.

- The wording of directives and regulations will possibly remain as it is.

- There will be no formulations on “social Europe” and surely no extra protocol.

- On energy and climate change there will be no extra provisions or indeed structural changes but probably some sort of declaration or protocol on energy security. This comes as a possible buy-out to the Poles.

- The institution of the foreign minister will remain but with a different title.

- The role of future presidencies is not yet sorted out. While a majority wants more continuity, the final decision remains open.

- Another open issue is the question of the pillar-structure and full co-decision for the European Parliament. Apparently the Sherpas are optimistic on both items. Only Britain seems to receive a veto or opt-out for matters of Judicial and Home Affairs (JHA).

- The reform of the voting system should remain as proposed in the Constitution but the Poles have to be side-paid somehow.

- Even though no national parliament has actually indicated any strong feelings about the actual institutional issue, the so-called subsidiarity watch will be beefed-up. If one third of national parliaments regards a legislation as infringing on subsidiarity, the Commission has to change its proposals.

- Finally comes the Charta of Fundamental Rights. The biggest progress with this charta is that it defines some new rights with regards to data protection, administrative management/treatment and bioethics. However, concern is potentially related to the much more common provisions on the right to strike and for housing. The British cause some serious trouble here and for sure the charta is not part of the text, but the Sherpas still hope that they make it legally enforceable through a reference from the Treaties.

What to do with the summit outcome

When you take the already existing democratic deficit and add the reforms resulting out of the coming summit, it is very questionable for me, if there is any reason to support such an outcome. Given the fact that many EU policies (agriculture, fisheries, trade, police cooperation, budget), are practically out of parliamentary control already, the creeping corrosion of European democracy only seems to continue. In that sense my red line really is the Charta of Fundamental Rights. If it does not turn out to be legally enforceable, I do not see any reason to support the reform. And this is not even to talk about the total disregard of the principles of transparency and parliamentary involvement in the process of supposedly democratic reform.

Maybe this reform that started so promising, but was managed to utterly devastating by most governments, will eventually lead to the first federalist campaign against Treaty reform. Let us see what Merkel delivers next week and if she and her colleagues are brave enough to take up some of the demands we presented in our open letter to her.