Quantcast
Channel: The Sunday Leader » Eye Open
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 8

EU Must Have Only One Vote, Not 28!

0
0

By Blind Spot

The USA comprises 51 member states. Russia is composed of 85. India has 28 member states. Australia has 6. All the member states of these countries have their respective Parliaments, Chief Ministers, Premiers or Governors, and law making powers! However, these member states follow a common monetary, fiscal and foreign policy. They have a single Head of the Union, Federation or State. They are represented in global and world bodies such as the UN, IMF, Word Bank, WTO, Olympic Council and International Sports bodies by a single representative, and such representative can cast only one vote at decision making times.

The European Union is also an economic and political union of 28 member states (see box) that is located primarily in Europe. This Union interacts with the rest of the world through the European Commission, European Council, European Court of Justice, European Central Bank, European Court of Auditors, European Parliament, etc. The European Parliament is elected once every 5 years by all EU citizens. The member states of the European Union have a single market, and a single immigration authority. In 2012, the EU was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The EU Monetary Union was established in 1999 with a majority of member states using the Euro as their legal tender.

The Union maintains permanent diplomatic missions throughout the world and is represented at the UN, WTO, G8 (now G7?), G20, and many other bodies. Very recently, on March 26, 2014, a joint US/EU Conference was held in Brussels at which the President of the EU, Herman Van Rompuy announced that the EU has a common foreign policy on which there is a complete agreement between all member states of the EU. At that meeting, President Van Rompuy also announced that the EU has developed a strong relationship with the US and that they are paying special attention to developing the EU-US links, even further. Accordingly, it is clear that the EU is a single political, economic and social entity, and indeed, they hold out as a single nation in all global fora, and in the eyes of the world.

However, a serious anomaly and inconsistency exists in relation to the EU’s interactions in the international arena. The inconsistency is that the EU, although being a single nation for all intents and purposes, is able to exercise its vote in international fora through all its individual member states. As a result, the EU has a major undue advantage of having 28 separate votes at the UN and other connected UN organizations such as World Bank, IMF and UNHRC, at which their member states pose off as separate countries. The EU also enjoys the same advantage at the Olympic Council and other sports bodies where it votes as 28 different voters! This situation also allows the EU member states to make statements on an individual basis on global issues as if they are separate countries, while, all the time, they are singing off the same hymn sheet provided by the EU. As a result, the EU brazenly uses this power to influence various global decisions with their additional “votes” at the expense of other countries.

The US of course does not object to this cozy arrangement since the US finds this arrangement to their distinct advantage, because the EU is their obedient ally, and helps to buttress the US position with the massive voting strength which the EU wields through this devious mechanism. It is quite obvious the US is well aware that this situation is not in keeping with proper democratic norms, and one has to only imagine as to what the US would have said and done if the Russian Federation were to vote as 85 separate countries through its 85 member states!

As a consequence of the EU having this unwarranted, unentitled and unjustified power, the EU has been able to engineer all types of outcomes at the UN and UN’s connected bodies. A case in point is the recent UNHRC resolution where the US and UK introduced a resolution against Sri Lanka, which received 23 votes out of the 47 member bodies of the UNHRC. However, if an assessment is made as to how many EU member states were in the 23 “countries”that voted for the resolution, it would be revealed that 9 countries which voted for the resolution were Austria, Estonia, Czech Republic, Germany, France, Ireland, Italy, Rumania and UK – all EU member states. That means 9 of the votes at the UNHRC resolution should have actually been counted as one, since those 9 “countries” were mere member states of the EU. Accordingly, that would mean that the US/EU resolution hadreceived only 15 votes, instead of the stated 23!

This is probably why the highly respected former Singapore Permanent Representative to the UN, Kishore Mahbubhani was constrained to state that the Western powers have arrogated for themselves the title of “international community” and is gradually and systematically attempting to brow beat other nations into submission,with all types of unfair allegations and accusations. As he explains in his book, “Can Asians Think?”, “The West in effect is using international institutions, military power and economic resources to run the world in ways that will maintain Western predominance, protect Western interests and promote Western political and economic values. This combination is a prescription for disaster. Simple arithmetic demonstrates Western folly. The West has 800 million people; the rest make up almost 4.7 billion. In the national arena, no Western society would accept a situation where 15 per cent of its population legislated for the remaining 85 per cent. But this is what the West is trying to do globally.”

It is now well known and documented that those who misuse democracy and corrupt global agencies the most are the EU and the US. All right thinking people of the world now realize that the West is unabashedly abusing the global systems to their advantage and is undermining the entire world. In recent times, the US and EU aggressively and unilaterally invaded Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and Pakistan. They unilaterally imposed sanctions on various countries. They destabilized many nations and worked towards regime change in others.

Therefore, It is now time for the world to deal with this threat, which is often cleverly disguised and sugar coated with lofty jargon like human rights, rule of law, international community, humanitarian issues, etc. It is also time for the other countries of the world to unite and gradually steer the world to become less dependent upon the US and the West. A gradual and systematic shift to trade among themselves, and to use each other’s currencies more robustly without being dependent upon the US dollar and the Euro, may be some of the key measures the rest of the world could concentrate on, in order to restore a balance of power and influence. In that regard, China and Russia could be the countries which could give leadership to such an effort, so that the renaissance of Asia and Africa could be ushered, notwithstanding the machinations of the West, which is hiding behind the façade of the so called international community.

In the meantime, as a prerequisite to such effort, a key instrument that the West uses to democratically justify their adventures must be blunted. That instrument is the unfair advantage of the member states of the EU voting separately as individual countries at global fora. This obvious and unfair voting aberration which provides Europe with 28 votes in the global fora, when in fact they should be enjoying just one, is one which openly perpetrates a mega fraud upon the unsuspecting majority of the people of the world. This blatantly corrupt system must therefore be exposed and discontinued. To do so, a global movement must be launched to demand that the EU is relegated to its actual status of having 1 vote only, without being granted the absurd privilege of being a single country with 28 votes in the global fora.


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 8

Latest Images

Trending Articles





Latest Images