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The EU Constitution - a threat to freedom
Professor Roland Vaubel
Simon Heffer
Mr Heffer is a well known broadcaster and columnist with The Daily Mail. He is known and respected for his cogent views. He was a Leader Writer and Party Sketch Writer for The Daily Telegraph where he was also Deputy Editor. Simon Heffer was also Political Correspondent and Deputy Editor of The Spectator.
Simon Heffer’s publications include Like the Roman: the life of Enoch Powell and Nor Shall my Sword: the reinvention of England.
Simon Heffer will talk on the EU Constitution.
Professor Roland Vaubel
Why the European Conventional wisdom is a threat to freedom
The European Conventional wisdom assumes that government in Europe ought to be centralised. But the centralisation of government is always a threat to freedom because it gives government more power over the citizen. There a two reasons for this.
First, political centralisation raises the cost of exit for the citizens: if a local or national government raises taxes or imposes tighter regulations or begins to persecute minorities, it is not very difficult to escape to a neighbouring country. But if all governments do it, there is no escape, and the state is much more powerful.
Second, the centralisation of government reduces the scope for comparison - i.e., yardstick competition - among governments. If the citizens cannot compare their government's performance with the performance of other governments, democratic control is impaired. Democracy benefits from decentralisation.
In the last 500 years, political decentralisation has been the secret of Europe's success as David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Edward Gibbon, Max Weber, Eric Jones and Douglas North have pointed out. Europe's fragmentation - the competition among rulers - explains why modern science and technology, the enlightenment and the industrial revolution have developed in Europe and not in China, India or the Ottoman Empire which, at about 1500, were still at a comparable level of civilisation.
Last year, the European Convention for the Future of Europe has proposed a Constitutional Treaty which would increase the centralisation of government in Europe. Its proposal is a threat to freedom for essentially five reasons:
Let me conclude: The Constitutional Treaty proposed by the EU Convention is a recipe for ever tighter regulation. It would impair Europe's competitiveness in the global economy, and it is a serious threat to freedom.