National Forum on Europe
MR. GORMLEY: Thank you Chairman. I would like to thank Kirsty for her contribution and I found, in fact, that I agreed with most of it. The Laeken declaration talked about simplifying Europe and bringing it closer to the people. Now I don’t think that the Convention has succeeded in doing that. In fact, what we are getting is more complication and we are adding to the existing Treaties and I think this is inevitable because if it is based, and if each treaty negotiation is based on the premise of ever closer union, then, of course, you are going to get further integration which has meant further centralisation, which means less power for smaller states, less equality and less democracy. I think all of this is reflected in the new institutional changes or the ones that are being proposed in the articles and I agree with Kirsty in that the election, so-called election of the President is not democratic, and indeed the same applies to the new Foreign Minister. We are talking here about thirteen of the twenty-five member states being able, that represents 60% of a population being able to vote in these people. So this clearly represents again a shift of power to the larger states. There could be no question about that.
The job descriptions are quite interesting when you are talking here about former Prime Ministers. Well of course anyone who was a former Prime Minister will say I fancy that and they like that and they will go for it and that means that you narrow down the options completely. I am not saying I know that John Bruton is in favour of it, but John himself is a former Prime Minister, he may well have the job at some stage. Kirsty then talked about is Giscard listening, what is he taking on board. I can tell you from my experience, and perhaps others will say the same, I don’t think Giscard — he says he is listening but he hasn’t heard us and he talked about consensus. How do we define consensus in the Convention? It was stated at one stage to me on the Working Group that consensus is anything that avoids a walk out. Now, Giscard is now talking being consensus and defining it in terms of demographics and I agree with my colleague Minister Roche when he says this is totally unacceptable. In other words, again he listens to what people are saying, but if the Germans and the French and the people with the large populations are saying, then of course he takes that far more seriously and that is the way it has operated. Unfortunately I see this as a case of very much jobs for the boys and the Praesidium is very much a big boys club in many ways.
It has already been stated that Tony Blair is looking at the job as President. Yosker is looking at the job as Foreign Minister. And it is this nice cosy arrangement and I would ask all along where is democracy in all of this and where is equality? Just to go back to the whole question of the Commission. We discussed this here before, Mr. Chairman, and I think you had Mr. Gallagher in here at the time of Nice, who made a very, very good submission, I thought, and it was stated the arrangements at Nice weren’t really that satisfactory but the matter would be revisited in the Convention and it would be sorted out. The fact is, if anything, the situation is getting worse, far worse now when we are talking about the idea of fourteen Commissioners. I don’t think there is anyone here who is naive enough to think that the Germans and the French or any of the large states will be without a Commissioner, that would be unacceptable.
I know from conversations there, even with some of my own Green Party colleagues from France, from Germany who would say that they find it unacceptable that 20% of the Commissioners represent 80% of the population or 80% represent 20% of the population, that is the way they would talk and so they find that unacceptable. So the way they are heading for a slimmed down commission with more power going to the larger states, that is quite clear too. Again, looking at the working methods of the Convention, and Kirsty talked about the Working Groups, my experience has been that the Working Groups and the reports from the Working Groups didn’t actually reflect the contribution of the members. And then if we go a step further, I find that the articles in some cases don’t reflect the reports of the Working Groups themselves. Again it is just this, and I think my colleague Minister Roche has referred to the autocratic style of Giscard and I think that is reflected in the way that business is actually done there.
I believe that if we are to introduce real democracy that the Commission President ought to be elected properly, as John Bruton has. Or if that is not an option, that we should go for the electoral college option as proposed by the Irish government. Chairman, that we are not going to see an end to this. People have talked about this Constitution is going to be there for 30 years. I just don’t believe that. I believe what we are going to see is further changes. We will have more and more changes. This momentum is there and it is not going to stop and each change means further centralisation and less power for smaller states. We can’t ignore that reality. If we really do believe in democracy, then we ought to have a Europe- wide referendum and when I say that I mean each country having a referendum or a plebescite if that is, if you can’t have a referendum under their own constitutional arrangements and let the people of Europe speak of this Constitution, because that again is what Laeken spoke about. It spoke about greater democracy in the European Union and if you don’t have, if we don’t have an endorsement of the people of this Constitution, then I believe it is without democratic legitimacy. Thank you.