The European Unions Constitutional Reform: Laeken Declaration - Essay Example

? Laeken Declaration 16, January The 2001 Laeken Declaration set out the objectives of the European Union’s constitutional reform. The research focuses on the effect of the Declaration on European Union democracy and transparency. The research focuses on the Treaty of Lisbon and the European Union Parliament. The Treaty of Lisbon successfully enhanced the 2001 Laeken Declaration’s concepts of more democratic and more transparent European Parliament. The 2002 Summit in Nice crafted the Charter of Fundamental Rights in a treaty. The Laeken Declaration set into motion the creation of a European Union constitution. The crafting of the constitution reinforces the powers and duties of the European Court of Justice’s embrace of each member state’s unique constitutional provisions. The first step includes the establishment of the Convention of the Future, a constitutional convention. The Federalist Papers no. 49 (Madison) states “The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which several branches of government hold their power, is derived” (Eriksen 2004). Lee McGowan mentioned “The Laekan Declaration on the Future of the European Union was adopted by the European Council at its summit in Laeken, Belgium on 15 December 2001. The Declaration followed a similar Declaration on the Future of the Union adopted a year earlier at the same time as the Treaty of Nice and was significant for the issues it raised for consideration by the Convention on the Future of Europe which was launched in late February 2002. The Laeken Declaration begins by identifying the two key challenges facing Europe: the need to bring the European Union (EU) closer to is citizens; and defining the role for the EU in a fast-changing globalized world… These include a better division and definition of the EU's competences; simplification of treaties and legislative measures; the need for more democracy, transparency and efficiency; and steps towards a constitution for the EU.” (McGowan 2002;254) The Laeken Declaration implemented the convention to tackle four major issues. First, the Declaration pursued a better division of competencies: more from European in some areas and less in communities better handled by European Union member states. Second, the Laeken Declaration focused on resolving the European Union’s democratic deficit. The aim of the Laeken Declaration is to establish a European Union political entity grounded on firm democracy, crystal clear transparency and efficiency. Third, the Laeken Declaration centered on simplifying the European Union’s political environment. The same Declaration emphasized the integration of the treaties into a European Union constitution. Likewise, the Declaration delves on defining the European Union’s role in enhancing the global environment. Lastly, the Declaration centers on bringing the European Union citizens within one synergy-filled single European Union community1. The Treaty of Lisbon enhanced the concepts of the prior Laeken Declaration. The Laeken Declaration hinted on the importance of constitutional reform policies. The Lisbon treaty included a new reform vehicle that gave a semblance of constitutional intentions, the Convention on the Future of Europe. The word selections were toned to impress a constitutional purpose. Taking into consideration the mandate as well as the character envisioned by the democratic constitutional perspective, the Belgian presidents’ advocacy for the Treaty of Lisbon was the handiwork of the European Council. European integration can both be an opportunity and a threat. There is no convincing evidence that some of the national governments of the Europe Union will stand to loss if they implement a European Union constitution. To resolve the issue, some European governments have adapted their structures and procedures to keep abreast with the increasing scope of European Union integration. The Treaty of Lisbon, inspired by the Laeken Declaration, states that the national parliaments must implement their uniquely important tasks to enhance the current democratic legitimacy of the European Union. Constitutional Change at the European Union level will precipitate to normative and procedural changes in the individual country members (Rizzuto 2003). The Treaty of Lisbon, in contrast to the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) model focused on establishing a new 2001 European Union constitution. The Treaty of Lisbon focused on the importance of the Laeken Declarations’ democratic and transparency concepts. In addition, John Fossum reiterated the Laeken Declaration was crafted by incorporating the transparency in all its procedures (Fossum 2005). In relation to the deliberative democratic model, it is very clear that the Laeken Constitutional Treaty cannot be given the full dignity of a democratic constitution. Instead the Constitutional Treaty is the stepping stone towards encouraging the European Union Citizens to democratically voice their opinions directly to the European Union authorities. Further, the surprising absence of a common European Union stand on the Iraq war was not material in establishing a European Union convention that would establishing an ambitious foreign policy reform policy. The convention focused on legal consequences of putting into place a balanced European Union foreign policy that is grounded on the different achievements as well as deficiencies of the European Union’s foreign policy regime. The convention was able to reach the benchmark set by the Laeken European Council Declaration to implement reforms that would strengthen the European Union’s capacity to hurdle the huge responsibilities of global governance (Thym 2004). Furthermore, John Occhipinti theorized “One of Belgium's initial aims was to establish the agenda for the upcoming European Convention, which would debate EU's future during 2002 and perhaps provide the basis for the next IGC in 2004. In this regard, the Belgians intended to produce a declaration at their concluding European Council at Laeken that would begin the process of fundamental institutional reform in the EU. It was assumed that this might include the strengthening of the EU's federal character and formal incorporation of the new Charter of Fundamental Rights into a true constitution for the European Union” (2003;147). The above quote clearly shows that the Laeken Declaration served as the precursor of the successful Treaty of Lisbon. The Declaration focused on the importance of reforms to unite al European Union member nations under one solid political community, under one European Union constitution and one European Union Parliament. As an offshoot from the Laeken Declaration, the Lisbon Treaty is grounded on enhanced democratic and transparency ideals. The Treaty emphasizes the democratic system includes a new European Union voting system. The system is forecasted to take effect in 2014, depending on the member states’ preferences. The system replaces the current ‘weighing’ of votes where each member state is given different voting quantities. The current voting system entitles Ireland 7 votes and Germany a bigger 29 votes. The new democratic and transparent system offers each member state an equal one (1) vote each. For the Laeken Declaration-inspired democratic decision to be implemented, two conditions must crop up. First, more than fifty percent of the member states agree to a proposed alternative. Second, the winning fifty percent must comprise 65 percent of the European Union’s total population. The Laeken Declaration metamorphoses the current European Union organization into one synergy-laden organization, eliminating the current European Community and its corresponding pillar framework2. Likewise, the democratic and transparent aspects of the Lisbon Treaty states that social protection will be enhanced, as mentioned in the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The protection extends to the general interest areas, the establishment of social communication between the trade unions and employers’ organizations within the European Union level. The social issues include the equality between genders and eliminating discrimination among the European Union member states3. In addition, the Lisbon Treaty affirmed the authority of the European Union to act in such aspects as human rights, foreign policy, and judiciary. The same treaty gave the European Union a true sense of legal personality4. In addition, the Treaty of Lisbon clears the way for a more efficient, more democratic, and more secure European Union. The only European Union member state detractors to the European Union constitution, the Irish voters, finally reversed their prior vote by their new decision to put the European Union community on the world map. The new Irish decision is the approval of the previously rejected Treaty of Lisbon5. The treaty was implemented last December 1, 2009. With the treaty, the Europeanisation of the European nations’ military cropped up6. The enhanced democratic and transparency aspect of the Treaty of Lisbon states that the decision to implement a preferred European defense action must have the unanimous vote of the national ministers. Normally, the national vetoes can cropped up during the voting sessions, except during rare occasions. The democratic and transparent aspects of the Lisbon Treaty include the fundamental right of the European Union citizens to propose laws through the Citizens Initiative process. The initiative is a democratic and transparent activity empowers one million or more European Union citizens to present their legal proposals to the European Commission. In addition, the enhanced democratic and fundamental principles of the Lisbon Treaty firmly include the implementation of the protection of the fundamental human rights clause. The European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights makes the European Union law comply with the basic rights and freedoms embraced by the European Union member states. In addition, the policies of the European Union member nations will comply with all the policies of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) organisation. The democratic and transparent policies of the Lisbon Treaty state that the national parliaments will have a greater influence in all European Union affairs. The influence includes the power to contradict draft European Union laws that are deemed unnecessary. Also, the influence includes the power to prevent changes from the unanimous making scenes to the majority decision scenes in the Council of Ministers. Policies state that the national parliaments must organize themselves. In addition, the democratic and transparent polices of the Lisbon Treaty states that some European Union competencies will increase. The competencies include the national powers assigned to the European Union institutions but accepted by the national governments. The competency prerogatives apply to international trade, police cooperation, judicial cooperation, tourism, energy policy, and innovation policy7. In addition, the Lisbon Treaty states the European Council will be renamed the European Institution. The council is composed of the leaders of each member state. The council gives the European Union the political motor to successfully set into motion approved policy guidelines. The council is headed by the President. The presidents and prime ministers of the European Union member states appoint the council president. The council president holds a renewal office of two-and-one-half years. The council president acts as referee in disputes among member states as well as consensus builder8. In addition, the democratic and transparent aspects of the Lisbon Treaty state that the European Parliament will be given more power. The European Union citizens directly elect the members of the European Parliament9. The parliament has the power to set up budgets and influence international agreements. The European Parliament is placed on the same pedestal as the Council, representing all the European Union member states. Transparency reduces the probability of graft and corruption practices. The Lisbon Treaty places importance on transparency of any member state’s transactions. Transparency includes holding the public officers accountable for their misdeeds. The public and the media organizations can freely examine, scrutinise, and observe the transparent government meetings. Any interested person or organization can freely observe and criticize the government budgets. In addition, any person or entity can discuss, offer suggestions, and criticize the laws and decisions promulgated by each of the member states. Transparency reduces the fraudulent parties to abuse the system for their own selfish motives10. In terms of democratic and transparency ideals, the central normative issue is the legitimacy of the quasi-constitutional allocation of authority and functions among the main entities of the European Union. Both the accountability and distribution of authority and functions of the political environment is strengthened by increasing the European Parliament’s authority. Another alternative is to place mandate the national parliaments to closely scrutinize established council. The monitoring alternative focuses on securing individual rights of the European Union citizens and the all European Union laws are not violated. In addition, democratic and transparency tenets of the Lisbon Treaty includes the accountability of the European Union representatives. The officers of the European Union must answer to the European Union citizens for any violations of European Union laws. Transparency reduces the current scene where the citizens are ill equipped and uninformed of the activities of their representatives. Transparency will allow the citizens to replace their abusive political representatives. In addition, the current political process includes few citizen alternatives to withdraw and replace their lackluster political representatives. Both the European Parliament and the National Parliament appoint the commissions or civil servants. Consequently, the Parliament has a less effective remedy to remove the entire commission en bloc. The removal creates an unwarranted threat that is close to mutual disintegration, politically useless. Without transparency, the European Union entities’ minutes of the meetings are kept secret. In addition, the voting policies are complex, reducing accountability of the European Union representatives (Manin 1994, 44-45). The Laeken Declaration’s inspired democracy and transparency concepts incorporated in the Lisbon Treaty to succeed, the majority rule must prevail over other decision making processes. Majority is the central democratic ideal (Dahl 1989, chs 10,11). The majority rule dictates that the alternative having the majority votes will be implemented. The legitimacy of the majority rule will depend on successful informed public discussions pertaining to the prevailing interests and alternatives to resolve each problem, scene, or situation. Informed decision includes giving the voters all related information on each candidate’s performance, profile, promises, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each alternative activity, transaction, policy, or process. Giving the voters all relevant information on each alternative, the citizens will make better decisions. Giving relevant information translates to having a better public deliberation of the issues. The deliberation develops the required sense of unity, a share political culture and a sense of community among the European Union citizens (Follesdal 1997a). The Laeken Declaration states “Europe needs to shoulder its responsibilities in the governance of globalization. The role its has to play is that of a power resolutely doing battle against all violence, all terror and all fanaticism, but which also does not turn a blind eye to the world’s heartrending injustices…”11 focused on the drafting of the European Union constitution. The successful implementation of the Laeken Declaration’s inspired democracy and transparency concepts are retained by the Treaty of Lisbon. One such Laeken Declaration issue states that the common European values must comfortably be in place. The shared values must be communicated to the European Union citizens. To justice to be given on equal degrees, each citizen must be taught to adhere to generally shared values. Each European Union citizen must be taught to comply with all European Union laws. Toleration must be in place. In addition, the average citizens must have equal respect for other persons or entities within the European Union environment. The European Union citizens must be taught that civic virtues are needed to ensure a stable European Union community. The European Union member states must ensure their diverse cultures will not violated any European Union laws (Follesdal 1997). Further, the European Parliament is the most democratic institution in the European Union. The members of the European Parliament are directly elected by the European Union member states’ citizens. The European Parliament metamorphosed from a mere consultative chamber to an important co-decision institution for a majority of the European Union laws as well as for the preparation and implementation of the European Union budget (Art 14.1 and 16.1 TEU). The democratic European Parliament’s powers include approval of the appointed commission. The same parliament has the democratic and transparent power to implement temporary inquiry committees. Another democratic and transparent Parliament power is to receive the European Union citizens’ petitions. The democratic and transparent parliament authority is the election of the Ombudsman. Another parliament authority is to communicate oral and written queries to the Commission and to the Council. The Council will be accountable to the Parliament; the Parliament has the authority to elect a motion of censure requiring the subsequent resignation of the Commission as a body (art. 17.8 TEU). The democratically and transparently elected European Parliament members are the representatives of the European Union member states. The elected European Parliament members serve a fixed five year term. The European Parliament’s representative democracy and transparency (art. 10.1 TEU) states that the European Union citizens are directly represented at the Union level in the European Parliament (art. 10.2 TEU). The European Parliament members were increased from 736 to 751. Each European Union state can send a minimum of six members and a maximum of 96 members to the European Parliament12. Title II of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) states the European Union “should act as ‘openly as possible’.” The treaty offers the European Union citizens the right to express their views on any relevant European Union issue13. After the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty, the European Union constitution was promulgated. The new European Union constitution is a new general international agreement that supersedes many of the prior primary laws14. However, the French and the Dutch citizens have opposed the implementation of the new constitution. Former United States ambassador John Bolton opposed the approval of the European Union treaty creating the European Union Parliament. The treaty would undermine the strong military relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States.15 Consequently, the treat has not been implemented. The first contradicting issue states the Treaty of Lisbon does not change a hybrid character of the European Union. Second, the intergovernmental practices continue to have a significant influence in the European Union political system. Third, the lackluster democratic concepts of the system are not reduced to allowable levels. One hindrance to the implementation is the problem of the internal decision-making process that creates a very complicated system of governance16. Based on the above discussion, the 2001 Laeken Declaration implements the objectives of the European Union’s Constitutional reform. The Laeken Declaration emphasizes the importance of democracy and transparency in all European Union Parliament dealings. The Treaty of Lisbon enhanced the Laeken Declaration. Indeed, the Treaty of Lisbon successfully improved on the prior successes of the 2001 Laeken Declaration’s concepts, including the more democratic and more transparent concepts. References: Dahl, Robert: 1956. A Preface to Democratic Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Follesdal, Andreas. 1997a. "Democracy, Legitimacy and Majority Rule in the EU." Constitutional Choice for Europe, eds. Albert Weale and Michael Nentwich. Routledge. Forthcoming. Follesdal, Andreas, and Peter Koslowski, eds. 1998. Democracy and the European Union. Studies in Economic Ethics and Philosophy. Berlin: Springer Verlag. Forthcoming. Manin, Bernard: "Checks, Balances and Boundaries: The Separation of the Powers in the Constitutional Debate of 1787", in Biancamaria Fontana (ed.): The Invention of the Modern Republic, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press) 1994. Laeken Declaration, retrieved January 16, 2012 from http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons/lib/research/rp2002/rp02-014.pdf LisbonTreaty enters into Force, retrieved January 16, 2012 from http://www.iiea.com/blogosphere/lisbon-treaty-enters-into-force-a-brave-new-europe-is born?gclid=CMedyJ-10K0CFS9ItAodmlp9lA The Treaty of Lisbon, retrieved January 16, 2012 from http://www.civitas.org.uk/eufacts/FSTREAT/TR6.htm Treaty of Lisbon Clears the Way. Retrieved January 16, 2012 from http://www.eurunion.org/News/eunewsletters/EUInsight/2009/EUInsight-LisbonTr-10 -09.pdf The Lisbon Treaty, retrieved January 16, 2012 from http://www.eurothinkers.eu/2009/11/the-lisbon-treaty-a-continuation-or-an- institutionalization-of-the-democratic-deficit-in-esdp/ Treaty of Lisbon, retrieved January 16, 2012 from http://europa.eu/lisbon_treaty/glance/index_en.htm The Treaty of Lisbon’s Provision on Democratic Principles: A Legal Framework for Participatory Democracy. Retrieved January 16, 2012 from http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/secretariat_general/citizens_initiative/docs/cuesta_victor_3_en.pdf A Global Actor in the Making? Reforming the EU’s External Relations Machinery with or without the Constitution. Retrieved January 16, 2012 from http://www.law.kuleuven.be/iir/nl/onderzoek/wp/WP79e.pdf Democratic Improvements in the European Union under the Lisbon Treaty, Retrieved January 16, 2012 from Http://www.eui.eu/Projects/EUDO-Institutions/Documents/EUDOreport922011.pdf The Treaty of Lisbon and the EU Openness and Transparency. Retrieved January 16, 2012 from http://www.statewatch.org/news/2009/jun/eipa-talk-june-2008-speers.pdf Worth Doing Well- The Improvable European Union Constitution, retrieved January 16, 2012 From http://students.law.umich.edu/mjil/uploads/articles/v26n2-sieberson.pdf John Bolton: Lisbon Treaty will Undermine Democracy, retrieved January 16, 2012 from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/2094840/John-Bolton-Lisbon-Treaty- will-undermine-democracy.html The European Union After the Treaty of Lisbon, retrieved January 12, 2012 from http://www.jhubc.it/ecpr-riga/virtualpaperroom/072.pdf Eriksen, E. Developing a Constitution for Europe. London: Routledge Press, 2004. Fossum, J. "The Constitution Gift? A Deliverative Democratic Analysis of Constitution Making in the European Union." European Law Journal 11, no. 4 (2005): 380 -440. McGowan, L. A Dictionary of the European Union. London: Europa Press, 2002. Occhipinti, J. The Politics of EU Police Cooperation: Toward European FBI? London: Rienner Press, 2003. Rizzuto, F. "National Parliaments and the European Union: Part of the Problem or part of the Solution to the Democratic Deficit in the European Constitutional Settlement." Journal of Legilative Studies 9, no. 3 (2003): 87-109. Thym, D. "Reforming Europe's Common Foreign and Security Policy." European Law Journal 10, no. 1 (2004): 5 -22. Read More