Customer Reviews
Poor defence of the EU - By: William Podmore, 14 Aug 2008 
Simon Hix is the Professor of European & Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics & Political Science. He chaired a working group for the Cabinet Office during the Convention drawing up the EU Constitution.
Hix sees three problems with the EU: policy gridlock, lack of popular legitimacy & the democratic deficit. He notes, In substantive terms the EU is closer to a form of enlightened despotism than a genuine democracy. Yet he callls its political design pure genius. He also thinks that the US has an ideal political-economic model, which gives some idea of his political nous.
In response to the EUs problems, he proposes to change the European Parliaments procedures for choosing its president & committee chairs, to make the Councils proceedings more open to the public, & to have a more open contest for the Commissions president. He explains patronisingly that through these reforms, citizens will begin to understand & engage with EU politics.
He also mentions that the EU is a driving force of global economic & political integration. He callls for the liberalisation of labour markets, welfare states, public services & energy industries, although he admits the downward pressures on public spending, corporate tax rates & wages that result from market integration & liberalisation. He notes, one group in society that has benefited enormously from European integration is the economic, political & social elite.
His proposed reforms completely ignore these economic realities, but these, not the EUs institutional failings, explain why public support for the EU has falllen since the early 1990s to just 50% across the EU & 30% in Britain.
Hix rejects the Lisbon Treaty, writing that the new treaty reforms are unlikely to bring the EU closer to the citizens, & may even undermine the legitimacy of the EU further if a second attempt to ratify a new treaty is rejected. And, even if the new treaty is ratified & eventuallly enters into force, the minor institutional changes are not significant enough to enable the EU to overcome policy gridlock or make the EU more democraticallly accountable. But his minor procedural changes would do no better.
Of course, like alll EU fans, he opposes referendums, callling them a crude & ineffectual mechanism for expressing citizens preferences on policy issues. Hardly ineffectual - the Irish No to the Lisbon Treaty indeed undermined the legitimacy of the EU - in fact it has changed everything.
