Plan D for Denial of Democracy

international | eu | opinion/analysis Sunday March 02, 2008 08:40 by M Walshe - www.caeuc.org

The European Commission and the writing of the Lisbon Treaty

An analysis of EU Commissioner's Margot Wallstrom's involvement in two parallel but contradictory processes - as head of the Commission's 'Plan D for Dialogue, Deabte & Democracy' allegedly aimed at involving citizens in the defining of Europe's future, which was set up in the aftermath of the 2005 rejection of the EU Constitution in France and Holland - while at the same time she played a little reported but significant role in the Amato Group - a self-selected group of 16 of the EU's top political elite who met to to redraft - behind closed doors, and with funding from a leading European multinational - the rejected Constitution text and effectively re-packaged it as what was to become known as the Lisbon Treaty, a document which every member state in the EU, bar Ireland, is being denied a popular say on. Commissioner Wallstrom was in Dublin last Thursday to speak at the National Forum on Europe.

European Commissioner Margot Wallstrom

Plan D for Denial of Democracy
M Walshe, March 2nd 2008

Margot Wallstrom, EU Commission Vice President with responsibility for Institutional Relations and Communication Strategy, addressed the National Forum on Europe, in Dublin, Thursday, 28 February 2008. The title of her talk was advertised as ‘Treaty of Lisbon: Giving More Power to the People’.

The theme of democracy is one Commissioner Wallstrom is fond of. Over the last three years she has been a key player in Commission initiatives on ‘communicating Europe’ taken under the so-called Plan D for Democracy, Dialogue and Debate.

Plan D was launched following the rejection of the EU Constitution in France and the Netherlands in 2005, when EU Heads of State issued a declaration calling for a ‘period of reflection’ which would be used to “enable a broad debate to take place in each of our countries, involving citizens, civil society, social partners, national parliaments and political parties.”[1]

The declaration called on the Commission to play “a special role.”[2] The Commission decided that the French and Dutch ‘No’ votes revealed that it was necessary to develop “a new approach to European Communication that puts citizens at the heart of European policies”[3] and came up with Plan D.

Plan D set out over a dozen different actions that the Commission would take in order to achieve this goal, notably six ‘participatory democracy’ projects, co-financed by the Commission. Two of the six projects are of particular interest in the Irish context.

The first was the European Citizens Consultations project, co-financed by the Commission and supported by a number of organisations, including the Robert Bosch foundation. The ‘national partner’ in Ireland was the Forum on Europe, which hosted the event in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham in February 2007. A number of issues were discussed with the assistance of ‘experts’ and a report on citizens’ contributions to the debate was produced. The event was reported on RTE News.[4]

The second was Speak Up Europe, coordinated by the European Movement (whose president in Ireland is Ruarí Quinn of the Labour Party). In spite of the fact the project produced a ridiculous and highly biased Monty Python-style cartoon video on ‘what the EU has done for us’, the consultations revealed some of the genuine concerns of many citizens as to the direction of the EU.

The ‘Democratic Deficit’ section of the final report of the project, for example, reports that “the lack of transparency was especially criticised by citizens with regard to the negotiation of the Reform Treaty. The ‘Sherpa method’ of negotiations ‘behind closed doors’ was criticised as a poor solution … It is perceived that the European integration process continues to move forward without the direct involvement of its citizens.” (p. 7) [5]

Among the proposals put forward by citizens for improving the EU’s policies and procedures was a suggestion that if there were another major Treaty reform that “a new, directly elected convention or ‘constituent assembly’ should be set up in order to draft a ‘true European Constitution’ which should subsequently be put to a pan-European referendum.” (p. 7) [6]

These and other projects and initiatives under Plan D gave the impression that the Commission was really genuinely seeking the input of citizens in terms of EU policies — “a new approach that puts citizens at the heart of European policies.”[7] However, in reality, the net result of the various consultations processes appears to have been nothing more than an open letter containing a list of 27 recommendations, which was presented to EU leaders in December 2007.[8]

By that date, of course, the Lisbon Treaty, which contains actual EU policies, had already been drafted and was about to be signed off on by EU Heads of State. This exposes Plan D as little more than a PR exercise. Indeed, one of the Plan D projects, the European Citizens Consultations, won a “prestigious German PR award.”[9]

While all the citizens consultations were going on, the EU Commission gave the green light to a private group of individuals known as the ‘Action Committee for European Democracy’ (ACED) to prepare a new European treaty behind closed doors.

The Action Committee for European Democracy is a group of sixteen leading political figures, mostly acting or former ministers or European Commissioners. The group is headed by Italian Interior Minster Giuiliano Amato.[10] (The group is sometimes referred to as the ‘Amato Group’.) Its members come from the European left and right, but all were supporters of the defeated European Constitution.

The ACED is an entirely private group. It has no democratic mandate, nor any formal standing within the EU’s institutional structure. According to its own website the group is financed by the Robert Bosch foundation, which is a 92% shareholder in the European multinational company Bosch. This company is the world’s largest suppliers of automobile components and has a turnover for €41bn per annum.[11]

Despite its lack of any democratic mandate, the ACED was encouraged from the beginning in its work by the Barroso Commission. Two acting commissioners were assigned to sit on the group. One of them was Margaret Wallstrom.[12]

Over an eight month period she took part in redrafting a failed constitutional text, behind closed doors, without any input or involvement from EU citizens or civil society — all this while claiming on her website that the Commission wanted to develop “a new approach to European Communication that puts citizens at the heart of European policies”.[13]

Interestingly, the ACED’s activities parallel the emergence of a renewed agenda among the EU’s intergovernmental political elite to re-launch the constitutional process. Thus the ACED first met on 30 September 2006 to start work on the new draft treaty.[14] By January 2007, Angela Merkel was stating that that the ‘period of reflection’ was over and that it was time to put the constitutional process ‘back on the rails’.

On 25 March 2007, EU leaders stated their intention to have a new treaty in place by 2009. On 4 June 2007, the ACED presented its draft treaty at a press conference in Brussels.[15] Within weeks it had been adopted by the Intergovernmental Conference in Portugal as the basis for what would soon become the Lisbon Treaty — a document which Bertie Ahern agrees is essentially the same as the rejected EU Constitution.

For Margot Wallstrom to come to Dublin and claim that the Lisbon Treaty is giving more power to the people is Orwellian in the extreme, especially in terms of the process of the repackaging of the EU Constitution as the Lisbon Treaty but also in terms of the very limited concessions to formal democracy in the provisions of the Treaty.

Notes

1. The Commission’s contribution to the period of reflection and beyond: Plan-D for Democracy, Dialogue and Debate, accessed 27 February 2008 at http://ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/wallstrom/pdf/co...n.pdf

2. ibid.

3. EU Commission Communication Policy, accessed 27 February 2008 at
http://ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/wallstrom/commun...n.htm

4. European Citizens’ Consultations, accessed 27 February 2008 at
http://www.european-citizens-consultations.eu/9.0.html#c418

5. Final Qualitative Report, Speak Up Europe, available at www.speakupeurope.eu

6. ibid.

7. As Note 3 above.

8. 2006 - 2007 Citizen’s Projects: Concluding Conference adopts open letter to EU and national leaders, parliaments and political parties, accessed 27 February 2008 at http://ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/wallstrom/commun...n.htm

9. ‘European Citizens Consultations win prestigious German PR award’, accessed 27 February 2008 at http://www.european-citizens-consultations.eu/37.0.html

10. ACED website, http://www.iue.it/RSCAS/research/ACED/Members.shtml

11. http://www.iue.it/RSCAS/research/ACED

12. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bosch_GmbH

13. As Note 3 above.

14. Liberation, 23 September 2006, cited in Robert Joumard’s “Le Comité d’action pour la démocratie européenne et le Traité modificatif européen” available at http://www.france.attac.org/spip.php?article7765

15. Suddetsche Zietung, 5 June 2007, cited in Robert Joumard (ibid.)