By Massimo D'Alema
ROME, Oct 7 2013 (IPS)

“One of the fundamental contradictions is this: that whereas economic life has internationalism, or better still cosmopolitanism, as a necessary premise, state life has developed ever more in the direction of ‘nationalism,’ of ‘self-sufficiency’ and so on.”

So wrote Antonio Gramsci (Prison Notebooks 17, 1933) and the scenario he was considering was that of the great transformations that followed the 1929 stock market crash.

We are now living in the age of globalisation and the processes that Gramsci intuitively foresaw have demonstrated their potential, far beyond the hegemony of Fordism and the U.S. model. At this time of global financial capitalism, the crisis of democracy linked to the loss of sovereignty by nation states seems to have reached breaking point.

Massimo D’Alema

It is not a coincidence that Europe should be the epicentre of this crisis, above all because it is this continent where the democratic experience of national states has reached its height and achieved a happy synthesis between individual freedoms and social inclusion, between democratic participation and solidarity.

It should therefore not be surprising that this part of the world, which has enjoyed a prolonged period of democracy and well-being, particularly in the second half of the 20th century, has most acutely felt the depth of the crisis and the dearth of hopeful prospects.

It has become clear that, without effective coordination of economic development policies and harmonisation of fiscal and social rules, and without a significant federal budget for the European Union, the single European currency – the euro – instead of being the basis for broader integration, has ended up accentuating the imbalances and inequalities between countries with different levels of productivity and competitiveness.

Politics has been absent from the EU in recent years, and a mistaken attempt has been made to replace it with “government by rules,” using percentages, criteria and sanctions. But as Romano Prodi says, rules are stupid without flexibility and the freedom of autonomous leadership legitimated by the capability to apply them intelligently.

In effect, government by rules and the dogma of monetary stability have led to control by the ideology of austerity, which is now blocking growth and job creation.

As a result, the technocratic nature of European governance has been accentuated, nurturing a growing perception in many countries of alienation and hostile public opinion. Technocracy and populism are today the two faces of the European democratic crisis.

In spite of the unprecedented gravity of the crisis, it could provide an opportunity for a qualitative leap forward, if there is a substantive change in EU policies.

This would mean orienting the EU’s action towards growth and employment, as several progressive governments, like that of France, are demanding. Italy’s, too, could contribute in this direction.

An effective solidarity mechanism needs to be applied to public debt to permit the introduction of lower interest rates and the containment of the forces of speculation that operate in the markets, and the fiscal pact should be interpreted flexibly and intelligently so that the necessary investments for relaunching growth and the recovery of competitiveness are not impeded.

And the EU budget must be reinforced in order for it to have the capability to reduce imbalances, harmonise growth and direct it towards innovative goals in the fields of research and the environment.

These changes are essential, yet they are hard to achieve within the EU’s present intergovernmental system. A profound change is needed, impelled by politics, which will have to involve a European “political battle” between different visions for the future of the continent.

The Party of European Socialists (PES) approved its fundamental programme in late June in Sofia, becoming the first political force in the bloc to adopt a platform of this type and scope.

This is an important step forward and it produced a manifesto containing a wealth of propositions on labour, social justice, citizen participation and transparency in government actions.

However, I believe support for a political project for Europe has not yet mustered enough strength.

Residual national resistances are obstructing the affirmation of the ideal of a Federal Europe, which is the only solution for democratic acceleration towards regional integration.

Obviously, the idea is not to create a fearsome European super-state, but to prevent decision-making power from being confined to the hands of a powerful “supertechnocracy” that ultimately depends almost exclusively on the governments of the strongest countries.

Europe must make a decisive shift towards putting politics at the centre of European institutions and, at the same time, bringing Europe into the politics and the debates of national parties.

The next European elections, in June 2014, may provide a suitable opportunity.

The PES’s decision that their candidate to the presidency of the European Commission, the EU’s executive organ, will be elected by vote, along with a programme of renewal, if it is adopted by other regional parties, may change the working of the institutions from the ground up and give a new significance to the role of the parties.

This would transform the elections into a pronouncement on the future government of Europe and its basic options, instead of a series of referendums on the present operation of the EU, the results of which could be disastrous for pro-Europeanists.

It would be fair – and not in contradiction with the current Treaty – for the European Council to accept its own role to be limited in relation to the leader that has the greatest consensus in the European Parliament, and therefore is backed by the will of the electorate.
(END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, was appointed last week as the secretary-general's Special Envoy to the Great Lakes region of Africa. Credit: UN Photo/Ky Chung

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 20 2013 (IPS)

A potential ad from the United Nations to be placed in a weekly London newsmagazine could possibly read: Vacancy for ex-head of government or ex-head of state; lucrative globe-trotting political assignments in Asia, Africa or Latin America; attractive per diem; first or business class travel; five star hotels; and guaranteed diplomatic immunity (including from the International Criminal Court).

Clearly, the United Nations is fast turning out to be a blissful second home for unemployed former world leaders – proving there is life after retirement, resignation or being kicked out of office.

As part of a growing trend, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who has held office since Jan. 2007, has been naming former prime ministers and presidents either as agency heads or as U.N. Special Envoys.

The newest entrant to the elite group is Mary Robinson, former Irish president (1990 to 1997), who was appointed last week as the secretary-general’s Special Envoy to the Great Lakes region of Africa.

Robinson was also U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights during 1997-2002 and was appointed to that post by former Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

The more recent political leaders on a U.N. salary or a U.N. per diem include: Romano Prodi, prime minister of Italy (1996-1998 and 2006-2008) as U.N. Special Envoy for the Sahel and Jose Ramos-Horta, president of Timor-Leste (2007-2012) as head of the U.N. Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Guinea-Bissau.

Another ex-head of government, Jorge Sampaio, president of Portugal (1996-2006), quit last month as High Representative of the U.N. Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) after completing his term of office since April 2007.

Last week, Michelle Bachelet, former president of Chile (2006-2010), stepped down as Under-Secretary-General (USG) for U.N. Women, where she was heading the U.N.’s newly-minted office since July 2010.

Bachelet said she was resigning for “personal reasons” but the speculation in the corridors of the U.N. is that she is planning to run once again for president of Chile.

Another former head of government, Helen Clark, prime minister of New Zealand (1999-2008), was the first woman to be appointed as administrator of the U.N. Development Programme (since April 2009), and also chair of the U.N. Development Group.

Although her four-year term ends next month, there are strong indications the secretary-general will renew her tenure for an additional four years.

The secretary-general’s appointments for agency heads (including U.N. Development Programme, U.N. Population Fund, U.N. children’s agency UNICEF) have all to be confirmed by the 193-member General Assembly, the U.N.’s highest policy making body.

But no appointments have been rejected so far.

Another pending appointment is the secretary-general of the Geneva-based U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), which falls vacant later this year.

At a diplomatic reception last week, a senior U.N. official was heard confessing to a group of envoys about a proposal to appoint former French President Nicolas Sarkozy (2007-2012) as a Special Envoy for a political hotspot in Africa.

The French government, which considers Sarkozy a discredited politician, was apparently outraged about the proposed appointment.

As a result, the proposal never got off the 38th floor of the secretary-general’s office.

When Ban named a 27-member High-Level Panel to advise him on the global development framework for the U.N.’s post-2015 agenda, he went one step higher: he picked three current heads of government to co-chair: President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, and British Prime Minister David Cameron.

Chakravarthi Raghavan, a veteran journalist who covered the United Nations during 1962-71 and a one-time president of the U.N. Correspondents Association (UNCA), told IPS, “I can’t recall any such highflying personalities/heads of governments or states being named special envoys or to top U.N. posts.”

He said there were one or two cases from Central America or Latin America, where governments had been overthrown in coups, and personalities from overthrown governments were appointed.

Jose Rolz-Bennet of Guatemala was one such appointment – as USG for Special Political Affairs – under then Secretary-General U.Thant (1961-71).

Raghavan, who currently covers the United Nations in Geneva, said, “I think it was only (Secretary-General) Boutros Boutros-Ghali (of Egypt) who tried to equate his job with that of a head of state, and would visit only those countries that agreed to extend that kind of status to him.”

Until then, he said, secretaries-general were treated on par with foreign ministers, and it was foreign ministers who signed credentials of U.N. permanent representatives and delegates to the General Assembly.

“Boutros did name some special envoys, as did Kofi, but they were mainly people who had been ambassadors at the U.N.”, said Raghavan.

The inflation of jobs as special envoys at USG levels, and then former heads of states as special envoys or to U.N. secretariat posts perhaps began then, he added.

“But Ban Ki-moon has really a very high opinion of himself, and may be preparing himself, after leaving office, to run for high office in Korea,” said Raghavan.

Asked if these politicians are qualified for their jobs purely because they were either former heads of government or current heads, James A. Paul, senior advisor at the Global Policy Forum (GPF), told IPS, “Frankly, it depends on who they are and what kind of a job we can expect of them.

“The problem is not this, it seems to me, but rather the general decline in effectiveness of the U.N. in this period, the abysmally low level of leadership offered by the present secretary-general, and the determination of the great powers to defend a grossly unstable and unjust global order by all means necessary,” said Paul, a longstanding U.N. expert and former GPF executive director.

Raghavan told IPS that some smaller member countries did name prominent personalities as their envoys to the U.N. – but that was probably to get them out of domestic politics, and keep them busy elsewhere.

“But that is entirely different from the U.N. head appointing such people to serve under him,” he said.

And every secretary-general, he noted, seems to make his predecessor look better.