Euroscepticism has become a general term for opposition to the process of further European integration. It is not, however, a single ideology, and eurosceptics differ on both their vision of Europe and on the manner in which it is perceived to fail: thus some eurosceptics seek a different form of European Union whilst some seek the withdrawal of their own country from the EU and yet others seek the complete dissolution of the EU.
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EU legislation,is in practice decreed by the Commission in an authoritarian and undemocratic fashion, while the legislature is irrelevant.This belief is correlated with Euromyths , as being a result of EU undemocratic nature.
All EU legislation, passes through a legislative process involving both the European Parliament(representing the people) and the Council of the European Union (composed of national ministers). If legislation is to be adopted it must be accepted by the parliament in most cases and by the Council in all cases. Eurosceptics dismis european parliament as weak and the council as unaccountable.
The supposition that EP is powerless is due to it's recent past as a consultative assembly and the implicit comparison with national parliaments, but this comparison leads to false conclusions. Important differences with national parliaments are the role of committees, bipartisan voting, decentralized political parties ,executive-legislative divide and absence of Government-opposition divide.All thies treats are considered as sings of weakness or unacountability, but this very same treats are found in the US house of representatives, EP is more appropriately compared with the US house of representatives.[1]
That EC decrees EU laws can be traced to the fact that legislative initiative in the EU rest only on the commission,while in member states it is shared between parliament and executive, but less then 15% of legislative initiatives from MPs become law when they don't have the backing of the executive. EP can only propose amendments, but unlike in national parliaments, the executive has no guaranteed majority to secure the passage of its legislation. In national parliaments, amendments are usually proposed by the opposition, who lack a majority for their approval and usually fail. But given the European Parliament's independence, and the need to get majority approval from it, proposals made by its many parties (none of which hold a majority alone) have an unusually high 80% success rate in the adoption of its amendments. Even in controversial proposals, its success rate is 30%, something not mirrored by national legislatures.[1]
Voting in the council is usually done with QMV, and sometimes with unanimity .This means that for the vast majority of EU legislation the corresponding national government has usually voted in favor in the Council. To give an example, up to September 2006, of the 86 pieces of legislation adopted in that year the government of the United Kingdom had voted in favor of the legislation 84 times, abstained from voting twice and never voted against. [2]
In 2004, 37 MEPs from the UK, Poland, Denmark and Sweden founded a new European Parliament group called “Independence and Democracy” from the old Europe of Democracies and Diversities (EDD) group. The main goals of this group are to reject the Treaty establishing a constitution for Europe and to oppose further European integration. Some delegations within the group, notably the United Kingdom Independence Party, advocate the complete withdrawal of their country from the EU.
The group’s leaders are Nigel Farage of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) (10 MEPs) and, since May 2008, Kathy Sinnott from Ireland.[3]
The Union for Europe of the Nations Group is also eurosceptic as are some parties within the left-wing Confederal Group of the European United Left–Nordic Green Left and the European Greens–European Free Alliance. The UK’s largely eurosceptic Conservative Party are currently part of the European People's Party–European Democrats grouping in the European Parliament, which has mainly a pro-European agenda. However the party is currently committed to withdrawing from the EPP as soon as a new grouping, to be entitled Movement for European Reform, can recruit enough members to be viable.
Euroscepticism in the United Kingdom (UK) is a very controversial issue and has been a significant element in British politics since the inception of the European Economic Community (EEC), the predecessor to the European Union (EU). Eurosceptic views have not diminished following UK membership of the Union. However, their nature and bases have tended to change over the years.
The EU has received strong criticism from members of some religious groups, with dispensationalist views. They complain that the EU is rooted too strongly in secular humanism and undermines traditional Christianity with its policies. Some go as far to describe the EU as the beginnings of the one-world empire allegedly foretold in Bible prophecy, as for example some monks at Mount Athos [4].