OPINION:More ground-level democracy in the European Union is the correct response to the rejection of the Lisbon Treaty - not less, writes Jurgen Habermas
FARMERS ARE angry about sinking prices on the world market, and ever newer edicts from Brussels. The "lower" classes are angry about the growing gap between rich and poor in a place where people used to live together communally. And citizens have only contempt for their own politicians, who promise a lot but who lack vision and are powerless to change anything (including themselves).
And in the midst of it all, a referendum on a treaty that is too complicated to understand. We have all profited from membership of the EU to a greater or lesser extent. So why should we change it? Does not every strengthening of European institutions result in the weakening of democratic voices, which are only heard inside their own nation states?
Voters know paternalism when they see it. Once again, they are supposed to ratify something they had no part in making. The Irish Government openly stated that this time they would not keep holding the referendum until the people finally accepted it. And will the Irish, this small resistant people, be the only ones in all of Europe who will be asked for their opinion? They do not want to be treated like a herd being driven to the polling stations. With the exception of three members of parliament who were against the treaty, the entire political class stood as one. In a certain sense, politics as such was put to the vote. Even greater was the attempt, therefore, to give "politics" a severe dressing down.
We can only speculate as to the motives of the Irish in voting No. By contrast, the first reactions from officialdom have been conclusive. The shame-faced governments don't want to look clueless, so they are looking for another technical solution. This amounts to holding the Irish referendum again.
This is pure cynicism of the political players and of their proclamations of respect for the voters - and it is grist to the mill of those who breezily discuss the advantages of the semi-authoritarian methods practised in other countries, where democracy is just a facade.
The Lisbon Treaty was supposed to make up for the organisational reforms that the European summit in Nice wanted to bring in before the expansion from 15 to 27 member states, but did not manage to effect. In the meantime, expansion into eastern Europe, and with it the more blatant wealth gaps and multiplication of competing interests, has created an urgent need for integration.
The European institutions in their current form are ill-equipped to deal with these new conflicts. After the rejection of the European constitution, the Lisbon Treaty represented a bureaucratically engineered emergency solution that was supposed to be forced through out of the sight of the populations. This was the strong-arm tactic used by the governments, barefacedly demonstrating that they alone decide Europe's fate. Unfortunately for them, there is the burdensome exception stipulated in the Irish Constitution.
At its best, this treaty was a delayed response to an earlier shock. In France and the Netherlands the ratification process had already come to an end, before it had even reached what is presumed to be the stumbling block of Britain.
Now we are in an even bigger quandary. Business as usual? Or is it time to realise that European unification, if it is to proceed at all, needs to be reprogrammed according to a different, more citizen-based, mode of politics?
Up until the Nice summit, this process, promoted by liberal economic impulses, was conducted as an elitist project above the heads of the people. Since then, the successes of a vibrant economy look increasingly like a zero-sum game. Right across all European societies, more and more people are worse off. The unstable mood might be attributed to justifiable social unease and to knee-jerk anxieties. But unresolved problems need to be taken more seriously than general moods, which are always subject to political spin.
The failed referendums are a sign that, thanks to its own success, European unification has reached its limit. This can be overstepped only when the pro-Europe elites stop touting the virtues of parliamentary democracy as a way to avoid the messy business of actually listening to citizens.
A schism has opened up between the political decision-making powers that have been transferred to Brussels and Strasbourg on the one hand, and the opportunities for democratic participation that have remained in the member states on the other.
It is all the more awkward that certain capacities have been divided unequally between nation states and the centres of power. Individual states carry the burden of the social and cultural side-effects of sought-after market freedoms, and they can do nothing to influence the circumstances that bring these side-effects to their doors.
Politics can win back these lost capacities to influence events only at the European level. Only then can the faded visions of former EC president Jacques Delors of a "social Europe" become the object of serious political debate.
Our commonwealth should not be built in such a way that its basic structure closes off alternatives to the market liberalism that has prevailed up to this point. Moreover, the issues of careful tax and economic harmonisation, and gradual homogenisation of social welfare systems should be part of the debate, which for years has been overshadowed by the headline-grabbing ideas of consolidation and expansion of the Union.
The piqued silence of the governments concerning the future of Europe conceals the conflict of interests that for years has robbed European unification of a sense of perspective and popular appeal. Should Europe become an actor that is capable of shaping events, performing that role both internally and externally? Or does it continue to exert a civilising gravitational pull with its project of expansion, drawing in neighbouring states which strive to meet the requirements for entry into an ever larger Union?
The price to be paid for this diffuse project of expansion is the lack of political ability to shape a world system that is growing together economically but has been drifting apart politically since 2001. We only have to look at the miserable images of the rival princelings, Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel, dancing attendance upon President George Bush, to see clearly that Europe is not a player on the world stage.
We are all equally affected by the problems of climate change, of extreme wealth gaps, of the world economic order, of the damage done to basic human rights and the battle for scarce energy resources. While everybody is becoming more dependent on everybody else, we can see all around us the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and a Social-Darwinistic unleashing of violent tendencies. Should not a Europe empowered to negotiate throw its weight into influencing the international community to be more restrained and to respect international law?
Politically, Europe is unable to punch at a weight that reflects its economy because the governments cannot agree on the goal of European unification. At this point we should be careful not to confuse the root causes. First and foremost, it is the governments themselves that do not know how to proceed, while spreading the malaise of their stale, half-hearted attitude of "let's keep going".
Of course the conflict of interests within Europe draws its explosive force from differences that are deep-seated and traceable in the continent's history. But that is no reason to criticise any individual country.
In the wake of this message from the Irish, we should expect two things from our governments: they must concede that they have run out of ideas; and they have to stop pretending that a debilitating lack of consensus does not exist. In the final analysis, the only path open is to let the populations of Europe decide. That would mean political parties rolling up their sleeves and making sure Europe becomes a vital subject of discussion: should a Europe that has lapsed into quarrelling among member states become a self-determining presence both in internal and external affairs?
Now, the suggestion is that the Lisbon Treaty can be saved by offering the Irish a partial exemption from the European Union. This would be the least serious interpretation of the Irish decision, especially given that they may be rubbing their eyes in surprise because a partial exemption was not what they voted for. Nevertheless, such an option might point the way forward. A treaty of co-operation with member states who occasionally want not to be included in certain institutions may offer a way out of the current malaise.
Europe has done well with the concept of the convoy, where the slowest vehicle dictates the pace. But it is a concept whose time has passed. Even the suggestion by the German interior minister Wolfgang Schäuble of a directly-elected president of the EU goes much further than the hesitant Lisbon Treaty. The European Council should swallow its pride and schedule a referendum to be held in conjunction with the next European elections.
The phrasing of the question must be sufficiently clear for voters to know the consequences of their vote. And citizens across Europe must be able to vote on the same day, on the same topic and according to the same method. A problem with referendums until now has been that debates have been held in each national context, cut off from the outside.
With commitment and luck, a two-speed Union could move ahead if the countries where the referendum is passed could bind together towards closer co-operation in the areas of external and security policy as well as in economic and social policy.
With a real alternative available, even the applicant countries of central and southeastern Europe could consider where their best interests lie. For member countries that are initially sceptical, a politically successful nucleus at the heart of Europe would have a stronger gravitational pull. After all, internal differentiation, albeit legally complicated, would simplify the controversial expansion of the Union.
Jürgen Habermas is a German philosopher. This article first appeared in Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. It was translated by Cormac Deane of ablana translation literary services, Dublin - info@ablana.net