My friend ideoblogue asked me yesterday whether I thought The Netherlands would have another referendum on the new European treaty, and if so, what the outcome would be. Here, for all those interested, my two pennies’ worth.
So, both of you, be warned. This is going to be an exercise in Dutch Parliamentary tradition. In short (!) the decision on a referendum has to be taken by the Dutch coalition government, which consists of Christian-Democrats, Social-Democrats and the small but important Christian Union. They are however waiting for advice on the matter from the Council of State, a sui generis institution whose titular head is, believe it or not, the Queen. Who is also head of the government. So she is in fact advising herself on what decision to take.
Anyway, the Council is expected to advise against a referendum, because the treaty is stripped of most of it’s ‘constitutional’ elements. Not that it really matters, because in reality the government has already decided. In the ‘ coalition agreement’, the basis for the cooperation between the government parties, a referendum has already been ruled out!
Complicated, you say? But we haven’t even started yet! So the government will most likely say no to a new referendum, thereby all but insuring the ratification of the new treaty in The Netherlands. Or so it would seem. Because the Social-Democratic party, although bound by the coalition agreement, is split on the issue of a referendum. It is very possible that they will side with other parties in the Second (lower) Chamber of Parliament, to create a temporary initiative law calling for a referendum, thereby overruling their own ministers in the cabinet. This initiative procedure is how the previous referendum came about.
So there will be a referendum after all? Eh, not quite. Because this law has to pass through the First Chamber of Parliament, the Senate. And in the Senate, unlike in the Second Chamber, opponents of a referendum are in the majority. So, all in all, a new referendum seems, perhaps not impossible, but at least mathematically highly improbable.
Lost me? Good. Then at least I succeeded in demonstrating one big flaw of the new treaty. Giving more power to national parliaments is not the good idea it might seem at first sight. Can you imagine trying to figure out the parliamentary procedures of 25 or more member states? For what it’s worth, give me Brussels any day. Perhaps less democratic, but a hell of a lot easier to understand. And that’s saying something.
It’s common knowledge that Russia is rife with corruption and
cronyism. Rare is the Western tourist who returns from St Petersburg
without a dinner-party tale about ‘The Terrible Traffic Policeman’ or
some other familiar Russian character. Surveys such as Transparency
International’s Corruptions Perceptions Index support this image -
Russia ranks 127 out of 142 countries, just one place above Rwanda.
But after three months of living and working in Moscow, no-one had
asked me to pay a bribe. I hadn’t even seen anyone pay a bribe. I
started to worry that I was living an excessively sheltered life and
missing out on the ‘real Russian experience.’ Actually, it turned out
that my experience is quite normal.
When asked the question (for TI’s Global Corruption Barometer) “In the
past 12 months, have you or anyone in your household paid a bribe in
any form?” only 8% of Russians answered “Yes.” Compare that to 17% in
Greece and the Czech Republic, or 20% in Romania. When asked to rate
the extent to which “corruption affects family and personal life,”
Russia scored just 1.9 out of 5. Compare that to an average 2.6 for
North America and 2.8 for South East Europe and things in Russia look
quite rosy.
What can explain the huge disparity between the results of the
Corruptions Perceptions Index and the Global Corruption Barometer?
Simple: the CPI is a survey of experts such as businessmen and policy
analysts, whereas the Barometer is a survey of general public opinion.
The experts in the CPI survey see the rampant corruption in the sphere
of political parties, arms deals, oligarchs and oil – but the vast
majority of Russians do not live in that world. The level of petty
corruption - everyday, street-level bribery - is actually slightly
lower in Russia than the global average and significantly lower than
in South East European countries such as Greece or Romania.
How can corruption be so rife in the elite spheres, but relatively
modest at the grassroots?
The economist Pranab Bardhan offers one interesting explanation: in
countries with a strong central state, corruption is centralised to
the single source of power. You only have to pay once – he calls it
‘one–stop-shopping.’ In a decentralised system, you have to pay bribes
all over the place to get the same job done. Perhaps Putin’s policy of
strong central government has succeeded in centralising corruption?
An alternative explanation could be the lack of media reporting of
cases of corruption in the Russian media. Research in Ukraine showed
that the more cases of corruption are reported in the mass media, the
more the public thinks that institutions are bribeable, so they offer
more bribes and thus perpetuate the corruption.
So why are Westerners so convinced of Russia’s rampant corruption problem?
Probably because they pay a lot more bribes than Russians. The “I
think you will take a bribe so I will offer you one” mentality may
have something to do with it. The more scare-stories they read about
Russian corruption, the more Westerners come here expecting to bribe
everyone from the passport official to the ice-cream vendor. As soon
as they encounter a touch of halting Russian bureaucracy, their first
response is to wave a 100 ruble note. What’s more, they don’t speak
the language so they can’t argue their way out of the situation; and
anyhow 100 rubles [about 4 USD] is nothing to most Westerners here.
(Incidentally, the latter also applies to rich Russians who are quite
happy to pay a petty sum to oil the wheels…) So Westerners pay more
bribes, and everybody knows it. Result? Westerners (and rich Russians)
get asked for more bribes than anybody else, and the vicious circle
continues.
Corruption is ultimately all about perceptions, and perceptions are
based on personal experience. But perhaps Westerners should be a
little less hasty in assuming that their experiences in Russia are
typical – the evidence suggests otherwise.
If it is true that beauty hides in the small details, Bulgarians are the quintessential history hedonists. Did you know that Bulgaria is the only country in Europe which managed to keep its original name for more than 13 centuries? Yes, and the constitution we adopted in 1878 was the second most liberal in Europe after the Belgian one (whatever that means). Facts known to every Bulgarian with some interest in history. Facts that are interesting, curious, yet so small and useless that their relevance is questionable.
Re-burying ancient kings always has an energising effect on society. However, it leaves less space for discourse on far more important issues like reconsidering our immediate past, the 45 years of communist rule or the reason for country’s almost blind loyalty to the Soviet Union. Happily, there are signs of increased interest towards this period - two web-based projects give people the opportunity to share their accounts of communism. The first one has a bit more personal touch, the other one is set out to explore the atrocities of the regime. On the other side of the political spectrum, recently there was an international conference on Georgi Dimitrov (Bulgaria’s first communist leader after the Second World War, who also made it to the cover of Life magazine). Social scientists from all over the world (including Cuba) spend the weekend singing praises to one of the best pupils of Stalin.
The one thing which unites all efforts to explore Bulgaria’s communist past is their total irrelevance for an overwhelming part of the population. Terribly important issues are being disregarded and swept under the rug. A recent opinion poll showed that only 20% of the population thinks it is important to open the files of the communist secret services (a hot issue in media and politics and an opportunity to discredit your political opponent by accusing him of cooperation with the secret services).
Bulgarian society is stuck in blissful ignorance about the really important issues in the country’s hisotry. Whether it is social apathy or the unwillingness to revisit traumatic experiences, people simply can’t be bothered. After all, arguing about whether the first Bulgarian kingdom was founded in 681 or in 679 is a lot easier, isn’t it?
