Bleating about Democracy

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It is rather ironic that the "ratification instrument" – the document which the British government will formally deposit with the Italian government to complete the ratification of the (EU constitutional) Lisbon treaty – will be drafted on goatskin parchment.

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Such are the recriminations flying about in the aftermath of the Irish referendum, though, that – as one amateur commontator put it yesterday - the skin surely came from a scapegoat.

First off the mark, last Thursday, was Luxembourg prime minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who complained that the unwelcome (to the EU) result was down to the member states, and the "Politicians give the impression that Europe is being built against their will."He was followed by Sarkozy during the latter stages of the European Council meeting on Friday, who took a tilt at EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson for upsetting the Irish over the WTO negotiations

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Then it was Silvio Berlusconi's turn. He accused EU commission officials of "talking too much" to the public in the member states. "The forecasts and recommendations that the commissioners give, and which appear in the newspapers every other day," he said, "provoke negative reactions among the citizens of the EU, who see (the commission) as a body that imposes constraints and creates problems."Warming to his theme, he added, "Moreover, they create difficulties for governments because they offer ammunition to opposition parties, whether of the right or of the left, to criticize the government."To add to the discord, Italian president Giorgio Napolitano ) has joined in, siding with the Juncker brigade by accusing member state governments of using the European Union as a scapegoat to hide their own faults."Too many governments, have in fact, hidden the positions they have taken in (Brussels), using Europe - and in particular the European Commission, 'the bureaucracy of Brussels', as a scapegoat to cover their responsibilities and inadequacies," he said in a speech to a European conference in France.

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It's so refreshing, this admission that democracy isn't all it's cracked up to be. Frankly, some of us think democracy is worth more than the hurt feelings of a bunch of inept politicians.

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As Christoper Booker explains in The Sunday Telegraph today the one thing the leaders of the EU have in common with Robert Mugabe is that when a vote goes against them their instinct is not to accept it butt to cast round for how to get around the decision regardless of the popular will. The EU is far from using Mr Mugabe's methods though it has much the same contempt for democracy.

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The great value of course of the degrading episode by the EU last week and its huge growing band of payroll supporters has been to show that the EU is not just undemocratic but actively anti-democratic as well as (as we often repeat with detailed examples on the blog) very harmful to the process of non-corporate business. Which is why (again as we much repeat) the representitives of the members of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) have twice demanded that the UK leaves the EU (1995 and 2001). Clearly FSB members knew it could only get worse!

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Meanwhile, The Irish Times is blaming the "disastrous 'yes' campaign" for the failure to deliver the (scape) goatskin, bringing us to today when one waits agog for the next instalment of the blame game. Nobody yet has blamed global warming for the Irish voters decision – which has to be a first – although there is still time yet.

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