European Federation

For the federal European Union

2009-06-25T09:18:00.000-07:00

I would like to see federal European Union and the reasons for that are (in short):

This would be beneficial for tiny (yes, tiny, including Germany, UK and France) EU states to defend their interests in the global geopolitical arena while China and India are rising as superstates, while USA is so influential, while we are so dependent on Russian energetical monopoly in large area of EU, etc.
Because I consider, that dividing ourselves into some ethnical groups and isolating from each other is irrational. Country borders are not the limits of my understanding and of my interests (I am talking about interest to see a more constructive and prosperous world, not some narrow personal interests).
Because I see the good work EU has already done and I see how different Europe is now from what it was before 1957 and also before WWII. Not only economically, but also politically - the way it works.
Because I think that even now when we have achieved so much Europe has still so huge potential in hand that it is a crime not to put it into force and not to use it to change the life within Europe and out of it. United and working as one Europe would be a powerful tool, which I would like to see used to make some positive difference in the world (and in Europe itself, of course).
Because there are some problems, which no single country could ever solve on its own or it would take too much time/resources to consider the solution as effective and acceptable. In my opinion, federal Europe would provide much better coordination of organization and of all type of the resources' (including knowledge, labour force, finance) allocation. Also it would provide a better understanding of common aims, understanding, that the welfare of your neighbourhood is essential for your own welfare and therefore it is your own interest also bringing this understanding above the present national level.

Why Irelanders were wrong (Treaty of Lisbon)

2009-06-25T08:47:00.000-07:00

1. I don't know what I'm voting for.

Education will be enough to solve the problem.

Everyone can find full text of the Treaty of Lisbon here (reading it is highly recommendable; there will be no place for the phobias left then). You will find the FAQ about the Treaty of Lisbon here. The Treaty of Lisbon explained.

Also there is Consolidated versions of the Treaties as amended by the Treaty of Lisbon.

Video on Youtube.

2. To keep Ireland's power and identity.

Ireland has no power out of EU, sorry to tell that. Ireland can choose to have a voice through EU or not to have one at all.

EU is not aimed against Ireland's or any other country's identity. Both the casted-off Constitution and the Treaty of Lisbon acknowledges the identity and dinstinctions of every of its member states:

The Treaty <...> brings the local and regional dimension into the EU legal framework and states that the Union must respect the national identities of Member States <...>

3. To safeguard Ireland's neutrality.

The Treaty will have a protocol dedicated for Ireland. The protocol will consist of guarantees made exceptionally for Ireland regarding 3 areas:

one saying Ireland’s neutrality will not be affected;
one saying that the Lisbon Treaty does not change tax policy;
and one saying the Irish Constitution in the areas of the right to life, family and education will not be affected by either the Charter of Fundamental Rights or the new justice and home affairs articles in the treaty.

This is another reason why Irelanders have the 2nd referendum - they vote for the new conditions of the Treaty.

4. Don't like being told what to do.

Understand that. That's why I'm not saying how Irelanders should vote, I'm saying that I support the "Yes" position and I'm giving the facts. I also add that the conclusions are for Irelanders to make. But if "Yes" campaign says how to vote, the "No" one does the same.

5. EE/bigger countries will have too much power.

The "power" is adequate to the size of the country (economical, population size, etc). This can't be different. Small countries can acknowledge that and participate (and therefore have their say) or isolate themselves and don't have a voice at all. Of course, nationalists think their cock is the largest no matter what and logics are not necessary for them. The same goes for all of the countries, including EE. By the way, smaller countries have more power per capital than the big ones, you can calculate that by yourself taking into account the population and the number of European Parliament seats for example. In other EU institutions small countries have 1 diplomat just like the big ones, so it is even more small countries friendly if we will check the ratio. For example, Malta's and Germany's ratio regarding population is 410,290:82,060,000 or ~1:200 if we will reducate it, but in many of the EU institutions the ratio is 1:1, in the European Parliament it is 5:99 (~1:20) - ten times in favour of Malta regarding population.

6. To help Irish farmers.

Irish Farmers Association, Irish Sheep and Cattle Farmers Association, ICMSA - they support the Yes! campaign.

Just like Irish exporters.

7. To prevent too much immigration to Ireland.

Immigration policy of EU should be developed further, but the way lie campaigners give it is totally wrong. EU is developing its immigration policy and that is why the Blue Card (an analogue of the USA Green Card) will come into force in about two years period. Rejecting the Treaty of Lisbon won't reduce/prevent the immigration from the rest part of EU in no way, it's like healing flu with medicine for diabetes. The "No" campaigners are giving all the negative statements no matter if they are related with the concrete referendum object or not. They are simply manipulating people.

8. EU is too big already.

I would also like to see EU integrating more vertically than horizontally at the moment. But I'm not against Iceland or Croatia entry because those countries are small and won't have big effect on EU (but EU will have big and good effect on them). Also Iceland is well developed and Croatia meets the minimal conditions easily.

9. To safeguard Ireland's low corporate tax rate.

The Treaty will have a protocol dedicated for Ireland. The protocol will consist of guarantees made exceptionally for Ireland regarding 3 areas:

one saying Ireland’s neutrality will not be affected;
one saying that the Lisbon Treaty does not change tax policy;
and one saying the Irish Constitution in the areas of the right to life, family and education will not be affected by either the Charter of Fundamental Rights or the new justice and home affairs articles in the treaty.

10. To protest against the government.

Very wrong. This referendum will affect half a billion of EU citizens. It's not the place to protest against Irish inner problems. Understanding of this would be very appreciated.

MAC conclusions on UK membership in EU

2009-06-25T08:40:00.000-07:00

The MAC that I have mentioned in my previous post has made such a conclusion while analysing advantages and disadvantages of the accession to the EEC of Britain:

(iii) practically, participation [in the EEC] would gradually lead to the deeper integration and eventually probably to the political federation, that would not be acceptable to the public opinion in Britain

Probably we could not afford to be outside such an important market but we can't see how to achieve that without eventually paying a price of a common currency and a transfer of large part of political sovereignty.

These quotes are taken from the same source book as in my previous post, p. 164-165.

So I consider that it is very important to emphasize that while joining EEC UK has understood all of this. And it still has joined the EEC. Again, you can ask yourself, why. Maybe because country borders were not the limits of the perception for the people who have made those decisions.

United Kingdom and European Union (foreign trade)

2009-06-25T08:32:00.000-07:00

When the European Economic Community (EEC) was established it consisted of Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. As you can see, there is no UK there. The first question that comes to my head is why. The answer is very simple - economic interests.

In 1958 export of UK was distributed like this[1]:

EEC - 13%
Rest of Europe - 13%
The Commonwealth - 52%

So the trade with the Commonwealth was much more important for the UK. It was dependent on the trade with the colonies. That has lead to a conclusion, that it is more beneficial for the UK to keep better relations with the Commonwealth than with the EEC.

Later the economic therefore export conditions have changed. There was Mutual Aid Committee (MAC) established. MAC was asked to give evaluations of Britains interests (regarding EEC and the Commonwealth). First of all MAC evaluated factors of foreign trade and their analysis have indicated that in a long term close relations with Europe (or EEC) is a priority for Britain.[2]

In 1960-1962 exports to the EEC have increased by 55%. In 1955-1965 exports to the Commonwealth have decreased by 50% to the 25% of total UK export and has equaled with the exports to the EEC.[3] This was enough for the UK to change its mind and later join the EEC.

About a year ago there was an analysis held including a question about UK exports to the rest part of the EU. Analysis has indicated, that a lot of Brits do not realize how important trade with the rest part of the EU is for UK[4]:

UK citizens were not aware of <...> high economic in[B]ter[/B]dependence with the EU.

When asked about the proportion of external trade realised with the EU as opposed to the US, 20% of UK citizens admitted that they did not know the figure, and another (almost) 60% gave a wildly incorrect figure (27% believed that the ratios were about the same, and 32% assumed that the trade with the EU was about double that of the US). The category that was the closest to reality (that 55% of the trade was with the EU and 15% was with the US) was chosen by one in five (215) citizens.

Now, while analysing UK export to the largest 25 its trade partners (in terms of export) we can see that those 25 countries share more than 85% of total UK export. Among the 25 countries mentioned those who are in the EU share more than 51% of total UK export. 14.6% of the export goes to the USA and only 3.8% of export goes to the former Commonwealth countries.[5]

Also we can see that the export to the rest part of the EU amounts to 139,239 millions of pounds comparing to 108,110 millions of pounds to the rest of the world in 2008.[6] That equals to 56.3% of total exports to the rest of the EU.

Also exports to the rest part of the EU shared 15.75% of total UK GDP and maintained 4,462,270 jobs in the UK in 2006[7]:

So now we know that exports are important for the UK (as for every other country) and how much important they are. Also we know that UK trade is very interdependent with the EU. So in the end I can give you a simple rhetorical question: how do you think, what would be the impact for the UK exports if UK would leave the EU? Would they increase or would they decrease? Would that increase your GDP or would that decrease it? Would that create more jobs in the UK or would that mean less jobs in the UK? As I have said, the question is rhetorical. But it is only one issue and this is only an economical issue, we shouldn't forget geopolitics also. And maybe the public opinion towards EU would change if the citizens of the UK would leave their nationalistic beliefes out of the way and if they would start using logics instead, as we have seen before, a lot of people do not understand the level of the importance of EU for the UK economy.

Notes:

I am not saying that, If UK would withdraw from the union, EU would consciously try to make UK exports to get worse. I think that this would be a natural result based on independent activity of the markets;
I am not trying to intimidate you and also I'm not saying that UK is not important for the EU. You are also very important for the rest of the EU. What I am trying to say, that it is better for both the UK and the EU to keep tight together;
If you will read the name of the 7th source you will see it saying that UK-EU trade creates far fewer jobs in the UK than in the rest of the EU. But this name is given in a wrong logics if we are talking about interdependence. Let me explain. 4,462,270 jobs in the UK that are maintained by the UK trade with the EU amount to 15.74% of total UK jobs. In the source given you can see that the number of jobs in the EU dependent on the trade with the UK is 6,394,207 and this amounts to 3.69% of the total EU employment.

---
[1] - Andrew Moravcsik, "Europos pasirinkimas" (in Lithuanian; the name in English is "The Choice for Europe"). Vilnius, 2008. P. 118.
[2] - ^^ p. 164.
[3] - ^^ p. 212-213.
[4] - Attitudes towards the EU in the United Kingdom. February, 2008. P. 28-29.
[5] - UK Trade Info. Top 25 Trading Partners - Monthly - Imports and Exports. March, 2009.
[6] - UK Trade Info. Summary of Import & Export Trade with EU & Non-EU Countries - Annual 2001 - 2008.
[7] - Global Vision. UK-EU trade creates far fewer jobs in the UK than in the rest of the EU.

United Kingdom and the Eurozone

2009-06-25T08:15:00.000-07:00

The UK Treasury was given the task of assessing the tests - independently and without any regard to the political preferences of the political leadership <...>

The second and thus far last assessment was published in 2003. The verdict of the Treasury was:

<...>
The City of London (accounting for roughtly four percent of UK GDP, out of a total financial services sector of around 9 percent of GDP) would benefit from euro area membership

Here.

This assessment ran to around 250 pages and was backed up by eighteen supporting studies, on subjects such as housing, labour market flexibility, and the euro area's monetary and fiscal frameworks.

Source.

The Treaty of Lisbon and referendum in Ireland

2009-06-25T08:12:00.000-07:00

42% of Irelanders who have voted "No" in the previous referendum have said that they don't know what the Treaty says. Also 46% of those who haven't voted said the same (source). So I encourage all of the Irelanders to try to fathom with the Treaty. You can find full text of the Treaty here. Your decision should be based on reasonabled arguments, but not random emotions determined by lack of knowledge about the subject.

For example, eurosceptics say that EU is not democratic enough, because its institution which is elected directly by voters - Europarliament - has too little powers/rights. So the Treaty of Lisbon will increase those powers. Also this Treaty will enable EU citizens to participate in the EU's law designing process. So if you want to improve the level of democracy in the EU, you should support the Treaty.

Also Irelanders shouldn't protest against their inner political issues while voting on the Treaty and we have an example of that in the quotation of the 2nd post in this thread. Your decision will affect half a billion of EU citizens. Please have this in mind.

Also I don't want to tell (or my post to look like I'm trying to tell) you how to vote. What I'm doing is more like an asking to reconsider your position very well.

I hope that EU will provide much more objective information about the Treaty for Irish people to be able to make accurate decision. But the conclusions should be done by the people themselves.

Since joining the European Union in 1973, Ireland (Éire) has transformed itself from a largely agricultural society into a modern, technologically advanced Celtic Tiger economy.

Ireland and the EU 1973-2003 Economic and Social Change

Then I think about EU I don't think about it as an income donor. First of all I appreciate that EU brings higher living, social and environmental etc politics' standards to my country and to the other regions of Europe (e.g. Eastern Partnership Program for the European countries outside of the EU). EU is an opportunity for all of us - Europeans - to learn a historical lesson and to change Europe making it a better place to live. EU is a precedent in the worlds history. It is the best what has ever happened to this continent. And nationalism (country/nation related) is based on emotions, but not logics. My own country has regained independence only 19 years ago. But this is why I support EU so much. Because I know how much different it is. Sometimes I can meet such loud phrases as "EU is the new USSR" or "EU is nazis" etc. Phrases like these are inadequate and are given by people who have no better "arguments" to get attention. And in my opinion any person who use analytical and critical thinking will not agree on those phrases and will support the Treaty.

Further more I look more fundamentally to the EU. In the prehistoric times such small (yes, tiny) countries like Germany, France or UK have had a great impact on world's political and economical issues. Maybe they still do. But we must understand that this was determined by history, e.g. industrial revoliuton which has started in Europe so Europe was the one which felt the benefit of this the first. But at the moment world is getting more and more global and we can't expect that such an anomalous situation will continue. At the moment the geopolitical pole is transatlantic. But in my opinion geopolitical strenght will converge to the absolute size of country's population. So in the future this may lead to the Far East as the highest geopolitical power in the world. For example, they are already talking about their own union, of course, we all know ASEAN exists already. Also they have founded their own IMF analogue. All we know that EU represents the highest or at least one of the most highest living standards in the world, so it would be beneficial both for us and for the world if EU would keep its strenght and influence. I guess than we won't avoid the Far East as a geopolitical power, but we can expect to keep the world at least multipolar if we will act united. And this really is not based on plain ambitions of mine as European.

We must get over that limit of our mentality. This is the only way forward. So let's go fast forward along EU. It's better then united and EU has proved that already. We need deeper integration for that and the Treaty of Lisbon provides us with that.

Lisbon Treaty - The Facts || Busting Lisbon Treaty Myths

This is the position that I support (but as I've said, conclusions is for you to make).