In a referendum on June 2, Danish voters rejected the treaty on European union, known as the Maastricht accord, that was signed by the governments of the member countries of the European Community last December.
This should wake up European politicians and make them realize that they have devised unrealistic politics for Europe, but it probably won't. For some time polls of European populations have shown a large suspicion of the political integration of Europe, but politicians (with the exception of Margaret Thatcher) and the media have been 100 percent in favor of the idea.The political integration of Europe is one of those egghead causes. It makes perfect sense to intellectuals, who never let practicalities or the opinions of ordinary people get in the way of a good idea.
The Treaty of Rome, which established the EC, is an economic document. The union of European countries was supposed to be an economic union, a common market in which tariffs and trade barriers between countries would be removed. However, problems quickly arose. Some countries had expensive labor, welfare and social legislation that made them uncompetitive, and other countries were burdened with large and inefficient nationalized companies.
Moreover, the politicians who gravitated toward European Community politics tended to be second-raters who had lost out on their respective national political scenes. Many were discarded socialists grateful for their second political life. The realpolitik continued at the national level, but intellectuals enamored of grand visions converted national media to the cause of Europe. Criticism became a no-no and made British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher a pariah when she asked about the emperor's clothes.
The problems of economic integration came together with the socialist-minded politicians and the absence of critical comment to shift the focus to political integration. The argument against tariffs and trade barriers was replaced with the argument that free trade first required every country to have the same laws, regulations and social legislation. Otherwise, there would not be a level playing field, and the countries who skimped on welfare and minimum wages would have an unfair advantage over those who did their duty to the poor.
The new requirements for economic integration emphasized political union in order to equalize the legal and welfare systems of the member countries, the idea being to ratchet everything up to the highest level of welfare socialism possible. Economists added the requirement of a common currency and a common central bank.
The great parliaments of Europe, in turn, would become the equivalents of our state legislatures, while the governance of Europe would shift to the unelected EC bureaucrats in Brussels.
According to the eggheads, the political stability of Europe will result from Germans, French, British, Italians and Spanish all meddling in each other's affairs. One has to wonder how even intellectuals can believe, in the face of the breakup of multiethnic countries such as Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and perhaps even Russia itself, that such an artificially constructed mega-state could be a success.
The Danish have been recognized as a sophisticated and internationally minded people. Now that they have turned in a politically incorrect vote, they likely will be denounced, overnight, as small-minded idiots who cannot possibly be allowed to stand in the way of Europe. Politicians and media will attempt to berate and bully their populations into denying their innate common sense and accepting an egghead vision of Europe that can only bring new instabilities and conflicts.
(Paul Craig Roberts is the William E. Simon professor of political economy at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington and is a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury.)