The Czech Republic and the EU Enlargement

by Dalibor Plichta

The Czech Republic population was confronted with the question of the enlargement of the EU and future membership in the EU as if it were a natural law.

In our country European 'integration' is being pushed by certain 'elites' which declare that at all costs membership in the EU is or will be a positive step, regardless of the potential federal constitution of the EU at the time of our entry. We are given the answer that no other possibiltiy exists for us, there is no other alternative.

The official policy completely omits or excludes the fact that European 'integration' could lead to dominance by several or even one powerful member state over the small or smaller ones. It excludes the danger that free cooperation could be replaced by the hegemony of one state or of several of them.

The Czech Republic's official policy and the mass media, which is more or less in foreign hands, systematically suppress the fact that the EU is increasingly influenced by bureaucrats, technocrats and other forces that are not subject to democratic political controls and responsibility.

Our public, fed with talks of the democratism of the EU, is not informed about completely undemocratic statements by varous leading Euro-unionist personalities. Our public does not know that some of them think that 'Europe is too important a subject to be left to politicians', to be left to democratic politics. Nowhere in our mass media it is possible to find statements such as the following one uttered by the former French Prime Minister Raymond Barre: 'I have never understood why public opinion about European ideas should be taken into account.'

Such elitist mentality now also penetrates the style of politics. We can even hear now voices saying that eminently important political issues should be removed from the hands of politicians.

The efforts of the 'elites' to act without taking public opinion into account are connected with the campaign against national states and their sovereignty, considered by these circles as a 'false God'.

Instead, they impose on European nations the supranational sovereignty of the future federalized European Union, saying that supranational sovereignty is preferable to the self-determination of nations that was pushed in past centuries.

These attitudes endanger not only the self-determination of nations and their independence from foreign domination, they also endanger the preservation of democracy within the state.

Some of these elitists are conscious of this and sometimes they are ready to admit that in superstates with several hundred million people democracy is impracticable.

However, the conclusion they then draw is incorrrect, namely that is is necessary to govern in an undemocratic manner, not in accordance with the will of the people and nation.

Instead of giving up the superstate, since it is impossible to govern it in a democratic way, they abandon, they sacrifice democracy. This is done without any regrets. Democracy always presents an obstacle to power ambitions which can be achieved much more easily without democracy, by means of the technocrats, the bureaucrats, managers, and by using manipulation and oppression.

The impossibity of governing superstates in a democratic way applies just as well to the EU superstate.

It is our conviction therefore that: firstly, European cooperation should not have the form of a superstate and it should function on the basis of free cooperation of sovereign states; secondly, with regard to democracy, European cooperation must not be left to 'elites', experts, bureaucrats and technocrats devoid of any democratic legitimation. It must not be removed from the hands of politicians and nations, from democratic policy. Democracy and sovereignty of national states much not be sacrificed to the hegemonial plans of some candidates for world rule.

Small is beautiful, particularly in politics because the small state has the best chance to realize democracy and all it promises: freedom, justice, the dignity of the individual as well as the nation. Superstates with their supranational sovereignty have other aims.

TEAM, 6th Annual General Meeting in Prague, 2002