European Union

Commission v Poland
Poland must immediately suspend the application of the provisions of national legislation relating to the lowering of the retirement age for Supreme Court judges

The European Union consists of 28 member states. All treaty changes or enlargement of the EU require the unanimous consent of every single member, however large or small.

The Union of the United Kingdom consists of four member states: England, Scotland, Wales and the province of Northern Ireland.

In the referendum, two of them voted to remain in the EU: Scotland and Northern Ireland. Yet the UK government is going ahead with Brexit, without the unanimous consent of all the UK’s member states.

That couldn’t happen in the European Union, where all member states of the EU, however large or small, each have an equal vote and a veto on new treaties.

• If the UK was run on the same democratic principles as the EU, then the UK could not leave the European Union without the unanimous agreement of all its four members: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

But in the 2016 EU referendum, the democratic wishes of Scotland and Northern Ireland were ignored by the UK government, splitting the United Kingdom in two.

Similarly, Gibraltar – a British Overseas Territory which also had a vote in the EU referendum and chose by 96% to Remain in the EU – saw their objections to Brexit ignored.

Why offer Gibraltar a vote in the first place if their vote basically – and literally – counted for nothing?

• Even though Northern Ireland voted for Remain, one party – the pro-Brexit DUP – is being allowed to dictate what future relationship the province will have with the EU (and therefore the entire UK’s relationship with the EU).

That’s because it’s only the DUP that’s keeping the Tories in power, following last year’s general election, in which the Conservatives saw their majority wiped out.

• Theresa May called for a snap general election last year as she said she needed a bigger mandate to push through her brand of Brexit.

But even though she lost her mandate entirely, she’s still going ahead with her hard Brexit plans, as if the general election had never taken place.

• The EU’s remaining 27 member states will have a greater say and vote on the final Brexit deal than the devolved areas of the UK and the overseas territory of Gibraltar, who are being given no say.

Even the European Parliament will have a more meaningful vote on Brexit than our Parliament in Westminster. The European Parliament can withhold consent to the final Brexit agreement, thereby giving it a veto.

• Theresa May has never wanted our Parliament to have a meaningful vote on Brexit – that’s why the issue had to be dragged through the courts, when she tried to pass Brexit by bypassing Parliament (something she’s continued to attempt to do, despite the High and Supreme Courts damning rulings against her).

Nonetheless, Parliament will only have the power to accept or reject the Brexit deal on offer. If Parliament rejects the deal, the government would have to propose a new plan – but Parliament would not have the power to amend such a plan, unless the Speaker of the House decided otherwise.

• Brexiters claim that the EU is ‘undemocratic’.

But in reality, the EU is more democratic than our system in the UK, where we still have an unelected second chamber; where the wishes of devolved UK states can be ignored, and where we still have an antiquated voting system of first-past-the-post (MEPs are voted to the European Parliament using a system of proportional representation).

• Brexiters tell us that the EU is run by faceless bureaucrats.

But the truth is that all EU laws can only be passed by the democratically elected European Parliament, in concert with the Council of Ministers, that comprise the ministers of democratically elected governments of EU member states.

The European Commission is the servant of the EU, and not its master. The European Parliament elects the Commission President, must democratically approve each Commissioner, and has the power to dismiss the entire Commission.

(If that isn’t democratic, I don’t know what is.)

• Brexiters claim that if the EU doesn’t like the result of a referendum, it just calls for another referendum ‘until it gets the result it wants’. But this is entirely untrue.

The EU has no power to call for a referendum in a member state, let alone to call for another referendum if they ‘don’t like the result’. Only a national government, with the consent of their parliament, can call for a referendum or subsequent referendums.

Furthermore, there is nothing undemocratic about having another vote. That’s precisely what democracy is about.

• For example, France and Ireland voted in favour of the Maastricht Treaty. But Denmark did not.

The Danish government subsequently negotiated four significant concessions to the Treaty on Economic and Monetary Union, Union Citizenship, Justice and Home Affairs and Common Defence.

Consequently, Denmark, with the democratic consent of Denmark’s Parliament, presented these new concessions to the Danish electorate in a second referendum. In this second referendum, the Danes voted in favour of the Treaty, based on the concessions negotiated.

• Similarly, Ireland voted against the Treaty of Lisbon. The Irish government then negotiated significant concessions to the Treaty, and with the consent of Ireland’s parliament, held another referendum, in which Ireland voted in favour of the Treaty based on the amendments negotiated.

None of this was undemocratic. It was democracy at work.

Does anyone really think that the citizens of Ireland, or Denmark, both proud and independent peoples, could be ‘forced’ to vote in a way they didn’t want?

• Just after the referendum, Brexiters mocked that a region of Belgium, called Wallonia, had the power to block the new free trade agreement between Canada and the EU.

But that shows how Belgium, a country only a tenth the size of the UK, has a better democracy than ours.

Unlike in the UK, under Belgium’s constitution, regional parliaments such as the one governing Wallonia, must give their unanimous agreement before Belgium, as an EU member state, can give its consent to any EU Treaty.

The regions of Belgium have much more democratic power than our devolved parliaments of the UK. That’s how Wallonia came to block the EU-Canada agreement, called Ceta.

Eventually, Wallonia sought and received assurances about the Ceta deal, and lifted their objections, so the EU-Canada free trade agreement could go ahead, which it did.

The EU-Canada trade agreement, incidentally, is calculated to be worth an estimated £1.3bn a year to Britain – but of course only whilst we are an EU member.

During 2016, whilst the parliaments of Belgium and all the other EU countries were democratically considering Ceta, the UK’s international trade secretary, Liam Fox, had to apologise to MPs for not allowing our Parliament to have a debate on the Ceta deal.

• There’s something else that makes Belgium arguably more democratically accountable than the UK.

Since 1894 voting in Belgium’s elections has been compulsory. Everyone must vote.

Contrast Belgium’s system of compulsory voting with what happened in Britain’s referendum, where around 20 million people who could vote, didn’t vote.

That included around 13 million who registered to vote but didn’t, and a further estimated 7 million who could have registered to vote, but didn’t.

What a difference 20 million voters could have made to the EU referendum result if it had been compulsory for them to vote.

Polls indicate that those 13 million who registered to vote but didn’t would have supported Remain 2-to-1.

So, in summary:

• The Tory government is going ahead with Brexit, without the unanimous consent of all the UK’s four member states, and without the consent of our overseas territory, the state of Gibraltar.
  
• Only a minority of the electorate voted for Leave, just 37% – the majority either voted for Remain or didn’t vote.  In most referendums around the world non-voters do count, and a  ‘super majority’ is required before change can take place. (Just 37% of members would not be enough to change the constitution of most political parties.  Just 37% of the electorate wasn’t enough to give Scotland its own assembly in a 1979 referendum, even though the ‘Yes’ vote won. Just 37% of MPs would not be enough to call for an early General Election. Just 37% of a trade union’s members – under the law – would not be enough to call for strike action.)
• Many people directly affected by the outcome of the referendum were denied a vote: Britons who’d lived abroad for more than 15 years (even though the Tory manifesto promised them a vote) and citizens from the rest of the EU who had made Britain their home, in many cases for decades.
• Although Northern Ireland voted for Remain, just one small Northern Ireland party, the pro-Brexit DUP, is being allowed to have the final say on the province’s (and therefore the UK’s) future relationship with the EU, because that party is keeping Mrs May and her Tories in office.
• The government has refused to give Parliament a vote on whether Britain should leave the EU, saying the decision was already made by the referendum. Yet, the Supreme Court ruled that only Parliament could make the decision, as the EU referendum was advisory only. This is now a legal challenge against the government. See A50challenge.uk
• The Tory government plans to use ancient Henry VIII powers to prevent Parliament from having a say on which EU laws and protections should be kept, amended or scrapped after Brexit.
• The Tory government does not want our Parliament to have a proper vote on the final Brexit deal – there will be no option for Parliament to reject Brexit if it doesn’t like the deal. Parliament will be able to reject the deal, in which case Britain could end up leaving the EU without any deal.
• The Leave campaign had to rely on lies to win. All the reasons to leave the EU were based on misinformation, mistruths and false promises. (Yes, all of them).
• Evidence is now emerging of alleged fraud, and criminal acts by Vote Leave, Cambridge Analytica, and Aggregate IQ: illegal overspending, psychologically profiling and targeting people with online ads, based on masses of stolen data. All this could have illegally swung the referendum vote in favour of Leave – especially as the margin for Leave was wafer thin.
• Lawyers are consequently calling for the Brexit vote to be declared void for irregularity, but the government has shown no interest.
• Unlike in other democracies that have held second referendums, the government is refusing the give us, ‘the people’, a second say on Brexit, even though nobody knew anything about the final and finer details of Brexit in the referendum (and we still don’t know).

So, which has the better system of democracy: the EU or the UK?

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As @Jon_Danzig writes in his blog today, ‘If the UK was run on the same democratic principles as the #EU, then we couldn't do #Brexit without the agreement of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.’ Please widely share his in-depth report #FinalSay https://t.co/Mw8y3Va7K7

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The post Which is more democratic: UK or EU? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

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Plenary session, Strasbourg

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will take place on Monday, 19 November (14:30-18:30) and Tuesday, 20 November (9.00-12:30 and 14:30-18:30) in Brussels.

Organisations or interest groups who wish to apply for access to the European Parliament will find the relevant information below.

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SEDE organised a public hearing on 'Artificial intelligence and its future impact on security' on Wednesday 10 October 2018, from 09.00 to 11.30, with four external experts
Further information
Draft programme
The OODA Loop: WHY TIMING IS EVERYTHING by Wendy R. Anderson, Amir Husain, and Marla Rosner
As AI Begins to Reshape Defense, Here’s How Europe Can Keep Up by Wendy R. Anderson and Jim Townshend
As Budget Polemic Drives Headlines, Do Not Lose Track of NATO’s Approach to AI Amir Husain, August Cole and Wendy R. Anderson
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So, no breakthrough, but also no collapse. Not the most ringing endorsement for yesterday’s European Council discussion on Article 50, but given the possible alternatives, certainly not the worst it could have been.

Still the focus remains on the backstop for Ireland.

Usefully, we might remember that this backstop has become an issue for two, interlinked reasons.

Firstly, it’s evident that the period from leaving the EU next March to the end of 2020 is almost certainly not long enough to negotiate a comprehensive new EU-UK relationship that would provide a durable legal basis for keeping the Irish border as open as it is now. Secondly, even if it were long enough, the UK still hasn’t settled on a confirmed consensus view on what that new relationship should be.

Next-to-impossible to negotiate something when you don’t know what you want.

As a result, the EU (driven by Ireland) wants a backstop to protect those parts of the Good Friday Agreement that fall within its competence, not because that’s optimal, but because it can’t rely on the UK to get its act together.

That the UK hasn’t been the most reliable of negotiating partners also hasn’t helped.

In any case, it’s been that time shortage that has been central in driving backstops: neither the EU nor UK wanted an indefinite transition period, so they extemporised.

This past week has seen a revisiting of this assumption, for what seem to be rather obvious reasons.

A longer transition means more time to sort out that new relationship, so less likelihood of needing a back-up plan in the form of a backstop.

Of all the options on the table, it is one of the very simplest, not least because both sides agreed the terms of transition already, so the paperwork is almost entirely ready to go. Indeed, when that was agreed, back in the spring, there was almost no opposition to its existence or form from opponents of Theresa May and it attracted minimal attention from any one (excepting the occasional academic).

Despite what Nigel Farage and others say, transition is not ‘staying in for longer’, because transition’s entire existence is based on the Withdrawal Agreement, which in turn supposes that the UK and EU have agreed terms for leaving. Thus, in strict legal terms, the UK would no longer be a member state.

But…

But yes, there are problems, and some big ones at that.

While May will go with the line that she’s delivered on getting the UK out of the EU on her schedule next March, it will be into a transition that is as close to membership as it’s possible to imagine: literally everything as before, but without representation or a vote. In that sense, Farage would have a point and getting over a line on a technicality is never a good look, even if you’re not already on a caution from your own party.

Moreover, extending transition beyond December 2020 means that the UK will find itself entering a new financial cycle of the EU budget, without a rebate mechanism – so net contributions would go up considerably – and without full planning by the EU for accommodating spending allocations to the UK – so some substantial financial engineering will be required in 2020.

Crucially, a longer transition means more chance of the EU making a decision that causes real problems for the UK, which will undermine the already-thin legitimacy and accountability of the transition system.

And there’s the moral hazard argument: more time is well and good, but it reduces the pressure to reach a timely agreement on the future relationship, so both sides will still be likely to face a situation where another extension to transition is required to avoid a new cliff-edge moment.

So…

The temptation in all this to work just to immediate concerns: what can May get through Parliament, or what will fly for the Irish to sign up?

That’s important, but it can’t be the only perspective. These decisions are going to have lasting impacts on the lives of millions, and the more that they can be discussed and evaluated, the better.

However, one key point is going to have to be accepted in this process.

Brexit is about change, divergence and disentanglement. It necessarily and fundamentally implies costs, primarily in the shorter-term but also beyond that. Whatever form Brexit takes, there will be negativities – opportunity costs to businesses, citizens, politics – and there is no cost-free option. Indeed, even abandoning Brexit entirely isn’t without substantial costs, certainly in reputational terms.

In all the debate about how Brexit proceeds, this basic reality is too often brushed to one side. Maybe now is the time to face up to it.

The post The pros and cons of a longer transition appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Bastei Lübbe
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The owner of an internet connection used for copyright infringements through file-sharing cannot be exonerated from liability simply by naming a family member who might have had access to that connection

‘e-Curia’ becomes the only means of exchange of legal documents between parties’ representatives and the General Court with effect from 1 December 2018

Committee and political group meetings, Brussels

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Item 4 - Public Hearing on Artificial intelligence and its future impact on security - The OODA Loop: WHY TIMING IS EVERYTHING - Mrs Wendy R. Anderson, Adjunct Senior Fellow, Center for a New American Security
Item 4 - Public Hearing on Artificial intelligence and its future impact on security - As AI Begins to Reshape Defense, Here’s How Europe Can Keep Up - Mrs Wendy R. Anderson, Adjunct Senior Fellow, Center for a New American Security
Item 4 - Public Hearing on Artificial intelligence and its future impact on security - As Budget Polemic Drives Headlines, Do Not Lose Track of NATO’s Approach to AI - Mrs Wendy R. Anderson, Adjunct Senior Fellow, Center for a New American Security
Item 5 - Exchange of view on Future challenges for The European Union Satellite Centre (EUSATCEN) : Presentation by Mr Pascal Legai, Director EUSATCEN
Item 6 - Exchange of view with Operation Commander Rear Admiral Enrico Credendino on the State of play of Europrean Union Naval Force - Mediterranean EUNAVFOR MED
Item 7 - Exchange of views on Mine action and the European Union's integrated approach with Mr Frank Meeussen Policy Officer, Conventional Arms - Disarmament, Non-proliferation and Arms Export Control, EEAS
Item 7 - Exchange of views on Mine action and the European Union's integrated approach with Mr Juan-Carlos Ruan, Director of the Implementation Support Unit of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining
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Arib and Others
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Advocate General Szpunar proposes that the Court should rule that the ‘Returns Directive’ must be applied to third-country national where internal border controls have been reinstated

The next AFET meetings are scheduled to take place on:

Monday, 12 November 2018, Strasbourg

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Report on the 2018 Commission Report on Serbia
Report on the 2018 Commission Report on Kosovo
Report on the 2018 Commission Report on Montenegro
Report on the 2018 Commission Report on the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
Report on the 2018 Commission Report on Albania
Implementation of the EU association agreement with Georgia
Implementation of the EU association agreement with Moldova
Opinion on the Interim report on the Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027 - Parliament's position with a view to an agreement
Arms export: implementation of Common Position 2008/944/CFSP
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OPINION on the Interim report on MFF 2021-2027 – Parliament’s position in view of an agreement
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Marietje Schaake

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This article is based on research presented at the UACES Graduate Forum Conference 2018 (12-13 July, KU Leuven, Belgium)

In parliamentary democracies the cabinet makes policy decisions. When a cabinet is formed around a coalition of parties, the responsibility for decision-making is shared. However, coalition parties remain politically independent actors, resulting in competition and disagreements over policy issues. Whilst coalition partners may not always disagree, they often do: Saskia Smellie considers recent developments in German coalition politics and its effects on domestic policy-making and international politics.

Reichstag parliament, Berlin © travelwitness/AdobeStock

The ramifications of coalition politics have become starkly apparent during the European Union (EU) migration crisis; not least in the case of Germany in June 2018. The German Minister of the Interior, Horst Seehofer, leader of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s junior coalition partner and conservative sister party in Bavaria, the Christian Social Union (CSU), sparked a crisis described as the ‘greatest challenge ever to Merkel’s authority’.

The dispute, which came ahead of elections in Bavaria later in the year, stemmed from a breakdown of emergency talks on refugee policy, related to Seehofer’s so-called ‘master plan for migration’. The 63-point proposal, which falls largely within the Interior Minister’s remit, included measures enabling asylum-seekers registered in other EU countries to be turned away at the Bavarian-Austrian border, without initiating the Dublin regulation.

Under the Dublin regulation asylum seekers claim asylum in the first country through which they enter the EU and can be sent back to that country to make a claim. Turning away asylum seekers at the German border without implementing the Dublin return procedure would effectively mean suspending the regulation and reinstating an internal EU border. With the CSU supporting Seehofer’s plans, the junior and arguably more ideologically driven coalition partner held the more moderate and senior conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party to ransom. If Merkel were unable to reach a satisfactory deal with other EU member states to reduce immigration, Seehofer and the CSU threatened to act unilaterally and impose the border checks in Bavaria against the chancellor’s will. The crisis deepened still further when Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz stated that he planned to reinstate Austrian borders if Seehofer went ahead with his proposals.

This is not the first time that disagreement between coalition partners on immigration policy has had far-reaching consequences in Germany. Refugee policy is cited as one of the reasons for the collapse of coalition negotiations after the German federal elections in September 2017, which left the country without a government until March 2018. When a new Grand coalition between CDU/CSU and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) was finally formed, the leader of the CSU secured the cabinet post of Interior Minister. Seehofer has been Merkel’s harshest critic since the summer of 2015, and the most vocal member of the government to come out in opposition of Merkel’s Willkommenskultur. In his new role as Interior Minister he has greater power to oppose, contest and constrain Merkel’s immigration policies.

It is striking that the crisis incited by Seehofer’s controversial migration ‘master plan’ threatened not only the German coalition government but also negotiations on the future of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker hosted a mini-summit on migration in Brussels on 24th June 2018, ahead of a European Council summit, reportedly on Merkel’s request. The initiative provoked anger from the Italian government when the Commission sent out a draft EU accord, ahead of the summit, which included key measures Merkel required to placate Seehofer and the CSU.

The perception was that greater priority had been given to Germany’s domestic crisis than to member states experiencing a high influx of migration on the eastern and southern EU borders. Moreover, the Commission was seen as overstepping its remit in a policy area reserved to the European Council. The Visegrad Group (Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic), which are united in their anti-immigration policy and opposition to the redistribution of refugees in the EU, chose not to attend the mini-summit at all. Nevertheless, Merkel appeared to secure a commitment from Macron that France would take back returned asylum seekers, in an agreement with Germany, suggesting a possible resolution to her domestic crisis through bilateral means. In the end, Seehofer was persuaded to soften the language in his plan and remove the point on turning back asylum seekers, in return for the coalition government agreeing to introduce tougher asylum policies.

This episode demonstrates the impact that coalition politics can have not only on domestic politics but also on international negotiations and relations. In the case of immigration policy, a junior coalition partner that holds the role of Interior Minister and demonstrated arguably more populist views on immigration ahead of a regional election, not only came close to collapsing the coalition government but also directly affected negotiations at an EU level. Within the context of the EU migration crisis and the increasingly salient and international nature of migration politics – with a growing focus on controlling borders, push and pull factors between neighbouring states, and outsourcing immigration controls to third countries – this example of domestic actors constraining international negotiations is one of many.

The ongoing consequences of Germany’s coalition disputes on immigration, for both the federal government and future negotiations on the Common European Asylum System remains to be seen. However, the incident does clearly demonstrate how a dispute between coalition partners in a cabinet can quickly escalate to have ramifications for international relations and negotiations on the international stage.

Please note that this article represents the views of the author(s) and not those of the UACES Graduate Forum, UACES or JCER.

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Saskia Smellie | @S_Smellie

Saskia Smellie is a PhD researcher in Politics & International Relations at the University of Edinburgh. Her research interests include comparative immigration policy, EU asylum and refugee policy, ‘burden-sharing’ and foreign policy analysis. She is a co-author of the report ‘Scottish and UK Immigration Policy after Brexit: Evaluating Options for a Differentiated Approach’.

 

The post Merkel, Coalition Politics and Negotiating the Common European Asylum System: Constrained by Domestic Actors? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

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There will be a lot of talk about the extreme right’s entry into the Bavarian parliament and the impact of yesterday’s election on the federal government in Berlin. But the most important fall-out may reside in a significant shift in political semantics.

For as long as I can remember, Bavaria has always been described to me as a very particular Bundesland. Not because it was my parents’ favourite holiday destination during my childhood (and has remained, indeed, a blessed corner of Europe), but because the Bavarians insisted on being ‘different’ from the rest of the bunch (to which they generically referred to as ‘Prussians’).

Strictly speaking, it’s not even a Bundesland, since it’s officially called a Freistaat, as if it wanted to remind the others that they could quit the federation any time. Some Germans consider the Bavarians as ‘arrogant’, but that’s the kind of reproach you earn mainly by performing better than anybody else. And they do, in practically all statistics: economy, security, health, education, employment, football, you name it.

The impressive Bavarian mansion in Brussels.

Even on a European level, it’s difficult not to be impressed with Bavaria. With its 13 million inhabitants it would the 9th biggest member state, and in economic terms, with its GDP of 600 bn Euros, it would even be number seven, before Poland. And they don’t hide their opulence: their wonderfully megalomaniac ‘château’ representation in Brussels, in direct vicinity of the European Parliament, does not go unnoticed.

***

For as long as I can remember, this model region was managed by the CSU, the powerful local variant of the Christian Democrats, whose hyper-domination of Bavarian politics over half a century was shoulder-shruggingly explained by the fact that the country was ‘deeply conservative’. A very appropriate adjective for a region that not only did have quite a few assets worth ‘conserving’, but that had also managed to reconcile, as pointed out in a famous slogan, ‘laptops and leather trousers’. Developing world-class industry, research, and infrastructures was not mutually exclusive with preserving a strong, surprisingly inclusive, cultural heritage embodied in ostentatious identity markers (including a nightmare dialect).

Yesterday’s election to the regional parliament in Munich has attracted unprecedented international attention. This was mainly due to the fact that the CSU has been identified as the main problem child of the current coalition in Berlin, at least partly responsible for the stalemate in an increasingly ‘ungovernable’ Federal Republic, as well as for the apparent decline in Angela Merkel’s authority. European media are already wondering whether the Bavarian election results will weaken the federal government even further.

Results as provided by the Bavarian authorities.

And there will be quite some hand-wringing about the extreme right’s entry into the Bavarian Landtag. The AfD went from zero to ten percent – how shocking! Was not Munich the birthplace of Adolf Hitler’s movement? The kind of fear-mongering that shallow international television coverage loves to indulge in. They could just as well point out that 10.2% for an openly xenophobic party with an aggressive single-issue anti-migrant agenda is actually a rather poor result in the very region that has been more exposed than any other to the influx of refugees from the famous ‘Balkan route’ since August 2015. To put it differently: both parties who focused massively on the migration issue were rather unsuccessful in Bavaria. The CSU lost roughly a fourth of their voters in comparison to the 2013 election, and the AfD, which recruited 28% of their electorate precisely from former CSU voters, remained below their score in the federal elections a year ago and way behind current national opinion polls.

In a nutshell: Bavarians proved remarkably resistant to several variants of populism. They rejected the religiously tainted identity populism of current minister-president Markus Söder – whose infamous ‘crucifix law’ backfired even among many Bavarian Catholics – and only a minority of them were ready to embrace the xenophobic and nationalist populism of the AfD. At least that’s my reading, against the very particular backdrop of a soul-searching Germany in the autumn of 2018.

The most intriguing fall-out from this election is, however, the hi-jacking and re-definition of the term ‘conservative’ by the Greens, who doubled their results from five years ago, reaching an all-time high of 17.5%. They managed to do so in proposing a new brand of ‘conservatism’: the one they promote – not unlike their successful neighbours in Baden-Württemberg – shifts the core connotation of the term towards ‘sustainability’. And it carries, mostly implicit, but visibly understood by many, a secondary connotation of urgent change, transposing to their country Tancredo’s famous message to the Prince from Lampedusa’s Leopard: if we want to preserve what made Bavaria a great place, we need to change our ways.

How green has Ms Bavaria become?

Are we witnessing the arrival of climate change and biodiversity worries, in combination with issues of social sustainability, in mainstream politics in Western Europe? It would be about time. It’s probably too early to earmark 14 October 2018 as a ‘potential turning point for Europe’, as Florian Eder suggests in his (always excellent) Brussels Playbook today. In Bavaria, the Greens will remain in opposition, but the fact that they obtained 30% of the vote in the region’s major cities shows that their influence is not likely to decline over the next years. Especially if birds and insects continue to disappear, overhot summers last forever, and the automotive lobby has nothing to offer but big, fat SUVs and threats about job losses.

The future of German politics will be conservative. The question is what people will want to conserve, and who are the politicians who will propose the most credible brand of conservatism.

The post Deeply conservative appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Arron Banks, the insurance tycoon and Brexit campaigner who bankrolled both UKIP and Leave.eu, has launched a vitriolic campaign to deselect Remain-supporting Tory MPs who represent ‘Leave’ constituencies.

Mr Banks, whose application to join the Conservatives was rejected, said the aim and slogan of his campaign, called ‘The Blue Wave UK’, is to:

‘Make the Conservatives Conservative again’

But if Conservatives are to be ‘Conservative again’, they would naturally support Britain’s membership of the EU.

That’s because, traditionally, all Tory Prime Ministers and governments had, until now, strongly and consistently favoured Britain being in the European Community.

• It was because of Conservatives that the UK applied to join the European Community in the first place.
• It was because of Conservatives that the UK eventually joined the European Community.
• It was because of Conservative support that Britain’s continued membership of the European Community was won by a landslide in the first referendum of 1975.
• It was because of Conservatives, under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher, that the Single Market of Europe came into existence.
• The Conservative government in the 2016 referendum officially supported the UK’s continued membership of the European Union.
• Most Conservative MPs voted for Remain in the 2016 referendum.

Since the European Community was founded in 1957, with just one exception, the passionate resolve of all past Conservative Prime Ministers was that Britain should join it and remain in it.

That one exception is today’s Conservative Prime Minister, Theresa May.

Mrs May is Britain’s only Prime Minister ever to go against membership of the European Union and the cherished Single Market of Europe.

Some argue that Conservatives of today are not the same as Conservatives of yesterday. They have become more like UKIP.

Indeed, shortly after Mrs May became Prime Minister, the then UKIP MEP, Roger Helmer, told BBC Radio 4 in October 2016:

“I like what Theresa May is doing.

“She seems to have picked up about 90% of UKIP’s programme. In some ways, she’s gone far beyond what we would have done.”

Theresa May is taking Britain out of the EU, whereas all previous Prime Ministers (both Tory and Labour) wanted Britain to be in.

If only today’s Conservative MPs – and today’s Tory Prime Minister – were true Conservatives of the past, then the party that championed our membership of the European Community would not now be relishing the prospect of Britain’s departure from it.

What would past Tory Prime Ministers make of their legacies being destroyed by their own party?

 WINSTON CHURCHILL: It was one of the Tory party’s greatest leaders, Winston Churchill, who passionately promoted the ‘Union of Europe as a whole’ and is recognised as a founder of the European Union.

In his famous Zurich speech of 1946, Churchill said,

‘We must build a kind of United States of Europe.. The structure of the United States of Europe, if well and truly built, will be such as to make the material strength of a single state less important..

“If at first all the States of Europe are not willing or able to join the Union, we must nevertheless proceed to assemble and combine those who will and those who can.’

At London’s Albert Hall, in May 1947, just a few months after his Zurich speech, Churchill spoke as Chairman and Founder of the United Europe Movement to ‘present the idea of a United Europe in which our country will play a decisive part..’

In May 1948 Churchill said in the opening speech to the Congress of Europe in Holland, that the drive towards a United Europe, ‘should be a movement of the people, not parties’.

Churchill, who also proposed a European ‘Charter’ and ‘Court’ of Human Rights, continued,

‘We aim at the eventual participation of all the peoples throughout the continent whose society and way of life are in accord with the Charter of Human Rights.’

During this momentous speech, Churchill proclaimed:

‘We cannot aim at anything less than the Union of Europe as a whole, and we look forward with confidence to the day when that Union will be achieved.’

When in in 1961 Conservative Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, applied for Britain to join the European Community, Churchill wrote:

“I think that the Government are right to apply to join the European Economic Community..”

He added:

“We might well play a great part in these developments to the profit of not only ourselves, but of our European friends also.”

 HAROLD MACMILLAN: In a pamphlet explaining to the nation why he had applied for the UK to join the European Community in 1961, Prime Minister Macmillan wrote:

“By negotiating for British membership of the European Economic Community and its Common Market, the present Conservative Government has taken what is perhaps the most fateful and forward looking policy decision in our peacetime history.

“We did not do so lightly. It was only after a searching study of all the facts that we came to accept this as the right and proper course.”

Mr Macmillan continued:

“By joining this vigorous and expanding community and becoming one of its leading members, as I am convinced we would, this country would not only gain a new stature in Europe, but also increase its standing and influence in the councils of the world.”

Of great pertinence to today, Mr Macmillan added:

“Accession to the Treaty of Rome would not involve a one-sided surrender of ‘sovereignty’ on our part, but a pooling of sovereignty by all concerned, mainly in economic and social fields.

“In renouncing some of our own sovereignty we would receive in return a share of the sovereignty renounced by other members.”

 SIR ALEC DOUGLAS-HOME: Mr Macmillan’s successor, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, was briefly prime minister for one year from 1963. He supported Britain’s application to join the European Community, although Harold Macmillan’s application had been vetoed by the French President, Charles de Gaulle.

In his party’s manifesto for the general election of 1964, Sir Alec stated:

“We remain convinced that the political and economic problems of the West can best be solved by an Atlantic partnership between America and a united Europe. Only in this way can Europe develop the wealth and power, and play the part in aiding others, to which her resources and history point the way.”

Later, as Foreign Secretary in Edward Heath’s government that took Britain into the European  Community, Sir Alec said in a speech in Parliament in June 1971 on the importance of the United Kingdom’s membership:

“I think the time has come when we must say to the public in our country that the future prospect ahead of us is uncertain unless we can expand our markets and unless we can become part of a bigger organisation; for trade, for investment, and also for political reasons.”

The following month in Parliament he said:

“I have never made it a secret that I cannot see an alternative which would offer as good a prospect for this country as joining the E.E.C. [European Community].”

And he also stated:

“I, too, have concluded through the years that membership of the Community would be advantageous to Britain.”

 EDWARD HEATH: It was Conservative Prime Minister, Edward Heath, who joined Britain to the European Community on 1 January 1973, following the backing of Parliament after 300 hours of debate.

On the evening of 28 October 1971, Mr Heath addressed the House of Commons during the momentous debate on Britain joining the European Community. He said:

“Surely we must consider the consequences of staying out. We cannot delude ourselves that an early chance would be given us to take the decision again.

“We should be denying ourselves and succeeding generations the opportunities which are available to us in so many spheres; opportunities which we ourselves in this country have to seize.

“We should be leaving so many aspects of matters affecting our daily lives to be settled outside our own influence. That surely cannot be acceptable to us.

“We should be denying to Europe, also – let us look outside these shores for a moment – its full potential, its opportunities of developing economically and politically, maintaining its security, and securing for all its people a higher standard of prosperity.”

Mr Heath added:

“..tonight when this House endorses this Motion many millions of people right across the world will rejoice that we have taken our rightful place in a truly United Europe.”

Parliament did endorse the Motion by 356 votes to 244, and Britain subsequently joined the European Economic Community on 1 January 1973.

 MARGARET THATCHER: Two years later, in 1975, the Labour government offered the British people a referendum on whether the country should remain in the European Community. Tory leader and future Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, strongly campaigned for the country to remain in the Community.

In a speech in Parliament on 8 April 1975 supporting Britain’s continued membership of the European Community, Mrs Thatcher said:

“Membership of the Community enhances our effective sovereignty by giving the British Government increased influence and bargaining strength.”

She added:

“That is what sovereignty in the modern world is really about and that is why Britain is stronger inside the Community than she would be outside it.”

And pertinently to today, Mrs Thatcher said:

“If we were now to withdraw, it would be a leap in the dark. We should not have any idea of the trading conditions into which we were coming out or of the effect on sterling.”

In another keynote speech on 16 April 1975 during the referendum campaign she said:

“It is not surprising that I, as Leader of the Conservative Party, should wish to give my wholehearted support to this campaign, for the Conservative Party has been pursuing the European vision almost as long as we have existed as a Party.”

As Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher also pushed for, and made possible, the Single Market of Europe.

In September 1988 in Bruges, Mrs Thatcher gave a major speech about the future of Europe. She said:

“Britain does not dream of some cosy, isolated existence on the fringes of the European Community. Our destiny is in Europe, as part of the Community.”

Mrs Thatcher added:

“Let Europe be a family of nations, understanding each other better, appreciating each other more, doing more together but relishing our national identity no less than our common European endeavour.”

Crucially she said in support of the Single Market:

“By getting rid of barriers, by making it possible for companies to operate on a European scale, we can best compete with the United States, Japan and other new economic powers emerging in Asia and elsewhere.”

 JOHN MAJOR: It was former Conservative Prime Minister, John Major, who negotiated and won Parliament’s backing to sign the Maastricht Treaty, that among other benefits gave us EU Citizenship rights allowing us to reside, work, study or retire across a huge expanse of our continent.

He called for Britain to be at ‘the very heart of Europe’.

At the Tory Party Conference of 1992, just six months after John Major won a surprise victory that year in the General Election, he said to the party faithful:

“I speak as one who believes Britain’s future lies with Europe.”

And Mr Major warned about Britain walking away from Europe:

“We would be breaking Britain’s future influence in Europe. We would be ending for ever our hopes of building the kind of Europe that we want. And we would be doing that, just when across Europe the argument is coming our way. We would be leaving European policy to the French and the Germans.

“That is not a policy for Great Britain. It would be an historic mistake. And not one your Government is going to make.”

And Mr Major crucially added:

“Let us not forget why we joined the Community. It has given us jobs. New markets. New horizons.

“Nearly 60 per cent of our trade is now with our partners. It is the single most important factor in attracting a tide of Japanese and American investment to our shores, providing jobs for our people..

“But the most far-reaching, the most profound reason for working together in Europe I leave till last. It is peace. The peace and stability of a continent, ravaged by total war twice in this century.”

 DAVID CAMERON: Theresa May’s predecessor, Conservative Prime Minister, David Cameron, also strongly supported Britain’s continued membership of the EU, and his government’s official advice to the electorate during the Referendum was to vote for Remain.

In a speech on 9 May 2016 in support of the UK remaining in the EU during the referendum campaign, Mr Cameron said:

“I believe that, despite its faults and its frustrations, the United Kingdom is stronger, safer and better off by remaining a member of the European Union.”

And he added:

“We are part of a single market of 500 million people which Britain helped to create. Our goods and, crucially, our services – which account for almost 80% of our economy – can trade freely by right. We help decide the rules. The advantages of this far outweigh any disadvantages.”

Most pertinently to today’s debate within the Tory party on what kind of Brexit Britain should have (which has still not been settled), Mr Cameron said:

“The Leave campaign are asking us to take a massive risk with the future of our economy and the future of our country.

“And yet they can’t even answer the most basic questions.

“What would Britain’s relationship be with the EU if we were to leave? Will we have a free trade agreement, or will we fall back on World Trade Organisation rules?

“The man who headed the WTO for 8 years thinks this would be, and I quote, ‘a terrible replacement for access to the EU single market.’

“Some of them say we would keep full access to the EU Single Market.

“If so, we would have to accept freedom of movement, a contribution to the EU budget, and accept all EU rules while surrendering any say over them.

“In which case, we would have given up sovereignty rather than taken it back.

“Others say we would definitely leave the single market – including, yesterday, the Vote Leave campaign – despite the critical importance of the Single Market to jobs and investment in our country.

“I can only describe this as a reckless and irresponsible course. These are people’s jobs and livelihoods that are being toyed with.

“And the Leave campaign have no answers to the most basic questions.”

Of course, today’s Conservative Prime Minister, Theresa May also shared these sentiments before the Referendum, when she campaigned for Remain and declared:

“I believe it is clearly in our national interest to remain a member of the European Union.”

And she concluded then (as opposed to now):

“Remaining inside the European Union does make us more secure, it does make us more prosperous and it does make us more influential beyond our shores.

“I believe the case to remain a member of the European Union is strong.”

So yes, Mr Banks, lets support your campaign aim to make “Conservatives Conservative again.”

The truth is that today’s Conservative MPs who support Britain’s  membership of the EU – the ones you want deselected – are in fact the true Tories.

We need those traditional pro-EU Conservatives, more than ever, to represent the majority of Britons who now don’t support Brexit.

• Video: Winston Churchill makes the case for a United Europe

• Video: Former Prime Minister, John Major, on the case for another referendum

• Follow my journalism page on Facebook: Jon Danzig writes

• Follow my Stop Brexit campaign on Facebook: Reasons2Remain

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