Tuesday 5 March 2019

A BILLET-DOUX FROM MACRON TO EUROPE

President Macron has written a rousing defence of Europe and the EU (HERE) reminding us what a success story it really is, something which many in this country and elsewhere on the continent have either forgotten or never learned. I was 25 years old when we joined the EU and voted enthusiastically for it in the 1975 referendum.  But I'm surprised how many people much younger than me, people who were children or not even born at the time, are totally anti-EU as if the rights,  prosperity and security we enjoy are delivered to us by nature.

He has in his sights the men and women across Europe who want a return to the past:

"Nationalist retrenchment offers nothing; it is rejection without an alternative. And this trap threatens the whole of Europe: the anger mongers, backed by fake news, promise anything and everything.

This is the regular modus operandi of Nationalists isn't it. Foment discontent against a nebulous enemy and persuade people to reject the status quo in favour of something else. Something we are not told about until it's too late.  Macron reminds us that the European story since 1945 is actually a huge success that we should never forget:

"And this project continues to protect us today. What country can act on its own in the face of aggressive strategies by the major powers? Who can claim to be sovereign, on their own, in the face of the digital giants? How would we resist the crises of financial capitalism without the euro, which is a force for the entire European Union?"

 The German Justice Minister, Katarina Barley welcomed Macron's letter:
"Dear @ EmmanuelMacron, Thank you for this initiative! We Europeans must now come together and make Europe strong together".

I notice this morning Dr North at EUReferendum (HERE) in a predictably mean spirited response is highly suspicious and critical of Macron's letter. The Eurosceptic and co-author of The Great Deception, a book about the EU apparently deceiving 500 million Europeans, and described in an academic journal review as 'not so much false as ludicrous', says:

"In arguing that this [more integration] is directed towards giving more power to the people, one could say that the French President is seeking to deceive us all, cloaking political integration in the honeyed words of democracy. But most of all – if he actually believes this guff – he is deceiving himself. 

"Either way, Macron embodies all the 'values' and the delusions which made leaving the EU so necessary and, in the longer-term, the only sensible path that the UK can take. There is no possible way we can share these ambitions and to pretend that we have any common cause with the French president would be sheer hypocrisy. We are getting out just in time.

"We can always wish the Europeans well if they are intent on pursuing these delusions. But they are not for us. However bad our leaders are, at least we will now be free as a people to focus on devising and improving our own systems of government, taking us closer to the idea of a democracy which the likes of Mr Macron want to leave behind".

I am not even sure that North and Macron are that far apart. Both appear to want to strengthen democracy - Macron by appointing an EU Agency to protect democratic freedoms against cyber attacks and manipulation and North by, .....well I'm not really sure since he only talks in vague terms about 'devising and improving' on our system of government. I don't think anyone disagrees with either man or that they actually disagree with each other. And I don't believe EU membership has ever prevented us improving our democracy - we just haven't done it.

The result was the 2016 referendum that is now mired in accusations of criminal wrongdoing.

Personally, I see no problem with closer European integration and have always believed it to to be inevitable and an unalloyed good thing. Cooperation must be better than antagonism and bickering.

North's problem with Europe is neatly summed up in his Wikipedia entry by Princeton University's Andrew Moravcsik, whose research is heavily, if misleadingly, cited in North's book. Moravcsik has accused the author of 'failing to demonstrate that there were any viable alternatives to European Union membership'. 

There is only one Europe and there can only be one European Union. Rejecting membership of the only club of nations that has the remotest chance of improving things across the continent seems particularly stupid and churlish - and cannot be a long term status or position for this country.

Whatever Dr North and the Brexiteers might think.

Macron's full 1600 word address is HERE
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