The Commission has published a Communication to the European Council with the title "A Citizen's Agenda - Delivering Results for Europe".
That Communication speaks for Europe's citizens. It says that citizens want this or that.
However, the Commission has no mandate to speak for Europe's citizens. Nor are the far-fetched assertions in the Communication backed up by any polling data.
The last time citizens had an opportunity to speak for themselves, they made it clear in the French and Dutch Constitution referendums that they are not interested in even more European unification. The Commission should listen to the citizens, instead of making up statements of "what citizens want".
I am particularly strongly opposed to the idea expressed in the Communication that citizens want more EU activity in the field of Freedom, Security and Justice. The Commission wants to abolish current requirements of unanimity and give European legislators a blank check to meddle in Member States' criminal law with majority decisions.
This is extremely dangerous, since Member States' constitutional human rights guarantees are much less effective against European legislation than against national legislation, as discussed a couple of days ago here.
Any Commission proposals to give more criminal law legislation power to the EU should be rejected. This is the last thing Europe's citizens need.
And if someone actually bothered to poll citizens if they want to give EU legislators a blank check to violate their human rights, I strongly doubt that the result would be much different than in the Constitution referendums.
That is true especially after the Surveillance Directive outrage clearly shows that EU legislators are not worthy of any trust that they won't violate human rights, even without the check of national Constitutional Courts in place.
Posted by Karl-Friedrich Lenz at May 16, 2006 11:47 AM