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 [...]

“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 [...]

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 [...]

Subject: Europe’s foundational Declaration of Inter-Dependence
Communicating Europe with “old documents”
Dear President Barroso and Commissioners,
Congratulations on your new positions. During the coming months, the 60th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration to take place on 9 May 2010 must be planned. I hope that the entire Commission will give great thought to the preparations for this major [...]

How should we elect the Commission? And what about the staff — the European civil servants? The first question to ask is: What is the Commission for? Then it can be decided who is to be recruited and how. Is the destiny of the Commission to be the poodle of the Council? If the Commissioners [...]

For the last several decades the European Commission has been telling whoppers, fibs and lies. At the time of writing, it is still doing so. A disinformation campaign has cost Europeans millions of euros. In total the losses to the European economy must amount to billions, possibly trillions. They began in the Gaullist period. [...]

As the only institution allowed to propose European legislation, the European Commission represents the general interest of the whole Community. As an independent, impartial, honest broker, it represents all the people, all the organisations of civil society involved and all the governments forming part of the European Community. That’s what the founding fathers wrote as [...]

Let’s deal with another aspect of the political paradox that Robert Schuman and the other founders of the democratic New Europe left us. Be assured they also left us with a magnificent, fair and just solution for developing a powerful European democracy. They provided the finest example of democracy so far proposed in modern times.
In [...]

Although many politicians lust after the job, the choice of Commission President is far too important to be left to party politicians. They are scarcely qualified. The job description says that Commissioners — all of them — should be independent. Party politicians obviously aren’t independent as they are proposed by and are therefore the tools [...]

Is the EU a democracy? It is a damning commentary on the democratic ethics of the 27 governments of the EU that they choose the President of the European Commission in secret, without any recourse to democracy. The press is shut out. Rumours fly around. Candidates for the Commission sometimes mysteriously appear. Yet no advertisement [...]