The Lisbon Agenda and 'Neoliberal Communitarian' Citizenship

Several people have sent me links to Philip Jone's latest article on the "Communitarian EU." I admit I was less than thrilled to see things I wrote years ago at the ACL were rewritten as if they were Jone's original thoughts and words. And he's a former London cop. Go figure. UPDATE: Jones apologised and will change the paragraph to a quote by me, at rense,com anyway. I'm really happy about that because otherwise it was a fantastic overview of the communitarian agenda in Europe. Now I can heartily recommend it!

Robert Coones sent me an email about a youtube video called "Chicken Run in the EU Parliament" (20.02.2008) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw7XwexR2ec
and he added this:

"LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE!

"Go to http://X09.eu and demand for a REFERENDUM in your country on the Lisbon Treaty, the rejected EU Constitution in disguise.

"Note on EU Constitution and Lisbon Treaty:

"The people of France and the Netherlands rejected the proposed EU constitution in the 2005 referendums. After this, 5 countries that had promised a referendum cancelled it and the EU Constitution was re-written as an "amending treaty" or a "reform treaty" and named "Treaty of Lisbon". On the basis of this deceit, they now maintain that no more referendums are necessary. Only Ireland is holding a referendum. All other countries are ratifying the disguised EU Constitution without asking the people.

"The EU Constitution establishes a new "European Union" with joint citizenship - an EU "federal" State that is technically and politically empowered to further centralize power in Brussels; a European State comprising of 27 nation-states ruled by a triumvirate of European institutions led by the unelected EU Commission, which serves as the governing body of the Union. With co-decision powers to block legislation, but never to initiate it, the European Council comprises of representatives of the governments of member states. This ineffectual co-decision process is shared with the European Parliament, which is the only directly elected institution and the only channel for European citizens to possibly reverse the totalitarian trend and preserve freedom and democracy in Europe."

This all got me poking around google looking at "communitarian eu" information and I found this:

The Lisbon Agenda and 'Neoliberal Communitarian' Citizenship
http://www.migrationonline.cz/e-library/?x=1975779
Sandy Brian Hager | 16. 3. 07
Source: migrationonline.cz ("A specialised website of the Multicultural Centre Prague focusing on migration issues in Central and Eastern Europe. It maps migration reality, research and policy, offers a range of articles, interviews and reports and promotes debate among experts, public administrators, NGOs and the wider public.")
Theme: Economic Development, Social Welfare & Citizenship

The Lisbon Agenda and Citizenship: Neoliberal Communitarianism

"How do we then go on to make sense of the Lisbon Agenda and its relation to citizenship, especially since the shift to ‘jobs and growth’ under the Barroso Commission? In many ways, it appears as though the European Union is navigating towards what can best be described as a ‘neoliberal communitarian’ citizenship model. ‘Neoliberal communitarianism’ (an arguably more accurate term for the ‘Third Way’) implies a fusion of neoliberalism with a communitarian element that attempts to countervail the most harmful effects of neoliberal restructuring not by re-invigorating the Keynesian welfare state but through attempting to ‘activate the state’ in strengthening (private) community networks (Bieling 2003: 53).

"As a model of citizenship, neoliberal communitarianism signifies a movement away from the social rights of citizenship (considered to hamper global competitiveness), towards an emphasis on providing opportunities for skill upgrading and life-long learning so that citizens will be ‘willing to accept more public duties and social responsibilities’ (Bieling 2003: 65; emphasis in original). The citizens’ role is thus contained within the mantra of ‘no rights without responsibilities’ forming the basis of its citizenship conception, as opposed to ‘‘unconditional’ social citizenship entitlements’ of social democracy which advocate ‘positive welfare intervention by a ‘social investment state’(Ryner 2002: 15). Making the argument that ‘the relationship between individual rights and responsibilities was thrown out of balance from the late 1960s onwards’, advocates of neoliberal communitarianism suggest that a situation of ‘moral hazard’ has arisen amongst EU citizens, and that problems of social instability can be solved by fostering a society which gives more responsibilities and duties to individual citizens (Bieling 2003: 63, 65)." {emphasis added}

Here's a youtube video JAdams sent of Barroso calling for a New World Governance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7D21rPpBrk
How much you want to bet Etzioni's books were used to explain the new EU "citizen's role?" No wonder he calls the EU "a beautiful idea." He must be a guru there too.

As they say at Puertos del Estado under Financials Aids (FONDIP) » EU Programmes:

"The programmes are the financing mechanism through which the European Community support the actions and measures of implementation of the different policies. Due to the wide variety of programmes financed by the EU, it is very difficult to give a precise definition of the communitarian programme.

"The programmes gather a general framework of proceeding, that includes the clear definition of objectives in the short and mid term, the justification of the adoption of the measure, a financial proceeding calendar, the financing mechanims and actions.

"Common characteristics identified for all the programmes:

"* Pluriannual: Although the duration of these programmes can be variable, all the programmes last during certain period of time, in order to optimize the impact of the financed actions and to facilitate the evaluation.
"* Transnational: this is a key feature. The communitarian programmes are different from similar actions carried out at a national level. This European scope is materialized normally by the collaboration of partners of different communitarian countries, that interchange research elements and work jointly in the search of results for problems of communitarian scope.
"* Demonstrative effect: Since the programmes search the solution for problems of European scope, the contribution to the diffusion of the results by all the communitarian territory is evaluated positively. Thus, the celebration of seminaries and conferences constitutes an important part within the communitarian programmes."
http://www.puertos.es/en/ayudas_financieras/programas_comunitarios.html

And again, in case you missed it elsewhere on my blog, in my articles or at the ACL, here's the law behind EU integration and ALL other regional unions, including the NAU:

Application of the Andean Communitarian Law in Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela in Comparison with the European Union Experience. Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series Vol. 6 No. 3 January 2006 http://aei.pitt.edu/8169/