Eurocrats demonstrate a contempt for democracy JENNIFER ORIEL 12:00AM SEPTEMBER 17, 2018 106 Facebook Twitter Email The future of Europe is not Western civilisation. The EU has demanded the dismantling of internal borders used to stop mass immigration from Islamist regimes and Africa. It has issued veiled threats to Britain, censured Hungary and taken aim at dissident states. The EU is not an ally of liberal democracy, in any traditional sense of the word liberal or democracy. It is a leviathan moving against the tide of liberty, democracy and human enlightenment. European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker claims to champion Europe and democracy. But his supposed liberalism is viewed by some as a cover for extremely illiberal practices such as destroying democratic nations by breaking borders. Juncker’s reputation took a blow after London’s The Telegraph quoted him as saying: “When it becomes serious, you have to lie … I’m ready to be insulted as being insufficiently democratic … I am for secret, dark debates.” It is fair to say that on September 12, Juncker delivered an “insufficiently democratic” blueprint for the future of Europe. He insisted that internal borders be dismantled. He outlined plans to make Europe a sovereign actor in international relations with a fully operational defence system. He declared the EU could not count on “old alliances” forged after World War II. And, to celebrate his final state of the union address, he said: “To speak of the future, one must speak of Africa — Europe’s twin continent. Africa is the future.” It would be useful for the unelected officials dismantling Europe one border at a time to clarify which Africa is Europe’s future. Is it the sharia-toting Islamist regimes of the north, or the thieving communists of Africa’s deep racist south that sing songs about white genocide? Don’t expect clarification any time soon. Juncker clearly has more important things to do, such as defending his record as EC president. He has chosen a subtle method of self-promotion — unabashed self-promotion. Juncker did not want to provide a four-year performance review as a part of his final address because: “The time has not yet come to pass judgment on the commission I have the honour of presiding over.” Au contraire, the time is well overdue. In recent years, the EC has presided over the mass migration of terrorists, human traffickers, rapists, welfare cheats and criminals into Europe. It has facilitated the rise of jihad as a European condition by making states open their borders to millions of migrants from the Islamic world at the height of Islamic State’s war on the West. Its open-border policy has resulted in the mass murder of European citizens by Islamists, the mass sexual assault of women and girls, the censorship of free speech to protect Islamist sensibilities and the suppression of dissent. Eurocrats have not confined their contempt for Western culture to the mainland. They took aim when Britons voted to leave the EU to secure a future of self-determination, legal and political liberty. The Brexit referendum produced the largest voter turnout since the 1992 general election. Ahead of the vote, the Tory government committed to rejecting deeper integration with the EU and returning powers over national security, policing, immigration and asylum policy to Britain. The EU’s response to Brexit demonstrates contempt for participatory democracy in action. Juncker warned that Britons would come to regret their choice to leave the EU. Last week, he gave some indication of what regret might look like. He drove a political wedge between Britain and Ireland, saying the EU would work in solidarity to prevent a “hard border” in Northern Ireland, but for good measure he added that the EU would respond if the British government did not uphold the Good Friday Agreement. He blamed the democratic will of the British people for his hardline stance: “It is not the European Union, it is Brexit that risks making the border more visible in Northern Ireland.” That is insufficiently democratic and insufficiently factual. At every moment in the decline of EU solidarity, its executive arm has deepened the gulf between the rulers and the ruled. Eurocrats have refused to compromise on the key issues that turn people against its vision for future Europe. They demean democratic citizens for upholding the basic right of self-determination. In the face of democratic dissent, they use soft-power tactics to categorise free speech as hate speech, and exert external control of state sovereignty and national culture. When democratic citizens vote against the EU’s open border plans by electing patriots, Eurocrats engage in campaigns of vilification. The predictable result is public backlash in the form of populist revolt. Europe’s myopic elites smear patriots as racist and frame democrats as xenophobes. They deny nation-states the sovereign right to secure borders. All of it is unreasonable and offensive, but when the EU threatened to sue nations whose citizens voted for secure border policy in democratic elections, it crossed a red line. The revolt against the EU is spreading across the continent. But Europe’s elites have focused their laser vision on Hungary. On the same day that Juncker’s final state of the union address, they spearheaded a resolution to censure Hungary for failing to uphold EU values. Dutch Green MEP Judith Sargentini has led the charge against Hungary’s patriotic Prime Minister Viktor Orban. The European Parliament voted 448-197 in favour of taking action against Hungary under Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union. While official sanction can result in a member state losing voting rights, there are several separate votes required and Hungary’s conservative allies have indicated they will not support further action. Poland’s foreign ministry issued a statement warning that sanctions would deepen divisions within the EU and distrust in its institutions. Eurocrats run the risk of dividing Europe. Their disregard for democratic self-determination is producing a backlash in the form of populist revolt. The threats they issue to dissenters will create a dissident class of states that seeks strength in unity and solace in strongman states such as Russia. Europeans are facing a future where the only choice left is liberal tyranny or illiberal democracy. JENNIFER ORIEL COLUMNIST Dr Jennifer Oriel is a columnist with a PhD in political science. She writes a weekly column in The Australian. Dr Oriel’s academic work has been featured on the syllabi of Harvard University, the University of... Read more Share this article