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The one type of scepticism I don’t subscribe to.
June 18th, 2008 at 15:14
One of my favourite easy targets to complain about is the Eurosceptics. You know the type – you might even be one yourself – the sort of person who on the mention of the words “Brussels” or “Europe” transform into an approximation of a droopy faced angry bulldog with rabies, and lament about “Eurocrats” and “straight bananas”. I’m a big fan of the European Union, so I struggle to understand where Eurosceptics are coming from.
I mean, sure, the EU isn’t perfect – it manages to get away with all sorts of crazy stuff but that’s only because it does it in a phenomenally boring way, so no-one usually pays any attention. For example, did you know that there are two European Parliaments – one in Strasbourg and one in Brussels, because they can’t actually agree on a place to meet? They’ve even recently built a high-speed railway line between the two, which has no-doubt already been dubbed the “gravy train”.
But I find it hard to complain about stuff like this, when we live in a country where every year, a man in tights with a sword knocks on the door of the House of Commons, only to be ignored anyway.
Maybe I’m just really forgiving because the organisation has some pretty noble goals after all: it was founded to keep the peace in Europe and now works in the interests of keeping us all happy and prosperous. Sure, it does it in a ludicrously complicated way, but it is a union of 400 million or so people.
What’s bewildering about the Eurosceptics though, is that when the EU tries to do stuff to make itself better, the Eurosceptics will try and stop it – presumably because if, for example, the Lisbon treaty was adopted and made pan-European governance easier and more effective, they’d have less to moan about.
Last week, in a referendum, Ireland rejected the Lisbon Treaty on the grounds that “It’s a bit complicated so I’m going to let Eurosceptic scare stories make up my mind for me.”
Unlike the other 26 EU states, they had to have a referendum because it’s in the Irish constitution that they have to hold one to ratify treaties. This must have sounded like a great idea back in 1937 when they wrote their constitution: I guess the thinking was that if someone is capable of voting on who they want to win Big Brother, then they’re more than qualified to decide on whether a complex legal document for institutional reform is a good idea or not.
I’ve never really understood the Eurosceptic pro-referendum campaign here either for similar reasons – us ordinary peons haven’t got a chance in hell of understanding the Lisbon treaty because the law is a complex thing… it’s why we have lawyers. If only there were similar people we could use to help decide whether the Lisbon Treaty is any good… like, if only there were a chosen group of “politics experts”, whose job it is to decide on a daily basis whether laws and stuff are a good or bad idea for us?
Oh, hang on a moment…
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, Damon.
