In
other to discourage The Netherlands from administering a negative vote in its dreaded
“anti-Ukraine” referendum, the President of the European Commission Jean Claude Junckers turns to good, old
fearmongering. By warning that a Dutch ‘No’ against the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement might lead to a continental crisis ,
Juncker hopes to turn the tides in favour of the Yes-voters .
I
totally disagree with Juncker’s fearmongering, and think instead that the lackluster
European Commission and Council and the total lack of fundamental unity and
fresh, new ideas within the EU are much more dangerous for the future of the EU
than this Ukraine-EU Association Agreement being abolished eventually.
“The
European Union is perhaps the best crafted product ever...
With currently the poorest marketing department in history to advertize it”
Ernst
Labruyère – 9 January 2016
These are populist times, there is no denying it. Every
proposal that is made and every decision that is taken by the ‘powers that be’,
is regarded with the utmost distrust by large parts of the population and by
radical politicians who gain influence from the current pandemonium in the political arena’s of Europe.
The European Union and its predecessors, bedrock of
Western European stability for so many years since the 2nd World War, are currently like the ugly duckling in a beauty contest: everybody is aware that
it could become a swan one day, but for now we look rather at its ugly
appearance and its obvious flaws.
And these flaws are not very hard to find, unfortunately. In
spite of the fact that its total leadership has been renewed
less than one-and-a-half years ago, the EU operates seemingly more lackluster
than ever. The ‘new’ leaders Jean Claude Juncker – as ‘Chief Commissioner’ –
and Donald Tusk – as President of the European Council – fail blatantly in
their battle against the lack of new, fresh ideas and totally absent pizzazz in
the EU. And now the EU almost falls apart under internal conflicts and quarrels based on
self-interest of the different member states.
As a provisional low we might look at the current Chairmanship of the European Union, filled in by
The Netherlands. The Dutch PM Mark Rutte gets a leading role in trying to guide the EU through
arguably the toughest time of its sheer existence.
In spite of the undeniable qualities of Rutte as
‘shopkeeper’ and ‘manager’ of the EU, he even boasts about having no grand
vision and no important ideas about what the EU should become in the coming
years and decades. While PM Rutte thinks that having such a grand vision is
only detracting from the tasks that lie ahead, the Union as a whole almost
falls apart, because of the fact that citizens in every country think they are better off
without the interventions, vast tax-expenditure and meddlesomeness of the EU.
In 50 years, the EU has turned from a ‘bond of
archenemies-turning-into-close-collaborators’ into ‘a bureaucratic,
self-reinforcing monster and prestigious-job-machine for overdue politicians’,
seemingly without a clear ‘raison d’etre’. And still PM Mark Rutte thinks that
it is dangerous to have a ‘grand vision’ and a dot on the horizon to travel to in
the near future.
And now there is the Association Agreement of the EU
with the Ukraine, that should take away trade barriers and other bureaucratic
thresholds in the trade between the EU and Ukraine, thus enabling easier
traffic of people, goods and services, as well as creating a bigger cooperation
and understanding between all the countries involved. Although it is widely
denied that this is the first step towards a full membership of the EU for
Ukraine, there is little doubt that the Ukraine does see this Association
Agreement as such anyway.
This association agreement was at least one step too
far, according to the right-wing multimedia and lobby platform GeenStijl (i.e.
litterally ‘no style’, but also ‘not fair’ in daily speech), that likes to
throw a large stone in the pond and does not scare away from a mild dosis of populism
and guerilla journalism, against whoever p*sses them off at a certain time.
Associate journalists of GeenStijl started a national
lobby for a Dutch
referendum under the moniker ‘GeenPeil’
(i.e.
‘no gauge’), in order to mobilize a firm
‘No’ against this association
agreement, instead of the hammer-beam-ish ‘Yes’
that would otherwise have been administered by the Dutch government.
GeenStijl/GeenPeil managed to collect 427,000+
autographs (as of January, 2016): more than sufficient to force the Dutch
government to indeed organize this referendum.
Probably the first autographs came from jokers and
troublemakers, who saw this as a golden opportunity to pull a trick on the
Dutch government and annoy the people in charge. Little later many other people
voted also in favour of this referendum: worried citizens, who were opposed to
this particular agreement from the beginning, and other Dutch people who see
the EU itself as a threat for the stability and democracy in The Netherlands,
And now the referendum is a fact of life of which the
final outcome cannot be ignored lightheartedly by the Dutch government, without
them making a total fool of themselves.
When a clear ‘No’ would be the outcome of the
referendum, the Dutch government has to choose between either alienating the
Dutch population (i.e. by signing the association agreement with Ukraine anyway)
or the leaders of the European Union (i.e. by NOT signing the agreement).
Unless the ‘Yes’-camp would have a landslide victory
after all, this referendum is in fact a lose-lose situation for the Dutch
government. The odds for such a landslide ‘yes’ victory are minute, in my
humble opinion, when we look at the current stance against the EU in The
Netherlands.
To be frank: even I consider this referendum to be a quite
difficult decision. While the association agreement could be an enrichment for
both the Ukraine and the European Union and open the way for closer cooperation
and better mutual understanding, it would put further pressure on the relation
between Russia and the EU.
And whether we like it or not and irrespective about
how we think about “Vladimir
Vladimirovich” Putin, Russia is definitely a force to be reckoned with and
one that we need to reach a situation of stability in Europe. And in his slightly
paranoid eyes, a membership of the EU and a membership of the NATO are two
birds of the same feather.
My second scruple is about the Ukraine itself. While most
European think that our ‘friends’ live in the western part of the Ukraine and
our ‘enemies’ in the eastern part of the country (i.e. the Russia-oriented rebel groups), the situation is slightly less
black and white. Within the current Ukrainian political system a number of extreme
right parties, like Right Sector and Svoboda, have considerable influence in
various important layers of society. These are parties with dangerous and reactionary ideas that must
never be incorporated in the European Union.
On top of that, there is the ubiquitous and profound corruption
in the country. With the association agreement, the European Union could not
only become an involuntary accessory to this corruption, but it could also mean
that millions and millions of European tax money are squandered in the form of
structure funds, landing in the pockets of the wrong people.
On the other hand, the EU has brought more and broader positive
change within Europe, than any other special interest group could have brought.
With the combination of financial/economic carrot and stick and with its nearly
incorruptable charisma, the EU is a beacon of light in a world of darkness:
numerous European citizens have now a better life than they ever dreamt of
having in the past.
Being part of the European Union is something that
would be in the best interest of the Ukraine and even of Russia itself [before you
start a rant against me: I consider this to be impossible myself, without an
enormous change in leadership reaching from top to bottom in Russia – EL].
Anyways, President of the European Commission Jean
Claude Juncker is extremely concerned about the GeenPeil referendum and today he
responded in a way that many leading politicans do: fearmongering.
The following article was printed in the NRC Next:
A
Dutch ‘No’ during the Ukraine referendum on April 6 ‘could open the floodgates
for a large continental crisis’. This was stated by Jean Claude Juncker,
president of the European Commission in an interview with Dutch newspaper NRC.
Juncker:
“Russia would pluck the sweet fruit of an easy victory”, when the Dutch voter
abolishes the association agreement between Ukraine and the EU.
According to
Juncker it would also be easy bait for populists, who want to blow up the EU. “So let’s
not change the referendum into a referendum about Europe” says Juncker. “I truly
hope that the Dutch will not abolish the agreement for reasons that don’t have anything
to do with the agreement itself”.
Some
parts of the agreement, regarding trade, came already into effect on January
1st, 2016, albeit on a preliminary basis. However, as there is no time limit
for this preliminary phase, reversing these parts can take place by unanimity
alone.
To
that respect, the influence of a Dutch ‘No’ is probably very limited, as the
Dutch government does not have to take over the outcome of the referendum. When
more than 30% of the voters show up, the government must only reconsider the treaty.
Nevertheless,
the Dutch voter ‘must understand that this question superseeds the Dutch
interest’, according to Juncker. He calls the Dutch voter "to act like a
European strategist", on April 6.
Juncker might have a point with his request to not
treat the referendum on the agreement as a referendum upon Europe. Too many of
the statements coming from GeenPeil seem indeed to point in
that direction:
When
you look at the development of the Greek crisis, the inconsiderate Dutch money transfers
to Europe of billions of Euros in after-taxes and the unrestrained hunger for expansion
of the EU, than the question rises: how much influence has the voter left upon
the democracy? How far may politicians go in stretching their mandates to do
things at will?!
This snippet alone shows a combination of classic fearmongering and
spreading doubt about the honourable intentions of the EU leaders.
On the other hand: Juncker’s threat that this
referendum may lead to a continental crisis within the EU is also widely exaggerated
and – consequently – classic fear mongering. Even the concept that Putin will be
smiling by the prospect of having an easy victory, seems a little bit over the
top, for the simple fact that Putin could not care less probably.
In my opinion ‘the only thing that the European Union
has to fear, is the European Union itself’. At this moment, the current
European Union and its current leaders are their own worst enemies.
So many Dutch and European citizens are completely fed
up with the lackluster, totally uninspired and utterly bureaucratic modus
operandi of the EU itself. There is no basic unity between the member states of the EU, there are no fresh ideas, no dots at the horizon and
no feeling that things will be better soon, when we look at our European leaders.
Nowadays Europe seems to consist of managers and does
not have genuine leaders. From the best thing that could have happened to
Europe [my own opinion – EL] after the
2nd World War, the Union has degenerated to a bureaucratic extravaganza for job
hunters, third grade career politicians and mindless apparatchiks.
The best crafted product ever is currently advertized
by the poorest marketing department of all times; irrespective of those
marketeers being national or pan-European politicians.
European people want to have answers to their questions
and people, with their own hopes and fears, want to have a safe beacon to rely on.
European citizens also want to be inspired by truly great politicians, in my humble opinion, where we seemed to have so many of in the second half of the Twentieth Century.
Not that these politicians were flawless, uncorruptable
and/or always right: far from that. Some of them have even made grave mistakes and left their country in a worse shape than when they arrived.
Yet, when I think about Helmut Schmidt, Helmut Kohl,
Margaret Thatcher, Valerie Giscard-d’Estaing, François Mitterand, Giulio
Andreotti and for The Netherlands Wim Kok, Ruud Lubbers and Joop den Uyl, it seems
that these guys and lady were all about inspiration and about having a story to
tell to the people.
It seems that Europe and the EU nations could use a few
of such politicians very badly.
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