Thursday 18 August 2016

The plan is a Europe with open borders and without nation states

SHARE

Ulrike Guérot the "Founder and Director of the European Democracy Lab", at the European School of Governance in Berlin, said in an interview in Deutsche Welle that 
the existence of nation states is in itself one of the biggest problems with the European project. 
She went on to say that Angela Merkel was right to let in the migrants, but did it the wrong way. She should have consulted the other EU countries first. The second point is true. 

According to Frau Guerot, the influx of migrants into Europe is not a problem caused by the EU, but this is not quite right. Were it not for Schengen, far fewer migrants would
have come and those that did would not have got beyond Greece and Italy.

She regrets that 'populism' prevents more much needed European integration and therefore 'a new model of democracy'.

She is interviewed again and very interestingly here, by New Eastern Europe. In this interview, she argues that Europe should become one state in which the people, not national governments, are sovereign. It sounds almost like Rousseau's doctrine, implemented by Robespierre, of the General Will.

I think we need to distinguish between the Europe we want and the EU we have.
This reminded me of the Communist distinction between true socialism, the nirvana that Marx promised and for which they were striving, and 'real existing socialism', the kind they had in Eastern Europe. 
I think the intellectual task is to think how we can organise a valid, full-fledged transnational, parliamentary and representative European democracy that cares for all European citizens, so that people do not need to go down the route of nationalism and populism to revolt against the EU.
When she blamed populists for spoiling the EU's plans I heard, 
And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids.
She goes on:
If we want to reconstitute Europe as a political project, the people, the citizens, need to be the direct sovereign of the political system in Europa. And that would mean to abolish the European Council and replace it by a two-chamber system. And if you then extend that different Europe to the Balkans, the problem is no longer whether Kosovo or Moldova or Bosnia as states join the European union. The thing then would be whether we integrate the citizens of those areas into the Res publica Europea.
In other words the solution is very much more Europe, Europe as a single country. 

But how does she intend to create a European people? Without one, popular sovereignty cannot exist. 

The answer is that she has no idea.

She sees the European Union as the solution to the German Question. Her internationalism is very German. Just as France's is French - they want a surrogate for the Napoleonic system and la gloire

This is fine and makes sense, but if she wants to create a sense of common identity she should want far fewer non-European immigrants. She should oppose letting in migrants if only to make her European project feasible. But she cannot because, so I suspect, arguments based on national identity are wrong, even wicked, in her eyes. 

This German spirituality is in some ways beautiful and has caused so very much terrible harm in the world.

German nationalism destroyed Europe twice. Now German internationalism is destroying it.

And it's not just Germans. I am told by friends who mix in these circles that Euro-enthusiasts talk (usually privately) of immigration and multiculturalism as helping their 'project' by weakening national identity. Far easier to dissolve Germany into a 'European Republic' if half of Germany isn't German.

Meanwhile United Nations representative, former EU commission member and former Goldman Sachs banker Peter Sutherland is always worth keeping an eye on. He said at a meeting in Berlin that opposition to open borders ran counter to
the values of the EU – the dignity of man and the equality of man.
These values are of course ideas of the French Revolution. The EU was created by devout Catholics but owes a lot to the French Revolution, nothing to the Common Law tradition. 

He went on,
...We’re not just talking, either, about refugees. We’re talking about economic migrants, many of whom could be the future, and some at the present… are survival fighters. They’re not to be dismissed as an irrelevance.

He absolved the EU from blame for preventing immigrants entering Europe. It was, he said, 

the absolute failure of member states, its governments.
Mr. Sutherland is certain that accepting unskilled migrants from poor countries would benefit European economies when the evidence suggests exactly the opposite. But it is clear, I hope, that we are dealing with an ideology, in this respect like Marxism, that uses the language and claims the authority of economics but is in reality a religious phenomenon. 

In fact, Mr. Sutherland is a devout Catholic and this free borders ideology is something he may have learnt from the Jesuits at Gonzaga College, where he went to school.

No-one calls Ulrike Guérot or Peter Sutherland extremists. Mr. Sutherland is a papal knight and she is loaded with EU honours.



18 comments:

  1. This is the globalist plan, going right back to the first ideas of the EU. Everyone should be a milky coffee colour and races should be so homogenised as to have no distinctive features or culture. Bringing in the immigrants, especially with their superior breeding power, is designed to break down cultures. They have done this at every level. With families by putting a cultural gap between children and parents, by the introduction of feminism, by easing divorce laws, by equality legislation and with biased family law. At the community level by drawing people into cities, by house prices and gentrification of areas so that 3 generations of a family can no longer afford to live in the same area, by removal of amenities, by breaking up the railway and bus systems (again forcing people into cities), by turning councils into arms of central government and having them impose 'cultural norms' on every area and by de-industrialisation. At a countrywide level the class system has been broken down, employers have to tackle equality legislation and racial legislation. And finally PC has shut up any remaining dissenters. In essence, everything that might have been a pocket of resistance has been broken down to individual components who have no collective power, culture or history with which to fight back while the next generation are being brought up by the education system as little automatons who believe in climate change and all the tripe coming out of the UN. And most people don't realise that this is now pretty much the end of the war and they have won.

    Christian

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. EverythingIsAPlot21 August 2016 at 22:00

      My, what a paranoid world you live in^^^

      Delete
    2. David in Banja Luka22 August 2016 at 14:46

      “Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.”

      Joseph Heller, Catch-22

      Delete
  2. It is sound..
    But again, transcendence over own nation implies a very educated & evolve individual.. I am afraid not the average European..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes I do remember my Marxist HS philosophy class in the late '70s: they taught us that communism requires that a new kind of man be created(man as species). As an impressionable kid, I really considered that the 'good virtuous' party chiefs were going to accomplish what Jesus called for, in the Sermon on the Mount. That is until I read Marx and in particular Lenin. Then, the farce became obvious. It is still obvious. Ah, this ever illusive shifting 'New Man' needed for the perfect society... If only, and in the meantime, give her your money so that she can work on it... So we pay for the creation of our own misery. Comical and tragic.
      My only hope is that sometime soon, we will run out of money and the parasites will die before the host.
      I say, the west won the Cold War, but seems to have lost or about to lose the Cultural War. Which one will be the greater loss?

      Delete
    2. I'd say that's a nice idea for monetary policy - without discretion. The other delusions, I missed by a hair.

      [approx., attempted humour]

      Delete
  3. The whole issue is whether or not the "European Ideal" of a "Nation State" is shared by the majority of Europeans or just by those who believe in their ideology and self interest. Europe's history is one of small states being subsumed and then the larger mass being broken up. Those in control of a larger mass can divide and rule and may never be brought to account. The likelihood is also that a left of centre European government will prevail and those in opposition will never be able to change the colour of the ruling government and then effectively democracy is removed from the population.

    Ideology's which prevail to the exclusion of all reasonable argument eventually fail but at what price and distress to a large proportion of the population in the meantime. Marx's ideas were idealistic and in many cases good but as we have seen, power corrupts. A combination of nations such as those in Europe cannot operate as a unified nation. There are too many cultural and social differences.

    The Euro is kept alive at considerable cost, laws are made without reference to the people and each country is being denied the opportunity to control their own future. You do not need a European defence force the you have NATO. You do not need a set of rules which says "one size fits all". The concept of open borders is admirable and yes i believe in freedom of movement but not without question. Freedom of movement to work yes but provided you have a job to go to, or at least until you find a job you are not entitled to any benefits and then if you fail to keep employed for a number of years benefits will be withdrawn. Benefits should also only be available for those physically resident. If I became unemployed in Romania I would receive very little and then for a limited period and social support such as that available in the UK is negligible.

    I like Eastern Europe and intend to stay but I ma under no allusion that there is any realistic welfare support or even medical compared to that I would enjoy in the UK

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Quite clear that the national parceling of public payouts makes that freedom of movement much less free. I would not even try to deal with the existing national schemes, just add a European choice of some kind & expect the preference for freedom of movement to decide how, where & ultimately if some such makes sense. I sure do believe that the respective preference is there: as the sum total of choices in good times - rather different business than a Law to be proclaimed...

      Just a thought

      Delete
  4. I do not think Europe's murderous spirit brings people together without a call - form this kind of author ...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Plenty of murderous spirit in Europe these days and there will be more in the future because of Angela Merkel.

      Delete
    2. Her doings seem to fit within German politics well. The sort of thinking above does not... Much that I can tell, on both accounts.

      Delete
  5. Adolf Hitler had Identical Aspirations, You should research the Kalergi Plan..

    Derek

    ReplyDelete
  6. Did Peter Simple invent her? Does she have even the most basic ability to wonder what happens next? At the most basic level;
    firstly the cities would become economic and crime riddled hell holes (Westerners' fault), leading to
    secondly about half the population emigrating from those cities.

    Dominic Johnson

    ReplyDelete
  7. I promptly misread one sentence as 'the Utopia Marx promised and for which they were starving'.

    ReplyDelete
  8. The post-War period seems to me to be marked by the bypassing of democratically-elected politicians and the supremacy of the civil service. Nation-states and federated states have traditions that are incompatible with the FRD-/Progressive- era idea of a civil service regime, they are a sand in the gears of liberal internationalism.

    The rise in power of the Federal government and its permanent employees in the US seems to be a comparable phenomenon to the rise of the European Commission and its bureaucrats. The US being one giant federation without internal conflict during WWI and WWII helped the quicker building of an internationalist superpower.

    ReplyDelete
  9. The post-War period seems to me to be marked by the bypassing of democratically-elected politicians and the supremacy of the civil service. Nation-states and federated states have traditions that are incompatible with the FRD-/Progressive- era idea of a civil service regime, they are a sand in the gears of liberal internationalism.

    The rise in power of the Federal government and its permanent employees in the US seems to be a comparable phenomenon to the rise of the European Commission and its bureaucrats. The US being one giant federation without internal conflict during WWI and WWII helped the quicker building of an internationalist superpower.

    ReplyDelete
  10. The idea of a Europe without borders or nations is a ludicrous vanity project that presents enormous dangers.

    What's funny, on the other hand, is how stupid it reveals the graduates of the newer, expanded-access higher education of the post-war years to be.

    Mark Griffith

    ReplyDelete