VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 13:57:20 11/19/02 Tue
Author: Wayne Hall
Subject: Re: European Convention and European Constitution
In reply to: SwimmingUpstream 's message, "Re: European Convention and European Constitution" on 17:12:24 11/17/02 Sun

Hi Brian,

In the concrete context in which I live in at the moment "active citizens" means the Social Forum of this European Union member-country: Greece. As you know, the international movement against corporate globalisation is encouraging these social forums to establish themselves globally. As presently constituted, the Hellenic Social Forum is not a very impressive body either numerically or politically.

However, if the HSF can be prevailed upon to adopt the proposals in the paper I attached here, the first thing it would do would be to find a representative. It would then propose that that representative, along with the President of Greece, Mr. Stephanopoulos, should participate in a Sovereign Council of European Union heads of state and representatives of national social forums, and that this body should choose (by ballot or election among themselves) the President of the European Union. I would suggest Jose Bove as a suitable and potentially very popular candidate.

Now this would be a coup-d'etat-like action. The social forums have no mandate (neither do the heads of state of many European Union member countries). In this respect it would be similar to many or most of the initiatives of the European Commission, a body similarly without any kind of mandate.

If it sought democratic legitimation, this would have to come retrospectively, as to some very small extent already happens in the EU (e.g. the two Irish referenda on the Treaty of Nice).

One justification for the coup-d'etat-like mode of operation is that otherwise nothing could ever get decided in the EU. The European Union national parliaments could never organize themselves enough, or overcome national antagonisms enough, to take the initiative I am assigning to the Social Forums. This in itself justifies the proposal: it is a way of breaking a deadlock.

If the European Union national parliaments (and/or the European Parliament) started complaining about the lack of mandate of the Social Forums, it would be open to them to propose a referendum, which would decide if the Sovereign Council should be constitued of heads of state and representatives of social forums or heads of state and representatives of national parliaments. They would thus demand back their mandate, and by this action would force the social forums to expand to embrace the entire population of those who prefer the idea of the social forums having a mandate to the idea of national parliaments having a mandate.

Who then would be the active citizens? They would be the supporters of the social forums as opposed to the parliaments. If contending social forums came into existence there would have to be decisions as to which of the social forums is THE social forum and which are parties. The parties would be obliged to seek a mandate as parties, not as social forums. The relevant decision would have to be made by the head of state, by constitutional courts or by referenda or by a combination of these.

Does that answer the question?

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

Post a message:
This forum requires an account to post.
[ Create Account ]
[ Login ]
[ Contact Forum Admin ]

Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.