You may think about the Brexit what you want, but once again the EU-wide reactions on the democratic decision of the British people are making clear one thing, (namely) the undemocratic nature of the EU.
Reminder: After the Second World War, Europe was looking for a postwar order, to choose between a liberal merger of National States with a free trade agreement as defined then by the EFTA, and the United States of Europe favoured by the US, which were already the objective when the European Economic Community, the EEC, was founded.
The USA vetoed a European Free Trade Area, which would have left political autonomy to the countries. The way towards the EU was the way to centralization of power in Brussels.
The “shock waves” having shaken the financial and stock markets the day after the vote and having triggered the “historical decline” of the British pound, are not a natural phenomenon. They are an expression of power struggles among powerful global players – with winners and losers – whose outcome probably no one can predict.
Over all the noise, we should not forget the nature of the EU. The question is not whether you can eat French or Italian cuisine in London, or that English students can study in the rest of Europe and vice versa.
The core of the political union is the so-called single market of 500 million consumers, a financial market created by the financial industry and for the financial industry, where the big capital can circulate freely and may determine politics. Countries wishing to participate in the internal market have to give up their political self-determination to a large extent and to assume the laws of the Brussel’s Headquarter: EU law takes precedence over national law!
After the NO to the EEA in 2012, Switzerland has secured its participation in the EU internal market by bilateral agreements, and it, too, is increasingly exposed to pressure by the EU. For some time the EU tried to impose an “institutional framework agreement” on Switzerland, forcing Switzerland to automatically take over EU law. The EU is trying to make other agreements with Switzerland depending on this framework agreement.
Already speculations on the accession of England to EFTA are emerging – and be aware – to an EFTA associated with the EEA. Switzerland is the only EFTA member not having joined the EEA. And with good reason!
One can only welcome that – according to the “Neue Zürcher Zeitung” of 28 June – the President of the Federal Council, Schneider Ammann, assured: “Because of the Brexit decision, Switzerland has no intention to question its opposition to an EEA accession”. We will take him at his word.
It is also gratifying to observe that the voices are multipling for encouraging the Federal Council to an unilateral implementation of the referendum against the mass immigration and for asking the Federal Council to not further accept the blackmailing by the EU. •
“The Brexit-chaos did not break out because there was too much direct democracy involved, but because there had been too little previously. The Brexit was a democratic rebellion, perhaps even a kind of democratic self-defense of the forgotten.” [...]
“’More public accessability’, is another frequently heard slogan these days, and in Brussels everybody wants to improve information anyway. No objections can be made with regard to this. But more democracy would be even better, and from time to time a referendum – at all levels – would be best. Direct democracy does not create miracles or wealth automatically, but is instead a very slow machine for creating sustainable compromise. Linked with a strong federalism, it forms a political early warning system that can prevent dam failures like a Brexit. And it ensures a solid grounding of the elites.”
Source: Martin Beglinger, “Nach dem Brexit: Mehr Demokratie, jetzt!”, (After Brexit: More democracy, now!), “Neue Zürcher Zeitung”, Meinung und Debatte
(Opinion and debate), 30 June 2016
(Translation Current Concerns)
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