When I arrived at the European Parliament building in Strasbourg last Monday I was confronted with a battle scene. Port workers from all over the EU were demonstrating against the Port Services Bill that would open port services to greater competition. Cars were overturned and burnt while protestors threw stones at the parliament building. The pervasively stench of tear gas prevailed. I was caught in between the demonstrators and the riot police, but the port workers treated with respect all those entering and leaving the building. No one was injured, apart from three police officers.

Port Services Bill up the creek

The plenary session eventually brought an end to the port workers’ fears of losing their jobs – at least for the time being. An overwhelming majority voted against the bill, which was devised and proposed by the Commission (as every bill is).

Violence is never the answer, we often tell ourselves, and should be condemned at all times. I must add here that the GWU delegates and the participating Maltese port workers were not the ones throwing stones. These were mostly French port workers. But the question lingers on: will these violent protests continue and will it be much worse in the future? If the EU politicians and functionaries do not understand the need to listen to the people and act accordingly, then further upheaval can be predicted. Every month the EU Parliament approves new EU laws and directives emanating from the Commission that reduce national Parliaments to rubber-stamping offices.

Is violence what it takes to make them listen to the people?

The Duff/Voggenhuber Report

Following the rejection of the EU Constitution, the ‘Future of Europe’ is on hold. We are currently going through a “period of reflection” and the Commission has called for a new debate in every member State. But how are some Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) treating this period of reflection?

A report by Constitution-obsessed MEPs Andrew Duff and Johannes Voggenhuber, sitting on the Constitutional Affairs Committee, is asking for the ratification process of the dead Constitution to continue. And they want to involve national parliaments to debate the “Future of Europe” in their own way.

These MEPs and their cohorts have no intention of listening to the people. Their report demands “that every effort be made to ensure that the Constitution enters into force during 2009”. They disregard the democratic process and prejudge the outcome of the peoples’ debate by declaring that “a positive outcome... would be that the current text can be maintained”.

With such an attitude, even in the face of the Commission’s call for a people’s debate, the people can only lose trust in the European institutions, especially MEPs – the only directly elected representatives of the people at European level. This could only lead to further NO votes in the future, which in turn will exert political pressure not to trust the people with referenda; a damaging cycle, no doubt.

As matters stand, with the biggest political groups in the European Parliament voting largely in favour of the Duff/Voggenhuber Report, the rejected Constitution was supported by a majority of 385 MEPs, with 125 voting against and 51 abstentions.

This, however, will not resuscitate the dead Constitution. The ‘Principle of Unanimity’ for EU Treaties requires that all 25 member States must ratify the Constitutional Treaty for it to come into force. With the two rejections by the French and Dutch citizens no amount of European Parliament resolutions will revive it.

The obsessed are rebuffed

It is no wonder that the President of the European Parliament, Josep Borrell Fontelles, received a nasty letter on 16 January from the presidents/speakers of the Austrian, Finnish and German Parliaments in response to the Duff/Vogenhuber report. The report’s invitation to the Eureopan Parliament and national parliaments to jointly organise conferences in member States was strongly rebuffed.

Referring to the invitation, the letter states: “In this regard, “we are not in a position to commit national parliaments to such a series of conferences or parliamentary fora. Due to the fact that 13 countries have already ratified the constitutional treaty and 12 countries have not, the national parliaments have very different approaches to the debate on the future of Europe and there is neither a need nor a mechanism to find a joint strategy of national parliaments on how to engage in a lasting debate.”

This is a deserving blow. The aim of the Duff/Vogenhuber report is not to openly debate the future of Europe, but to resuscitate the rejected Constitution.

But the obsessed never learn. The following day, the circulation of the letter by MEP Jo Leinen declared to all and sundry: “On Thursday 18th January 2006 (which should read 19th) the European Parliament will adopt the resolution submitted in the report DUFF/VOGGENHUBER (A6-0414/2005) and thus confirm its will that in the framework of the present period of reflection parliamentary forums be organised, jointly by the European parliament and the national parliaments...”

The crusaders move forward blinded by a light only they can see. But they are not completely to blame. When some people are elected MEP they become enthralled by an institution that serves them so graciously they’d require nerves of steel not to succumb to the institution’s own needs. And the political entity we call the EU definitely needs a Constitution. The question is: do the people need it?

A moment of fun

To end on an ironic note I would like to commend Il-Mument, the paper you can never read on the Internet, for such crusading words against what I wrote in my last article on the EU Budget 2007 – 2013. They were so busy trying to compare what I had written with what Dr Sant said that they failed to realise that their own party’s MEP sitting on the EP Budget Committee had voted against it.

Eventually, at last week’s Strasbourg session both PN MEPs voted against the EU budget perspective, as did the vast majority of MEPs. This is what I had hoped for. Well done Simon and David for doing the right thing.

As for Il-Mument? Well, they definitely picked the right moment to make us laugh.

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Sharon Ellul Bonici is a Labour Party candidate currently working in the European Parliament in the political field.