International

Prinsjesdag (Prince's Day in English) is the day on which the reigning monarch of the Netherlands (currently Queen Beatrix) addresses a joint session of the two houses of our Parliament, setting out the main features of government policy for the next twelve months. In the midst of all of the turbulence surrounding the euro the European Commission’s proposals for an even tighter European Economic Government have attracted little attention. Yet the Commission wants to make Prince’s Day into a farce, a day on which Parliament would receive no more than a draft budget. The parliamentary debate would come much later, when the Commission had given its views, sometimes even in the form of an alternative budget. How the Commission will arrive at this expression of its wisdom would not be subject to any monitoring. Neither our own Parliament nor the European Parliament would be able to have any input into its advice before it was issued. This would undermine, therefore, our democracy and in my view we should reject the idea out of hand.

It goes on and on: first of all we have to cope with the approval by both the European Parliament (where the social democrats, including our own Labour Party, voted in favour) and the Council of Ministers of the so-called six-pack, in which it is established that the member states must stick for years to an extremely rigid austerity policy, whatever the general economic situation. Then we have to put up with the ‘Super-Commissioner’ Olli Rehn who, in accordance with the plans of our own Prime Minister Mark Rutte, feels he should be able to decide independently on budgetary recommendations, as well as proposals for sanctions on countries that fail to adhere to these recommendations. And now once again we are faced with far-reaching proposals from the Commission. At the end of this year Commission President Jose Barroso and Council Chair Herman van Rompuy will propose amendments to the Lisbon Treaty which could lead, for example, to a provision for removing voting rights from any country which fails to submit to the Commission’s diktats.

All of these proposals are harmful to European democracy. The position of the national parliaments is being increasingly undermined. That goes not only for those states seeking aid, such as Greece and Italy, where European technocrats (including, moreover, former advisors to Goldman Sachs, the bank which was in large degree responsible for the crisis) have taken power. It will in the future apply to all member states. On a formal level the national parliaments will retain the right to have the last word on the national budget, but woe betide you if the Commission’s proposals are not adopted. Measures could then be taken, resulting in the end in billions of euros in sanctions.

It is starting to appear as if all of these proposals and decisions go much further than was the case when the European Constitution was at stake. The heads of member state governments must understand that they can’t simply push such things down the throats of their countries’ inhabitants. In the Netherlands we must force a referendum in which the Dutch people can have their say. Other Dutch parties – D66 from the centre, the PVV from the right - which traditionally support referenda, will surely agree. If Labour goes along as well, we will have a majority in Parliament. Can we hope for this?