The fact that the EU is abandoning democracy should alarm us all.
The man who would be America’s next president, Barack Obama, wants a more muscular Europe. “We need a strong European Union,” he said last Thursday in Berlin, “that deepens the security and prosperity of this continent, while extending a hand abroad.” He supports European enlargement, calling it “history’s most successful democratization strategy.”
Interesting choice of words.
The day before the Berlin speech, Italy’s senate unanimously approved the Lisbon Treaty. Mr. Obama would probably celebrate that fact, since this treaty, if implemented, would unquestionably lead to a stronger Europe. It would, in fact, legally transform the European Union into a single federal state. It would obliterate national sovereignty in a blink, turning state citizens into federal citizens, national officials into European officials, individual militaries into a European superarmy.
But is this really a positive development? Set aside for a moment the fact that the whole project is a naked attempt to counterbalance the United States on the world stage. There are apparently even many Americans who believe that’s just what the world needs right now. Let’s talk about “history’s most successful democratization strategy.”
Tell that to the Irish. After all, the Lisbon Treaty should be dead in its tracks.
Why? Because that is what the treaty itself says should happen if any of the 27 European Union member nations fail to ratify it. Which is exactly what Ireland did on June 12, when its people said no in a public referendum.
But in Europe, the voice of the people has never mattered. Never in its history. Certainly not now. Thus, the treaty isn’t dead. It lumbers on, a walking corpse.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she’s still confident the treaty will be implemented. Eurocrats will just have to find a way around the demand for unanimity within the treaty—breaking it in order to establish it. The nice thing, for their sake, is that after Italy’s vote of confidence, it looks more and more like all 26 other member states will pass it.
Of course, none of those 26 nations asked their people about it. Why? Because they know that if they did, it would crash. The people, in several nations at least, don’t want it.
Just look what happened in 2005. At that time, the treaty (which was then called the European Constitution) was blocked thanks to public votes by the French (55 percent) and the Dutch (62 percent). The Eurocrats decided that was simply too unpleasant a flirtation with democracy. So, they garnished the document a bit, renamed it, and tried again. Only this time, the governments of every EU state—with one pesky exception, Ireland—made sure the ratification process would not include a referendum. Denmark, the Czech Republic, Portugal and Britain faced noisy opposition from their apparently unenlightened people, but the Eurocrats stood their ground and denied them a voice.
“History’s most successful democratization strategy” is pulling some ugly, undemocratic stunts in order to transform itself into a superstate even more authoritarian than it already is. The new EU will become a steamroller of democracies—starting with those European nations in which any vestiges of democracy have managed to survive “history’s most successful democratization strategy” thus far.
Ironically, the treaty itself says it aims to complete Europe’s unification “with a view to enhancing the efficiency and democratic legitimacy of the Union and to improving the coherence of its action” (emphasis mine). Surely it is fair to look at the process by which the treaty is being made into law as a means of measuring the sincerity of this statement. Efficiency—check. Coherence—absolutely. Democratic legitimacy? Not so much.
This November, Americans will vote for a president. Just imagine if, instead, Americans voted for a party, which chose a representative, who sat on some kind of multinational legislature, which selected from among its members a president. To say that that individual would represent “the will of the people” would be extraordinarily charitable. Yet that is exactly the kind of system European voters will be a part of should the Lisbon Treaty become law.
European politicians are already proving just how unaccountable to the people they consider themselves. The “Mr. Europe” position that would be created by this treaty would allow a man—who came into office who knows how—to take the Continent exactly where he wanted it to go regardless of what the people wanted.
Now, any notion that this scenario is in America’s best interests is worse than dubious. It’s flat dangerous.
Why?
To answer that question, let’s step back a moment.
If you’ve read the Trumpet for any length of time, you’ve likely seen several announcements of the death-by-a-thousand-cuts that democracy is suffering in Europe (for example, here and here).
Then again, you may have also read an article or two of ours arguing why, based on biblical evidence, democracy is not a truly effective form of government (see here and here).
One reader, from France, detected what he felt to be a contradiction and wrote, “Do me a favor and never criticize European democracy again, by saying it wasn’t democratic, unless you change your own attitude. Who are you to defend democracy? … [Y]our dislike for power of the people is obvious!”
There is, however, a spectacularly important reason why the smothering of the people’s voice in Europe should deeply trouble us all.
It concerns something quite different than Europeans’ right to be heard—which we do, in fact, highly respect, and which a just government would as well.
The reason is this: Democracy’s demise reveals Europe’s true nature—and is destined to usher in world war.
The fact is, democracy is actually, ultimately, a check on a nation’s power. No nation that has distributed its power to its people to any meaningful degree ends up trying to smash its way toward conquering the world. People-power tends to turn a nation inward, to preoccupy its citizens with concerns more mundane than global conquest.
By contrast, history’s truly violent and earth-shaking imperialistic episodes have generally sprung from the dark, hungry souls of tyrants. From Babylon, humanity’s first world-dominating kingdom, to the 20th century’s preeminent imperialist aggressors, the fiercest empires have been the ventures of a lone caesar: Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander, Justinian, Charlemagne, Napoleon, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler.
These men—so many of them, and some of the worst of them, from Europe—have assumed, or seized, absolute power, and bent the will of the people to suit their extreme ambition.
This, Jesus Christ said, tends to be the way of the world: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them” (Matthew 20:25, Revised Standard Version). It has certainly been the way of Europe—rulers lording over it and dragging the people into bloody nightmares that spring from their own fevered imaginations.
Consider then, what we have seen in Europe for the past 60-plus years. Maybe not the most robust of democracy, but certainly diffused power, proscribed by checks and balances—and relative peace. A lack of drama. For a continent with a history of strongmen and a past awash in blood, blood and more blood, it has been a welcome respite.
But it won’t hold. Signs are that the Continent is reverting to type.
Enkindled by a sense of destiny, and with the blessing of American politicians who believe that a more muscular Europe would mean a more peaceful planet, Eurocrats are doing all they can to hoist the EU into greater global prominence. Bit by bit they are enhancing the Union’s efficiency. They are improving the coherence of its action.
And in the process, they are absolutely—but predictably—trampling on the democratic legitimacy of the Union. Stripping power from the people and vesting it increasingly in the hands of an unaccountable few.
The way is being prepared for a strongman, cast in the traditional European mold, to step in and nail the coffin shut on “history’s most successful democratization strategy.”
Read Germany and the Holy Roman Empire to see where the Continent’s next, and final, imperialistic adventure will take it. Be assured, America won’t like it. •
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