The world is heading into troubled waters. Every feeling person senses it. Yet the Commission’s paper curiously called EUROPE 2020 A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth seems to be living in a world of its own. Its authors live in a see-no-evil, hear-no-evil world. They sense no dangers.

It just wants to get over the financial crisis, and get back to normal. The Commission President Mr Barroso says in the introduction:
“2010 must mark a new beginning. I want Europe to emerge stronger from the economic and financial crisis.”

All that assumes that Europe has dealt effectively with the CAUSES of the last crisis — and there are no more financial crises coming. That is totally unrealistic. Everyone knows the banks and hidden speculators are up to their own tricks again. The report sees no problem.

Beware! The most logical attitude would be to tighten the belts for the next financial implosion. The combination of unrestrained financial gambling with investors’ money (leveraged to the hilt) PLUS illegal energy cartels is a disaster waiting to happen — AGAIN and AGAIN!

When are Europe’s leaders going to do something about this continuing DANGER? When are they going to create a democratic, supranational Energy Community? I mean a real Community with active, open, democratic institutions with EUROPEWIDE ELECTIONS for Parliament, the EcoSoc, Committee of Regions and the Commission. It does not mean some pale apology like the Lisbon Treaty that has wearied the population first with its fraudulent consent process, then with its divisive, competing presidents. Europe should have one goal: clean production of energy to give Europe energy independence.

Back in the year 1999, Europe’s leadership again closed its eyes to this Energy Danger. They blotted it out of their long-term forecast. Just look back to what happened. Some of the most powerful men in the world made industrial-weight predictions about the coming first decade of 2000. What did the captains of the biggest oil companies in the world say?

Both Europe’s oil majors, British Petroleum and Royal Dutch Shell, confidently forecast a period of painless expansion and growth. The chairmen of both multinationals said that the 5 year oil price would be stable. Both majors said that for the next years as far as they could see, oil would be around 10 to 15 dollars a barrel, probably around 11 dollars. These CEOs have the most experience in the most vital resource for the world economy. They employ the world’s best economists. They have every interest in getting their sums right. They have thousands of shareholders demanding that they show a reasonable profit from their predictions. They know all about supply and demand curves.

Were these long-term plans based on the best data, available to them, in the world: geology, refinery chemistry, marketing, risk analysis, meteorological trends, alternatives, innovations, ecology? Yes, but not on cartel activity. Why were Europe’s two major oil multinationals so easily fooled?

What did independent economists predict? The Economist magazine with its international network of economic expertise said: ‘we may be heading for $5. … a normal price might now be in the range in the $5 - $10 range’. That made sense in terms of supply and demand. Again it was nonsense when it came to cartel activity. So three supposedly independent groups of economists came to the same conclusion — and got it completely wrong.

Don’t you smell something rotten with the so-called free market? The Commission, supposedly Europe’s watchdog, detects no evil smell.

The era of cheap oil and the boom caused by the creation of the Community system are past. Gone for ever, unless Europe does something serious about it.

The ink was scarcely dry on these forecasts, when in 2000 the price of oil TRIPLED. Today we are no longer in the era of cheap oil of the 1950s. Nor that of 1999. Such violent changes in prices are sure signs of a cartel. And this is a whopper.

Europe’s most vital ingredient for economic growth — ENERGY — is under the control of a CARTEL. And it is no ordinary cartel. It is leveraged by financial gamblers — they are called banksters by some — who managed to boost the price from around 9 dollars a barrel to a breath-strangling 147.27 dollars.

That is a massive increase of 1500%! It is the highest price for oil in nominal or in real terms since the 1860s when oil began to be produced commercially. That sounds exactly like cartel activity. It smells like a cartel. It looks like a cartel. The economists are right. Free market oil would be worth 5 to ten dollars a barrel. Europeans are victims of a TRILLION dollar rip-off.

Now don’t tell me that this increase is just supply and demand. Don’t tell me that the oil majors and all the smartest economists in the world who did not foresee the rocket-like changes in their curves were not the victims of a gigantic confidence trick by a cartel or cartels. The real victims were the European public. The oil majors made major profits.

In 1999, according to the International Energy Agency, expenditure on oil as a percentage of world GDP was about half a percent. When oil hit its peak price it was taking the equivalent of more than 10 percent of GDP. That amounts nothing short of sudden theft of trillions for the same black fluid that spurts freely in some countries for a few dollars a barrel. The IEA called it the THIRD oil shock.

That sort of cartel activity makes utter nonsense of major political efforts by the European Community to save money. It extracts extra trillions out of the European economy for exactly the same amount of oil needed for the same goods and services. The great gains made by the Single Market of 1992 were wiped out many times over.

Why doesn’t the EUROPE 2020 report WAKE UP the public to the series of disasters in the past? Why does it ignore repetitive coming dangers? Europe 2020 seems more directed at lulling people to sleep. Do the authors of the EUROPE 2020 report remember the first TWO oil shocks? They came after years, in fact, after decades of warning. Real Europeans cried out that EUROPE NEEDS TO BE COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT IN ENERGY in order to have an independent foreign policy. The founding fathers said so. Parliamentarians in Europe’s first assembly said so.

Energy was the driving purpose of Europe’s first Community. Europe’s first supranational Community was an Energy community to make sure that all had equal access to the fuel that supplied three-quarters of Europe’s needs: coal. In the 1950s the picture changed dramatically. Coal declined; imports of oil grew exponentially. In 1957, the Louis Armand report sounded a warning to the European leaders. His report called An Objective for Euratom dealt with the energy danger. Euratom’s main objective is non proliferation of nuclear arms. That too is asleep, ‘chloroformed‘ by de Gaulle.

In 1959 when Robert Schuman was President of the European Parliament, a special group was formed composed of members of Europe’s three supranational Communities to make proposals for a common energy policy. De Gaulle seized power in France and binned everything. The five other Member States did nothing.

In the Near East, they have a war every decade. Those wars against Israel were another series of warnings. The Suez Crisis of 1956 led in Europe to rationing, higher taxes, and banning of some private car driving. During the 1967 Six Day War, Arab oil, the source of three-quarters of Western Europe’s oil, was cut by 60%. Coincidently civil war broke out in Nigeria, a major alternative supplier, making matters worse.

That wasn’t the oil shock. That first oil shock came in 1973. In 1973 Europe suffered the impact of a violent quadrupling of energy prices. Posted oil prices of $1.80 a barrel in 1970, rose by half to $2.90 in early 1973. The price hit $11.65 by the end of the year. World petroleum earnings went up from $23 billion in 1972 to $140 billion in 1977. The UK Stock Market crashed by as much as the 1929 crash but twice as fast. By 1974 the effect on Europe was as devastating as a military assault. With the first shock, oil costs were increasing at a rate of more than an extra trillion dollars a decade.

Europe continued to act like a dumb sheep, getting shorn and fleeced at regular intervals. Was anyone in Brussels listening to the miseries of the Europeans thrown out of work, to old-established firms that went bankrupt, to pensioners who suddenly had no income? Europe had no mandate for an energy policy. There was no legal framework in the treaties. Nor is there today. (The lamentable Lisbon Treaty has a couple of confusing paragraphs, written to cause dissent not policy.)

In 1979 the second severe oil shock struck, quadrupling prices again: spot prices hit the $40 to $50 range. It peaked in 1983 at $53. Europe’s huge trade surplus was wiped out. The Werner plan for the single European currency, the euro, was postponed two decades.

In the 1973 war against Israel, Arab oil-exporters first exploded their Oil Weapon on a sleepy European public. They wanted Europeans to pay for their war AND they wanted to force Europeans to change their foreign policy. They instigated a TOTAL oil embargo against The Netherlands, Denmark and Portugal. What was their crime? They were too democratic and too strong in their support of the only democracy in the Near East. All European democracies were blackmailed with the oil weapon. The Arab oil-exporters threatened to cut oil step by step to the other Member States by a steep percentage each month. It was only through innovative means based on Community solidarity that Europe did not enter the new dark age where all the lights went out.

In 1957 the Armand report warned: in the post-war years, ‘Europe has suddenly discovered that its favourable situation is completed changed and that a new factor dictates all perspectives for the future. From now on, we run the risk that lack of energy will apply the heaviest brake on all economic growth.“

That was more than half a century ago. Europeans ignored, even despised, that warning. The result? Europeans have suffered energy crises every decade. The economy was crippled and broken by two Oil Shocks, leaching trillions from its resources. We are now well into the THIRD oil shock.

Today we cannot hope to use oil to get out of our woes, or any climate-polluting energy source. Europeans need to mobilize their native intelligence and genius for invention to exploit new creative, ecological ways to survive. If Europe had acted decisively in the past each European would be thousands of euros richer off. The world would today be a better place.

Europeans need to set an immediate goal.

ENERGY INDEPENDENCE BY 2020! Europe must wake up and see the light or it will be left in the dark!

What makes a democracy more efficient than a dictatorship? Why did Franco’s Spain and Salazar’s Portugal lapse into the economic doldrums? Why were Latin American dictatorships corrupt and lacking in vigour and growth? Why were Latin American currencies being constantly devalued? Why did Zimbabwe printers finally run out of noughts to add to the trillions on its useless paper currency? Why is violence the only means for dictatorships to survive?

It is because dictatorships cannot deal with the complexity of society. Businesses will not invest and workers will not work in an atmosphere of uncertainty. An autocrat can bring in changes overnight. He or she thinks he is being “smart” but it is in the end counterproductive.

Some dictatorships have remarkable growth — but only for an period. They fiddle the currency exchange rates and make their currency so cheap it causes a boom. Then it bursts. Reality sets in. The problem is far greater because a large population has greater expectation and huge disillusions. That is when civil unrest breaks out. A revolution might occur.

Dictatorships like to keep in cahoots with big business. They like to respond to their needs. They have an awe of business. Naively they think that if they please big business the country will all be rich. They are wrong. You can create a slave economy but you cannot make slaves rich. They will demand equality. Bye, bye dictatorship. Nor can you maintain constant growth and a contented population, if you do not allow citizens to have free expression.

Now let us ask the opposite question: Why are Western countries, in Europe, North America and Australasia, the most educated, richest and most productive societies in the world? Why do their currencies dominate world trade?

Doesn’t democracy have something to do with it? Clearly. And it is because they are able to deal with complex issues. The best democracies develop unprecedented freedoms for their citizens. They can criticise anything. They are not violent. And above all, in the very best of them, the citizens know how to exercise individual, associative and governmental SELF-DISCIPLINE.

Conclusion: the less democracy we have, the less we can expect long-term prosperity, contentment, stability and freedoms. Given this elementary lesson of history, what should we expect from a Commission paper that calls itself EUROPE 2020 A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth?

I would hope that it would deal with how democratic European citizens could develop the best examples of our national democracies and social solidarity for Europe. Do the Commission SMARTSTERS deal with this core issue? NO

THE WORD “DEMOCRACY” DOES NOT APPEAR AT ALL IN THE PAPER!

Not very smart! There is one reference to democratic but it is nothing to do with European institutions. Instead they behave just like the disreputable gangs mentioned in the first part of this commentary. They say they will deal with stakeholders. That is another word for lobbyists. So this so-called SMART strategy for sustainable and inclusive growth will end in the dustbin of history in the company of tin pot dictators. The system they describe is an autocracy — that is a system in this case run by a three-party cartel that excludes civil society — surrounded by lobbyists.

Europeans should ask: IS THAT WHAT THEY WANT, EITHER NOW OR IN 2020? It is exactly what the people of the Iberian peninsula, the countries under the Soviet boot in Central and Eastern Europe, and the Greeks under the Colonels wanted to get away from! They thought they were joining a Community of shared valued and enhanced democracy! Instead the Commission paper promises them North Korean style government!

The paper fawningly recommends more powers to the secretive European Council and the Council of Ministers. What sort of INDEPENDENT, smart thinking is that?

“The European Council will have full ownership and be the focal point of the new strategy,” it says. OWNERSHIP!!?? A European institution that calls itself democratic MUST open its doors so the citizens can see and hear those present and judge the quality of their interventions. The citizens should be able to judge their representatives.

If they can’t, then the the citizens are living in some modification, transmogrification or transformation of a dictatorship or autocratic system. Schuman called such shadow democracies “COUNTERFEIT” democracies. He said that a real democracy must be judged by two criteria. It must SERVE the people, not serve the leaders. And secondly it provide the means to allow the citizens and associations to disagree or to agree with any measure that is taken in its name. They should be able to make their own INDEPENDENT analysis.

Civil society, the key element, has been short-changed and short-circuited out of the paper. Is Parliament supposed to take on this job? That is absurd. It has not even set its own house in order. The Parliament has NEVER had an election according to the legal requirements of the original treaties. That says there should be ONE election for all Europeans not 27 national elections for the European Parliament.

For civil society, there are perfectly suitable institutions like the Economic and Social Committee that need to be developed democratically. They have never even had an election at all! It is increasingly URGENT that they should fulfill their mandate to hold elections among ALL organised civil society associations who are implicated in European legislation. A move to give the Parliament powers in this area is anti-democratic because it denies the citizen the right to be represented in a non-party political way as the Founding Fathers wisely decided.

The Commission needs to be reformed so that it is really INDEPENDENT. It should have as Commissioners personalities whose independence is beyond doubt. It should not be stuffed with people who represent only 2 percent of the population. That is massive discrimination and a violation of citizens’ human rights.

Poor and failing democracy at the European level will strangle the European economy. The Commission needs to get back to the drawing board. It needs to learn a bit about history. It needs to review its own history. And it needs to set a strategy not only to save European Democracy but also to save the planet.

“Civil Society? — throw it out of the decision-making process!” That is the new law of the Commission in cahoots with the Council. A communication of the Commission to the Council and the Parliament deals with this new power-grab under the Lisbon Treaty. It comes under articles 290 and 291 of Lisbon Treaty’s TFEU. Powers to amend and supplement legislation are being introduced without the democratic control of non-party consultative bodies. When documents like these speak of “efficiency“, the citizen should always ask: What democratic supervision are you trying to short-circuit?

Obviously all this is morally reprehensible. It is totally undemocratic. Why? because it leaves all decisions to be concocted between three complicit institutions. They were ORIGINALLY designed to perform separate functions. None of them is now independent of the others. And they do not represent real citizens. They are all dominated by a cartel of politicos. It is a political cartel without any opposition. They are not responsible to anyone but themselves. So they think.

* The Commission is dominated now by political parties. It is a fief of a cartel. All Commissioners are exclusively members of political parties.

* The Parliament is dominated by two or three main parties. The small parties cannot influence matters much. Debate is stifled.

* The secretive Council of Ministers is dominated not so much by governments but by political parties in government. When did they last act like Statesmen?

The founding fathers thought such a concentration of power in the hands of two or three political parties was dangerous. They were right. There is nothing to stop these delegated powers of articles 290 and 291 being used for overt or covert party political purposes. Behind the arcane working of political machines, some hidden industrial or financial cartel may also be milking the public. (I hope I am not giving the rather suspect members of the political class any criminal ideas!)

And it will be the taxpaying citizen who pays again. The founding fathers said that the PEOPLE should decide matters that concern them. NOT parties. They defined the New Europe as one in which the People were FREE TO CHOOSE. And guess what? The political cartel refuse to publish the founding Europe Declaration of the EU.

That menace against real democracy is why the founding fathers specified two restraints. Firstly, the Commission should be independent of parties and also of national governments. Curiously that specification is still in the super-duper Lisbon Treaty! Article 17 of the Treaty on European Union says ‘Members of the Commission shall be chosen on the ground of their general competence and European commitment from persons whose independence is beyond doubt.‘

Don’t make me laugh! How come ‘independence beyond doubt‘ means that they ALL have to be members of a political party. That means they are dependent on that membership. As for ‘beyond doubt‘, NO MEMBER OF THE GENERAL PUBLIC EVER HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO EXPRESS A DOUBT!! No non-party citizen was ALLOWED to give an opinion that had the least effect! That is the choice of an autocrat or dictator.

To influence the cartel’s choice, you would first have to buy a party card. Then you need years of patting shoulders and flattering. Next you have to find your way into the SECRET, inner chambers of the party headquarters. In some room or other, some SECRET committee decides which salary-hungry, pensioned off/ failed or opportunistic politician is to be designated THEIR Commissioner. That party committee may even be in a tax-paid government building. It is appropriated for party purposes. Commissioners are the products of pure party nepotism!

The politicians who framed this antidemocratic clause in the Treaty of Lisbon deliberately chose an illegal, cartel approach. Note the vague, passive verb ’shall be chosen’ with no identifiable system defining WHO makes the choice. Nepotism was pre-planned.

Those are tough words. But true. An honest politician would not agree to something that goes contrary to the Law of the Treaties. Tell me if I am wrong! Even this Lisbon Treaty invites dishonesty. Who is going to be the first to say: I resign because the procedure is contrary to law. I have not been properly appointed for this publicly paid-for post. It has not been advertised. There was no Call for Candidates, no Jury at the European level. Not a single independent non-party person was ever considered. Public opinion was gagged. It could not express doubts.  My posting is contrary to the Treaty specifications. It was ‘fixed’ in secret. A Court would judge the Commissioners to be illegally ‘fixed’ by a grubby cartel. No government objected to other governments’ candidates. Their silence is eloquent. It is evidence of a cartel. And this post provides a suspiciously big, big salary from the public purse as if I should remember with gratitude who gave me the job. I don’t want to be an object for party nepotism. A big public protest will explode and I don’t want to be seen as another grubby politician.

The three institutions are now being exclusively run by party politicians who refuse the slightest recourse to Public Opinion. What a haughty disdain they have for law — all of them. Who will speak out? Where is the whistle-blower that we have in other cartel cases?

Secondly the founding fathers said that organized Civil Society should have a major role in decision-making. And when I say major I mean a MAJOR, MAJOR role in decision-making. Even though the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of Regions are supposed to deal with geo-economic and social matters that have no specific political content they are largely dominated by party political figures. Even these poor souls, who were nominated and agreed in secret in the Council of Ministers have been cut out of the loop. They are supposed to represent EUROPEAN consumers, manufacturers and workers. Instead they are always national nominees. The treaties say they should organise European elections for organised civil society. They didn’t. They never managed to organise a European election at the EcoSoc in 50 years.

This exposes the further power grab by parties. There is no reason why all categories of Civil Society be restricted to those people holding party cards. It is supposedly a democratic institution, designed to debate technical details of all legislation. They are to expose to European debate all obvious aspects and unforeseen consequences of proposed measures. They are to check that that regulations are not being drafted secretly by lobbyists. A debate on legislative proposals should involve three organised sections of civil society. consumers, producers and workers. Most citizens work, consume and invest. They are the best judge, not parties.

What have the political parties to do with technical matters, like standards in commerce? Are we to have a conservative and left-wing position on what is the length of a metre, the weight of a kilogramme, how to measure pollution or even internet standards? That is highly dangerous. Party politicians can’t be trusted to have standards in book keeping as the present monetary crisis demonstrates. They fiddle the books. By billions.

Now with the delegated powers of articles 290 and 291 this illegal take-over doesn’t matter. The EcoSoc is irrelevant. They are suppressed.

This new anti-democratic “innovation” contrasts starkly with the founding supranational philosophy of Europe.

The big danger with the articles 290 and 291 is that it will provide even more possibilities to fiddle the books. All measures will be initiated and then agreed among party stalwarts, whether of the right, left or centre.

I expect the Commission to throw up its hands in feigned protest. Oh no, they will say, we are only fulfilling the mandate given us by the Lisbon Treaty. What mandate? The only way the wretched articles got into a European treaty was by agreement with whom? Well the same politicos who will benefit from them. It gives them carte blanche. The party cartel lacks public support and whatever support they now have is declining precipitously with every parliamentary election.

And the most ironic of all this. The Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of Regions all gave their full support to the Lisbon Treaty. I had to write to the Ombudsman before they even deigned to write a reply to these letters — ONE YEAR LATE!

The members of the Consultative Committees — that treaties give powers sometimes greater than Parliament — voted in effect to cut their own throats when they supported articles 290 and 291. Where was Civil Society when they agreed to this? Where was the Europe-wide debate that the two Consultative Committees were supposed to have organised to analyse, examine and debate European democracy?? They said the Lisbon Treaty was to be applauded because it made Europe more efficient. Yes, by cutting them out of the picture. What a disaster for democracy!

They supported the message of the  Council: ‘Democracy and Public opinion go hang!’

For those brave souls still worrying about their democratic rights, you can check out the new powers at http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/10/st05/st05107.en10.pdf Have a stiff coffee before you start to read it!

Governments have raised the costs of passports enormously. The new biometric passports with hidden electronic data were supposed to be really, really secure. The Dubai incident shows that all these super-sophisticated passports have been BUST. Private data has been stolen. British, French, Irish and German passports have been falsified. Where is your personal data being sold to? If not to national or foreign governments for their spies, are the Mafia, organised crime and terrorist groups involved in this lucrative market? A cartel operation of governments has pocketed additional millions without blocking fraud. They have perhaps created a new danger, more difficult to resolve. A war of blood, killings, scams and passports possibly using YOUR personal data.

A Hamas terrorist was found dead. He was staying at a plush hotel. He had a passport that did not have his family name. Where did his very generous expense account come from? Who gave him a false passport? Two Palestinians were arrested. As for the falsified European passports, the Dubai police chief would not say who had falsified them, nor who he thought was responsible. Some of the passports contain the real personal data of Europeans but false photographs.

This is nothing new. In 1985 the French President authorized an operation involving forged Swiss passports. French Intelligence operatives attached two explosive bombs to the Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior, in New Zealand, killing one person. The operatives were later promoted.

The citizen who is faced with this governmental monopoly practice, must ask: Is this another rip-off? A system uniquely in the hands of governments has no absolute security because quite often the governments do not respect their own rules. No one is there to check them. The monopoly fabrication and sale of passports are an anomaly in what should be a Single Market. It has created a secret black market with much higher pickings in the murky world of terrorism, hi-tech crime and spies.

The uncomfortable truth is that citizens are living under a technocracy — where passport “experts” dictate how citizens should be made secure. Are they infallible? Obviously not. Further millions are wasted on airport security systems — which do not work in practice to catch suicide terrorists. That is scare politics — spending money on machines out of public fears and insecurities. But the citizen is paying for technology that does not do the job! That is a scam. Normally, court action would be expected. Instead the innocent public — nearly 100 percent of travellers — is humiliated by both searches and “expert” systems.

The founding fathers warned that a democracy — the public — must always be in charge of the policy not “passport experts”. See http://www.schuman.info/passport.htm . The experts like to consider everyone guilty until their machine says no. Is that a healthy attitude?

The European founders wanted to regain real freedoms for the citizens after the restrictions of WW2. They wanted to break down unnecessary barriers. Before the First World War, citizens travelled without the need of passports — even though there were major problems of terrorism. These Statesmen established the Council of Europe in 1949, the basis for our Human Rights today. Schuman and the other founders set another goal to roll back unhealthy State power: get rid of passports wherever possible. Remember these Statesmen made this proposal at the worst time of the Cold War scare, when some even feared that an Red Army invasion was imminent. They did not see a contradiction with eliminating passports and making Europeans more secure.

‘Why create a European passport,’ asked Britain’s Foreign Minister, Ernest Bevin. ‘Wouldn’t it be simpler and more efficient to eliminate all existing passports?’ The first efforts to make common passports were held up by committees of national ‘experts on passports’. Italy’s Foreign Minister, Count Sforza, said prophetically: ‘What on earth are ‘passport experts’? If you put administrative people who make them inside a committee, you will never solve the problem. They will show that it is impossible to get rid of passports!’

Sure enough, it reached a bureaucratic logjam. The committee of experts had started complicating matters which both ministers and parliamentarians had just succeeded in simplifying. Then some enlightened politicians including Belgium’s Paul-Henri Spaak insisted that the technocratic horse should not be leading the political masters. ‘Once democratic politicians have decided that something must be done, experts have the duty to find the means to do it. If they raise technical objections, they must then find the remedies.’

But the technocrats persisted. A new generation forgot that citizens actually have a choice. They should be the masters. ‘Passport experts’ became guardians of this technocratic heritage.

Governments brought in new universal biometric passports — without having a discussion on the alternatives. Yes, there are alternatives. And if citizens were given the choice about how to spend the enormous amount of money that firms and taxpayers spend on the system, they might come up with cheaper and more effective means of security.

We now know what has been apparent for a long time. Mechanical security will always fail because of the human factor.

Interpol has in its database over 11 million stolen or lost passports. These passports are being used, fraudulently altered and are being given to terrorists, war criminals, drug traffickers, human traffickers, says Interpol chief Ronald K Noble. The solution, he said, is better intelligence, and better intelligence sharing, among countries.

Under a Community system as envisaged by the founding fathers, there would at least be a public debate on the misuse of passport data by governments. A properly functioning Parliament and Economic and Social Committee would have their word in any abuse of power. Technocratic dictators would have to answer some pretty probing questions by other technical experts representing consumers who were equally technically competent — and did not have commercial, profesional or personal prestige interests to promote.

The European Council, called on 11 February to deal with the Greek financial crisis that is undermining the euro, issued a statement. “All euro members must conduct sound national policies in line with the agreed rules,” it said. Fine. The original idea of a European Community in 1950 was to avoid ‘beggar my neighbour’ policies whether military, political, economic, cartel or monetary. That’s what the Schuman Declaration said on 9 May 1950. You can read it on www.schuman.info/9May1950.htm because the Council and the Commission has refused to publish it in its integral version for the last few decades.

But who makes the financial rules that the European Council commends? In the case of Greece, it was the Greek government. They made up their own rules. Bad rules. Many commentators point out that successive Greek governments fiddled the books, and kept fiddling to the tune of about 53 billion euros. So to a varied extent did the other members of PIGS, Portugal, Ireland/Italy and Spain. G is for Greece but the word is probably much longer. Maybe other Member States are mixed up in it too. We don’t know … YET. Governments want to keep such things SECRET.

Why can’t governments keep the books straight? Did they make an honest mistake? Did they spend less money or more than they declared. Need I ask? Of course they overspent. That shows it was deliberate. It wasn’t an honest mistake. Why did they do it? To bribe the electorate. To put it more frankly, they bought votes so they would stay in power. Both politicians and the electorate were silent partners in this corruption. In the past the government always devalued. This offloaded inflation and debts onto external trading partners. Governments and their electorates who benefit from this game export inflation and their costs.

Before the Community was created, governments got into long cycles of competitive devaluations. They tried one cycle of devaluation after another and round again to off-load all the disagreeable consequences of their bad practice on their neighbours. They did not want to balance the budget or cut inflation.

When Schuman was France’s Minister of Finance, he was the first to balance the books for generations. He cut inflation. He accomplished this under the most difficult circumstances with Communists and others in the government coalition. His sound monetary policy started the boom of France’s thirty glorious years after the WW2. Honest money makes sense.

Not all governments have the discipline to do this. They liked to print more money and control the printing presses. What power! Governments have traditionally used the coffers of the State for corrupt purposes. Further, for some while, a good deal of both Greek and European money seems to have stuck to fingers even before it got to the bank.

The Community system was based on Schuman’s principles, including his monetary success. It was designed to put an end to all this dubious practice by making all partners in the Community co-responsible. All sections of society, that is governments, associations and individuals, must have a voice in how money is collected and spent. In that way everybody looks at each other to see if they are cheating.

The real Community system is the way we can get back to sound money, sound ethics and sound politics. It is no use using the policy of ‘Beggar my neighbour’ because we are all each other’s neighbour.

So on 11 February 2010 what is the European Council’s remedy to cheating? The statement says: ‘The Commission will closely monitor the implementation of the recommendations ‘(put forward by Greece). That is fine … if the Commission were an impartial body. But is it any more? In the original Community system the Commission represented the whole of Europe’s citizenry involved in that particular single market. The major feature of this first supranational body was that it had to be independent of interests such as governments, interest groups, party politicians and cartels.

Today things are quite different. Somehow we have now a Commission that is composed EXCLUSIVELY of Government nominees (no elections, no public call for candidates!!), the biggest lobby groups in Europe, and party politicians in a cartel!!! All Commissioners are political buddies of three main groups! Instead of the Commission being composed of a cross-section of impartial Europeans, it is being run by a cartel of the guilty.

The Commission does not reflect the 98 per cent of the population who are NOT card-carrying members of a political party. The Commission is completely composed of members of a 2% minority of Europeans. It comprises the two offending groups: that is national governments and the main political parties. These are the main people who are motivated to fiddle the books. They have a major interest in doing so — if they can get away with it. If the rules are bent, (but appear straight at first glance) they can hoodwink the public to their own advantage.

Just recall. Who is it that got us into the euro crisis, by not observing the growth and stability rules? National governments and politicians. Who pays for their mistakes? The general public. And it is usually the poorer sections of the public. When the dirt comes out, it is certainly not the bankers and international financiers who foot the bill. They are already far away with their tax breaks. The poor then pay their bills for years to come.

We are here not talking about a piggy bank. We are talking about billions of euros that have been used for corrupt purposes. Scads of euros from all Europeans, provided to ‘modernize’ Greece when the country joined the European Communities, have simply gone astray. ‘Gone astray’ that is to the people who provided the funds, not the people who washed it through their bank accounts. Bad accounting? Why? Isn’t a few billion of public money worth a good accounting system?

So who should be the supervisors of the system to make sure that (a) politicians do not cheat by fiddling the budget and that (b) national governments’ budgets and book-keeping are correct?

Certainly NOT the nominees of governments, NOR the card-carrying members of the political parties who have an interest in fiddling the books.

Would it be better for the public, the tax-payers, who are the victims to have the supervisory function?

That is exactly how the original Community system worked. In the first Community, those who put money into the Community budget — that is the coal and steel enterprises who paid a European tax — also had a say in how it was spent. So also did the workers in the industries — who might have got short-changed and the consumers of these products, who also held a close eye on efficiency, low costs and competitive prices. These groups in the Consultative Council, one of the five supranational institutions of the Community, had a power equal and in some ways superior to the Council, because it was their money.

There was no need for multiple committees of bureaucrats. There was no need for a Court of Auditors, either. They all knew were their money came from, and where it was spent. They checked the accounts themselves. Money was only spent on what everyone agreed was a good idea. And it was spent correctly. De Gaulle did not like that. Which is why we have a very secretive Council today and umpteen thousand committees meeting in secret.

With the arrival of de Gaulle, and also the later breed of egotistical and nationalistic politicians, this fine, workable and honest system was put in cold storage. It is still there in the treaties, but politicians do not want to apply it. It would save millions of euros in cost, end graft, manipulation and dubious political practice.

Instead, for the moment, the political cartel are manning the Commission. They are the new servants of the parties. Those who have been found with their fingers in the cookie jar meet across the road at the Council. But greedy people will make pigs of themselves. Eventually, either by disgusted people in revolt or by the Court or some other way, the system will return to the moral centre of a supranational Community.

The markets, the people and the Courts will judge.

The confusing pickle into which the European Union, United Nations and Cyprus have fallen was revealed by the president of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Mehmet Ali Talat. While in Brussels, at a meeting of the European Policy Centre, he described the latest round of talks between Greek and Turkish Cypriots.

No Community solution was possible at present, he said. Why, one could ask. The European Community is the most successful security and peace-enhancing system the world has found so far. It created peace in Western Europe after two thousands years of practically constant warfare every generation. Furthermore Cyprus is technically a Member State of the EU and the European Community system. That applies even though it lies geographically in Asia.

Mr Talat said that even before he was elected president he wanted to create a Community-type solution. However, later, when he tried to raise this option, he couldn’t. Why? He was told by everyone that the negotiations were confined to the concept of a federal, bi-zonal and bi-communal approach under the auspices of the United Nations.

Why should Cypriots be restricted to this UN straitjacket? Because the United Nations resolutions say so.

So whose peace is it anyway? Is the UN going to dictate a so-called solution that experience has proved does not work? It has had its way since 1950s. Isn’t half a century long enough to show its deficiency and failure?

Who put these ridiculous restrictions in place? The member states of the UN, fired by the passions of the moment. One thing is certain is that they are crude political compromises made by people who may be more interested in national opinion outside Cyprus! Each has his own prejudice. And even if they were then filled with the wisdom of all ages in the 1960s – which is demonstrably false – that would not mean that it would be applicable in 2010. Things have cooled off since Greece sent in army officers and Turkey sent troops to the island. Both sides now agree they do not need an army in a unified State.

The UN has created a LCD, a lowest common denominator straitjacket. What the Community gives is a solution bringing the highest possible combination of values and interests together. Sixty years of peace in Western Europe are proof. Half a billion people have experienced peace. True Europeans have changed bloodshed for step-by-step, pragmatic, common solutions.

It seems especially an especially curious prejudice for everyone to take this anti-Community stance for Cyprus. In the 1950s, Europe created a system that made ‘war not only unthinkable but materially impossible’. That was the European Coal and Steel Community based on a supranational Community governance system. Are the principles of supranational Community governance applicable to Cyprus? Of course!

Why wasn’t it applied in the 1950s and 1960s? Well, the world leaders such as France’s Charles de Gaulle did not like the supranational Community—because it restricted his immoral and undemocratic actions.

But that is no reason why present day European leaders are not advocating the Community system for Cyprus, as mentioned here. Why aren’t they? Yes, why? Might the anti-supranational and Gaullist Lisbon Treaty have something to do with it?

However, if the European leaders in Brussels are still being myopic and stubborn, at least the United Nations are beginning to see the light. The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, on his visit to Cyprus, implied that peace between Cypriots is the most important issue at hand.

“This process belongs to Cyprus,” said Mr Ban. “Your destiny is in your hands. You have taken responsibility for finding a solution.“

He gave his “personal support to the Cypriot-led and -owned process to reunify the island,” or whatever else the owners of the process might want to do with it.

He is right. A free decision among free people is more likely to be just. It will last longer than a mucky compromise. All the dossiers must have the best, most moral solution possible. Supranational governance aims at solutions based on eternal values.

So Cypriots, why not begin to act like Europeans?

In December — when no one was looking — Member States governments adopted their Rules of Procedure for the new Lisbon Democracy. You missed it? No wonder. This ‘agreement’ was definitely not agreed in public, for the public by the public in a public meeting place in Brussels.

It was all done more or less by post. (Written procedure). It says

Done at Brussels, 1 December 2009.
For the European Council
The President
H. VAN ROMPUY

Done? The public certainly have been. The first of December 2009 is another black day for European democracy.

The newest institution of so-called European democracy confirms that the EUROPEAN COUNCIL  wants to be SECRET. It is a way to get rid of the pesky press. The politicians can control the news-hounds like Pavlov’s dogs with ‘off the record‘ news feeds. That makes managed “democracy” so much easier.

Article 4 inset 3 says Meetings of the European Council shall not be public. (OJ 2.12.2009, L 315/51)

It does not say; Occasionally tired and delicate heads of government, after a long trip to Brussels, need some privacy. Nor does it say: As a democratic institution we will eventually open our doors to the public and the press as the Founding Fathers said all such European institutions should be.

It says that the rules preclude any of the Public EVER getting in.

This is the latest sad retreat from the Community democratic system to irresponsible intergovernmentalism. It is the last fling of effete Gaullism. Politicians like making their deals in the dark, away from public light. The ruling political cartel does not want any one to meddle if such a democratic institution or individual wants to argue with secret intergovernmental deals.

The new Rules say:

Without prejudice to the provisions on public access to documents, the deliberations of the European Council shall be covered by the obligation of professional secrecy, except insofar as the European Council decides otherwise.

And of course they won’t. It will take all 27 to say Yes. They will flip coins to take turns for each one to say No.

Europe’s new democracy — after ten year’s of the public’s resistance — will be like getting sardines, squeezed together in the dark, out of their can. It will require a legal can-opener.
The European Council may authorise the production for use in legal proceedings of a copy of or an extract from European Council documents which have not already been released to the public in accordance with Article 10.

Why should the Council be the only institution that remains an absolute disgrace to what should be the greatest democratic organisation in the world — the grouping of 27 democracies of Europe?

The European Parliament has open debates. It is a model for the world.

Despite some hesitations at the start (that is in the 1950s) the Consultative Committees — the nascent debating chamber for organised civil society — are open to the public.

The Economic and Social Committee is open.

The Committee of Regions is open.

The Commission is one of the most open institutions in the world.

The Court of Justice is open.

…. And the Council of Ministers ??? Hardly.

Now the European Council, too! SECRET!

While the European Council was not a real, legal institution, that is was not really an institution in the treaties, it could get away with the political equivalent of murder. It is still murdering democracy.

We now have the extraordinary sight of the President of the European Parliament attending the European Council — and he is made mute by the Council’s lack of democracy. The President of the European Parliament usually does things openly and before the cameras and a forest of microphones. When he addresses the European Council, no cameras are allowed. Radio journalists and their mikes are chased out. The public is excluded. A text may be produced. But the public and the press have no idea how the ‘lords and masters‘ of the European Council react or respond to the suggestions, criticisms and commentaries about their actions from the representative of Parliament.

In short the new rules have gagged Parliament.

General de Gaulle  — who wanted to destroy European democracy — would be well pleased. His hand has made Parliament behave like a naughty schoolboy going to see the headmaster. De Gaulle thought that having to speak in a democratic debate in public was demeaning and undignified. He did not like giving reasons for his actions. He did not even tell his ministers what French policy was until he announced it.  As for Europe, he preferred the ‘empty chair‘ ; he was not very much in favour of having any minister go there unless it was to collect money for wine lakes and beef mountains. Nor did he like a display of his henchmen arm-twisting and bullying the smaller States of Europe. The blood on the carpet might upset little old ladies. De Gaulle insisted that the Council should firmly shut its doors to the public.

All democratic chambers should be open to the public and the press, unless the public can be convinced there is a valid reason why they should not be. That is a basic principle of democracy. From the time when Celtic tribes assembled to debate matters in public, it has been so for a few thousand years.

And don’t give me that ‘Oh, if the Council is open to the public, they will talk in the corridors.‘ Parliamentarians talk in the corridors. But they have a debate in public.

Why? So that there will be a public record of what they say, how they say it, and why they are moved to say it. Only when the public — let us call them voters or their democratic masters — can have this evidence of their motivation, reasoning and quest for European justice, can they judge them. And fire them, if necessary. Maybe even congratulate them on occasion.

That is democracy. It is quite different from Gaullist autocracy. Had we forgotten? Schuman defined democracy as being ‘At the service of the people and acting in agreement with the people‘. Lincoln said it was ‘government of the people, by the people and for the people.‘ The new Lisbon system is now defined as being SECRETLY for the secretive politicians, by the secretive politicians and for the secretive politicians; people stay OUT, referendums and public opinion are of no consequence to us. Please go away and be ruled in silence.

If you don’t agree with me, please leave a comment telling me where and when the public had a democratic debate and agreed that the Council and now the European Council should be SECRET.

At the moment I feel quite free to speak out so boldly. At the Council offices, no one will be listening or reading this commentary . They’re in the middle of a cat-and-dog fight about who is in charge. Is it the Spanish national presidency or the President of the European Council? Then there is the latest debacle. The US President does not want to attend a Summit with Europe until he knows whose hand to shake first. In the Council the European cartel are still arguing about who is responsible for making Europeans look like a bunch of fools, and not only to the Americans over the EU-US Summit. The undemocratic cartel running Europe has made European government look ridiculous to the wide world.

These so, so, embarrassing matters shall not be open to the public.

1. The lost lorry
How do you solve the following problem? A large lorry from a Member State of the EU arrives by ship at a port in Cyprus with goods for delivery. All the custom documents are in order according to EU legislation. Unfortunately the goods were intended for the Cypriot Greek south of the island and the lorry arrived in a port in the Cypriot Turkish north. The truck with a sealed TIR consignment was driven to the inter-communal border but was refused any passage across it.

This incident provoked a crisis between the Greek-speaking and Turkish-speaking communities. Both communities discussed it at the highest level. It reached a logjam. A simple truck became high politics. So what happened? The truck returned to the port of Famagusta, it was loaded on a ship and was returned to the European Member State from whence it came. Later it was placed on another ship and sailed to a Greek Cypriot port.

Thus the importer was faced with massive extra costs. And who was responsible? We can judge for ourselves. The importer was under the impression that there was a European Single Market. Apparently the importer did not take the two community leaders to the European Court!

West Europeans today might denounce this sort of thing as kindergarten politics, however, before 1951 and the European Community, the same Europeans were skilled practitioners in this type of difficult, uncivilized and uncooperative behaviour.

Be encouraged! The States of the European Community – before it existed – faced far bigger problems. Even among supposedly friendly countries the complexity of the problem was horrific. In the north of Belgium the border between Belgium and the Netherlands is worse than a Swiss cheese. Not only are there exclaves of Belgium inside the Netherlands, there are even enclaves and exclaves inside these holes in the Swiss cheese. This was paradise for smugglers trying to escape controls of one national government against another.

And that was not the worst problem. Neighbouring countries had been at war with each other – and bred long family traditions of hate and distrust – for CENTURIES. Continental Europe had been turned into a slave society by the Master Race with mass murder as State policy of the Nazis, supported and paid for by major, global corporations. There were millions of displaced citizens. Yet within FIVE short years after the end of the most horrendous and hate-filled war in all European history the problem was solved! The Schuman Declaration was made 60 years ago. Have we learned the lesson?

How did the other Europeans solve this problem with the first common market? How did they solve the problem of centuries-long war? On the face of it, the lorry cargo problem is a small, purely technical question with economic implications. But such incidents become highly political. Bad politics lead to distrust and distrust leads to war. That was Europeans’ experience before Europe’s first Community, the European Coal and Steel Community. When in 1953 the first single market was created, it was at first purely in coal, iron and steel products. But it solved a major problem: war, hate and distrust.

Later the Community experiment proved so successful that the single market was created in other goods and services. (Customs Union and Euratom)

A Cyprus Community solution will provide the means to solve all outstanding issues between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots.

2. The process
The first lesson: start simply but decisively. This must lay the real basis for a developing Community interest. Thus one particular problem has to be solved at a time. Not all together. Choosing a Community solution will solve all outstanding problems based on the same principles of justice. In 1950 Europeans did not chose a ‘Package deal’ — which will all separately unwrap if not based on true principles — but a single supranational solution that grows organically to make the New Europe.

How would supranational principles avoid a political deadlock in the case of the lorry scandal?

First the small group of people should be created who were trusted by both Turkish and Greek Cypriots. Such persons do not necessarily have to be Cypriots but they must have experience in Cypriot affairs. They must have the confidence of both parties for their impartiality. They should be able to speak with authority.

According to Europe’s first treaty, such a High Authority should be experienced and independent. Yes, that goes against the grain for politicians. But the treaty is insistent. These eminent people who constitute a ‘High Authority’ should ‘exercise their functions in full independence in the general interest of the community’. It says that ‘in accomplishing their duties, they shall neither solicit nor accept any instructions.’ From whom? Not from any government, not from any other body or organisation, political party, nor any individual. ‘They must refrain from any act incompatible with the supranational character of their functions.’

Supranational means that they have full delegated authority from the governments. Governments, political parties or any other interest will not interfere. Furthermore they should not be members of any interested body. They should resign from any body if they are members.

That is pretty clear. The High Authority acts like impartial judges so that it can come up with an impartial decision. (In later treaties the Authority is called the European Commission.) Like any honest brokers, conciliators or judges, their free will and free judgement must not be undermined. When Schuman was Minister of Justice he said that judges were responsible only to their own conscience.

Thus governments and political parties must exercise self-restraint. That may seem hard for parties and governments that wish to see they have a thumb in every issue. But if governments want sincerely to solve the problem, this is the way to go about it.

So we have a High Authority. It will only deal with one sector. Governments will not lose power. It will deal only with one issue agreed by both communities. In the case we are discussing it will deal only with the free movement of goods across the island and the access of all EU companies to both communities and to all Cypriots as purchasers and consumers, buyers and sellers.

3. How can Cypriots be sure the High Authority acts fairly?
This question was solved in the European Community by creating a body engaging organized civil society. It was called the Consultative Committee. It was a sort of parliamentary assembly – but only for associations, not individual electors, political parties or lobbies. It represented the overall interests of three sections of society: the producers, the consumers and the workers in the sectors in the treaty. The Committee is the specialist, technical agency for the Community. So if the system was to be applied to the fruit market, a third of the consultative committee would represent fruit producer associations (farmers) a third would represent fruit purchasers and eaters (who are concerned with quality and price) and a third would be composed of workers (so that if the price fell they would not be working on slave wages or have to submit to dangerous insecticides).

Ideally the Consultative Committee would be composed of a small number of independent Cyprus-wide associations. It could initially for a transition period be composed of existing associations. One of the first duties of the interim Committee would be to lay down impartial criteria for the definition of a Cyprus-wide association (its democratic and open basis in each section).

With such clear definitions in hand, any association could apply for recognition by the entire Cypriot community. Those associations that fulfilled the criteria would then become the electors for the new democratic body. They would be issued with one vote each, and elect a number of associations that corresponded with the predetermined size of the body. They would have to take into account that not all associations could be present in the Committee. Therefore their task would have to choose associations that were the most impartial and representative of the general interest. Those elected would also have to have excellent network contacts with the local and specialist interests. Why? Because if any question came up the Committee would be charged with finding out how all producers, consumers and workers would react to it. For example, it may relate to how costs should be defined both for city dwellers and for those who live in more inaccessible places. Armed with comprehensive data, they could debate the optimum solution, the best common approach to common problems.

The function of the High Authority would be to make decisions, recommendations or laws, relative to the issues it was designed to solve. The Authority would be in permanent dialogue with the Consultative Committee to see what the main issues were, what sort of solution was preferred and how, when and where to tackle it. The Authority could make decisions when there was an immediate problem like the European lorry that could not circulate across the island, or it could make more long-term proposals to create a healthier basis for trade.

To ensure that a good balance was made, and fair and just decisions are always available, three additional bodies are required to maintain the democratic rule of law. They would also provide the five-institution nucleus for a permanent democratic process in any other sector that needed to be added to ensure peace, justice and harmony.

For example, what happens to the interests of the individual in all this? The Community system installed a parliament with some special features, not always performed in our own parliaments. The parliament was to see that the bureaucracy did not get out of hand. It acted as a supervisor of the whole system. That meant it should review the decisions, recommendations and laws that the Authority had implemented. It should clean out the verbiage, make laws understandable and as simple as possible and should see to it that the overall effect was just and fair. A complex law or recommendation might have the right result but it would be far better if the man or woman in the street fully understood it and saw that it was so.

The parliament would have further special powers in that it could dismiss the Authority if it thought that some corruption of mismanagement was going on. It makes an annual review assessing the positive developments.

Would the existing governments be left out? Not at all. The equivalent of the Council of Ministers could be set up so that it could also give its input. In this example it would require the ministers of agriculture or trade to meet.

4. How it would work
In the system as original proposed by Robert Schuman the following would be the working scenario. The High Authority, in permanent dialogue with the Consultative Committee, (representing entrepreneurs, workers and consumers), would be appraised of the most urgent problems and strategic challenges. It would make a proposal for action: either a decision affecting one case, a general recommendation or a law. It would send the draft of this proposal to the Consultative Committee, the Council of Ministers (in this case a meeting of Turkish and Greek community ministers.) It would also go to the assembly of parliamentarians delegated for the purpose. Each of these three bodies, Consultative Committee, Ministers and parliamentarians need to discuss the proposal to see if it is fair for all. They can suggest amendments but they have to agree on them as a body. Each body would give its own Opinion. Thus the Committee would vote on their Opinion, the Ministers would agree what they thought best, and the parliamentarians would vote on what they thought could be improved in the proposal. It is up to the High Authority to accept and reject these opinions for amendments, as it sees best.

But what if the High Authority did something palpably unjust? Let us say, that the lorry owner, who was a foreigner and not a Cypriot, took the brunt as a scapegoat. He was asked to pay a fine because of the trouble he had caused. That is where the fifth body comes in. That is the Court of Justice. It is there as a last resort, because the other institutions should be able to solve all Cypriot problems. And if the special Court in Cyprus did not give him satisfaction, the lorry-owner could take the matter to the European Court. In fact, everyone in Cyprus, whether an individual or an association or a community could take the matter to Court. This right was written into the Treaty of Paris and subsequent treaties. There is no reason why Cypriots should not enjoy the right too.

To solve the problem of the wandering lorry, this five-institution system may seem complex. But it is not for a lost lorry that it would be created. It would be to make Cyprus the jewel of democracy and harmony and a full and active member of the Community system. The institutions would only involve a handful of people to ensure fairness for all.

5. How to start
What problem should Cypriots tackle first? The easiest or the most difficult? The essential feature of Schuman’s strategy was to build TRUST based on universal, that is, supranational values. Robert Schuman, the founder and initiator of the European Community system, called it a process of detoxification. Once he had established the Convention of Human Rights in the Council of Europe, he chose to start with a question of the most vital interest to all Europeans: war and peace. It was the most crucial issue for everything else, not the easiest one.

Furthermore the system works! No democratic system had a harder trial than stopping war that had persisted for centuries in Europe. Robert Schuman warned that the Community method was designed to prevent such a potential suicide and to make ‘war not only unthinkable but materially impossible.’ All the founding fathers who signed the Europe Declaration on 18 April 1951 agreed with him. So did the general public. Europeans are no living in the longest period of peace in more than two thousand years.

A supranational solution will have extremely positive repercussions for the island of Cyprus, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Mediterranean basin, all of Europe and for the entire planet. The challenge is now with the people of Cyprus. The world is waiting.

For centuries Europeans have argued: where are the limits of Europe? Professors and writers have battled on the subject. So have armies. Europe as a political and organisational entity would never exist if citizens had had to wait for experts, academics and politicians to agree.

“The definition of Europe as a geographical entity has long been a topic of academic debate,” Robert Schuman told a meeting of foreign ministers and ambassadors in London’s prestigious St James’s Palace. “But Europe cannot wait for the end of a seemingly interminable discussion. She will define herself by herself by the willingness of her populations.”

Schuman was speaking at the signing of the statutes of the Council of Europe on 5 May 1949. By their votes and those in their parliaments, Europeans began defining Europe. France, under Schuman’s premiership, had been largely responsible for the creation of this, Europe’s first international democratic institution. It allowed European citizens through their elected ministers and their politicians to express European public opinion and democratically define policies of cooperation.

Thus Europe’s ultimate borders are defined in the minds of Europeans as an act of political will about human rights and fundamental freedoms. (See Holocaust2 Human Rights vs Final Solution) Their adherence to these principles in the Human Rights convention is the touchstone of being European. (It is something that has to be earned by real democratic standards. Those values have to be maintained. Some countries sliding into dictatorships or undemocratic practice have been suspended from being European.)

Robert Schuman’s initiative helped break the centuries-long log-jam made by wars, competition and dominating sovereignties. Europe would be defined, he said, through a democratic act of will of its citizens mutually reinforcing humane, moral values for peaceful development.

More than half a century later, some politicians have reopened the ‘interminable’ debate. They insist that states and citizens of the European Union, must conform to their definition of European geography and their concept of history. It is too late to turn back the clock. The Founding Fathers would not agree with the statement of a politician that European “geography sets the frame.”

In May 2004, Cyprus became a full member. In its “geographical frame,” it is not in Europe. It is entirely in Asia. Up to 1878, Cyprus was part of Turkey’s Asian Ottoman empire. Over the thousands of years of its history, Cyprus had been part of the Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian empires. When it was part of the Egyptian empire, it did not become African. Nor did its geography change later when conquered by Roman plots and arms. Some argue that because its culture is “European,” it is part of Europe. But that would make Australia and the USA equally “European”.

In 1961 Cyprus became “European” when it joined the Council of Europe. Member States agreed with this definition. It was voted in all parliaments of the European Union. Greece and Turkey together became members of the Council years earlier, in 1949.

Europe’s Asian footprint is now irreversible. This is not an accident. ‘Europe’ has long had irreversibly global geography. The official map of the European Union shows that its legal borders already extend to Africa and the Americas too. The French departments of Reunion (Africa) and Guyane (South America) Guadeloupe and Martinique are internal territory of the EU, as are the African islands of Portuguese Madeira and the Spanish Canaries.

It is the act of will or consciousness which Robert Schuman mentioned that decides the “limits of Europe” in today’s fashionable term. Schuman had a broader vision right from the start. ‘Europe’ is a dynamic project, not an empire or state. It was concerned with what he called Europeans’ duty to prevent “global suicide.”

This may sound a vague and imprecise hope to some politicians and academics but in fact it has a solid intellectual basis which is little discussed today. It has real power. It is stronger than armies. The philosophical and scientific concepts he enunciated in the 1940s are the driving force of today’s enlargement process. He predicted it would be so, based on logical deduction. It created “a well spring of unexploited energies to take advantage of,” he told the Council of Europe in 1950. He said that on the occasion he presented to the Consultative Assembly the details of the Schuman Plan, creating the European Community.

Schuman supported the Turkish adhesion to the European values of the Community system. He also made clear that northern, central and eastern European countries, including Russia, must be considered “European” when they embrace European values. These involved supranational rule of law protecting democracy and the human rights and fundamental freedoms.

These involve not only freedom of speech but the freedom to hold a religion. Most importantly for any community based on supranational –that is eternal — values it assures the right to change one’s religion without let or hindrance. The Community is focused on a long-term democratic debate on moral improvement including personal values like truth and honesty and society values for physical, mental and spiritual health.

Schuman, together with the foreign ministers of the other European states, signed this Convention on 4 November 1950. The Council established working relationships with other democracies like Australia and New Zealand. And importantly for the future, it sustained and supported democracies under pressure and aspiring for more freedom like Finland and Israel.

The real difficulties of today’s debate arise only when people misconceive Schuman’s Community system as a club leading to a super-state or federation. These politicians want to be the leader, whether wanted or not. This is a major intellectual block in discussions; people still talk in terms of federations and confederations while Schuman, a lawyer and constitutional expert, announced in the 1940s that he was about to create a third, system, the supranational, totally new in practice and in the history of political constitutions. Schuman’s design was aimed at strengthening the open practice of democracy and the guarantees of the rule of law. He intended the impact of this supranational, democratic revolution to be planetary.

Schuman’s report on the Holocaust may not have been the only one to be brought to the attention of the Allies in August 1942. At least one other independent testimony of the systematic extermination of Jews arrived at that time. Professor Howard M Sachar wrote:

‘The first reliable information of the ‘”Final Solution” evidently reached the West in August 1942, when the American Jewish leader, Stephen Wise, learned of it from Gerhard Reigner, the representative of the World Jewish Congress in Geneva.’

Schuman’s postwar efforts were centred on creating a system that would act as a conscience for the world, instead of destructive Nazism or selfish nationalism. Conscience provides the means for people to live in harmony together.

Without moral progress, technical progress and industrialization had led to industrialized mass murder. One of the most educated and cultured societies in Europe had descended into unconscionable barbarity. The major corporations employed slave labour and even ran death camps. (The companies paid the SS. The slaves got nothing but brutality and death.) White collared accountants calculated the minimum rations for a slave to work and die of starvation within nine months. A Judeo-Christian society had given itself over to exterminating Jews.

To create a governmental system to act as the conscience of Europe and make positive and irreversible progress in the moral field was an even greater challenge than technical progress.

National governments resisted any agreement that would affect their sovereignty. High officials in the French Foreign Ministry, the guardian of French ‘national interest’ but more accurately often only that of the coal and steel barons and finance, had deliberately sabotaged his efforts at European reconciliation.

If that was true in France, in Germany the coal and steel and other cartels had encouraged the rise of Hitler to defend their interest. Schuman warned that the next time this happened, it would mean world suicide.

The Council of Europe was Schuman’s first step. As Prime Minister and Foreign Minster, he made the establishment of this institution a priority. It was founded as a means to render impossible in the future any slide to godless, unconscionable Hitlerism or dictatorship. It made human rights and fundamental freedoms a litmus test for membership of the new entity called Europe.

Presenting the Human Rights Convention to the Assembly in 1949, Schuman’s colleague, French lawyer, Pierre-Henri Teitgen, said:

‘An honest man does not become a gangster in 24 hours. Infection takes time. In thought and in conscience, he has to let himself be drawn into temptation. He gets used to the fault before he commits it. He descends the stairwell step by step. One day, he finds evil has beaten him and he has lost all scruples. Democracies do not become Nazi countries overnight. Evil progresses in an underhand way, with a minority operating to seize what amounts to the levers of power. One by one, freedoms are suppressed, in one sphere then another. Public opinion is smothered, the worldwide conscience is dulled and the national conscience asphyxiated. And then, when everything fits in place, the Führer is installed and this evolution continues right on to the deadly gas ovens of the crematorium.

‘Intervention is needed before it becomes too late. A conscience must exist somewhere which will sound the alarm to the minds of a nation threatened by this spreading gangrene, to warn them of the peril and to show them that they are committing themselves to a crooked road leading far, sometimes even to Buchenwald or to Dachau. An international jurisdiction within the Council of Europe, a system of surveillance and guarantee, could be this conscience, of which other countries also maybe have special need.’

The innovation of the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community or the European Commission of the later two Communities of the Rome Treaties was made to create an impartial and independent voice for European democracies. That is why it must be independent, not tied to any interest, whether national, political, commercial or otherwise.