[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 30 (Thursday, March 8, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E326]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                       EUROPEAN COURT OF JUSTICE

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. DOUG BEREUTER

                              of nebraska

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 8, 2001

  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, earlier this week the European Court of 
Justice, the supreme judicial body of the European Union, ruled that a 
former employee of the European Commission (EC), Mr. Bernard Connolly, 
was legitimately fired by the Commission after he published a book 
critical of the European Monetary Union. Although the court, in ruling 
against Mr. Connolly's appeal of his sacking, attempted to cloak its 
decision in the right of the EC to take disciplinary action when an 
employee's behavior undermined the trust and confidence that needs to 
exist between employee and employer (Connolly had published his book 
without prior permission from the EC), it went on to ascribe to the EC 
the right to curb dissent and punish individuals who ``damaged the 
institutions image and reputation.'' In making this kind of argument, 
the Court comes disturbingly close to harkening back to the discredited 
concept of seditious libel.
  The European Union is already under fire because of the lack of 
democracy in the way many of its institutions, particularly the 
European Commission, has operated. There is a lack of transparency in 
the manner in which regulations are established and promulgated, there 
is said to be a significant lack of accountability on the part of 
certain important categories of senior EU officials, there is said to 
be too little oversight exercised by institutions representing the 
citizens of Europe, and the legislative branch, the European 
Parliament, which under a regular democracy would fulfill such 
functions, is still in only the initial stages of asserting such 
prerogatives more than a quarter of a century after its establishment. 
In the light of this remaining democratic deficit, the European Court 
of Justice's ruling against Mr. Connolly is not so much surprising as 
it is alarming.
  Mr. Speaker, it has been longstanding policy of the United States to 
support the creation of first, the European Economic Community, which 
became the European Community, and then in 1992, the European Union. It 
made sense from the standpoint of our own interests to have an 
overarching institution which could serve as a brake upon the possible 
resurgence of nationalism and conflict on the European continent, and 
to have our closest trading partners organized as a single market with 
a single set of regulations for us to do business on the other side of 
the Atlantic.
  Now, however, we are seeing much more ambitious and far reaching 
efforts aimed at creating, if not a ``United States of Europe,'' then a 
federated Europe with as many of the attributes of a single state as 
can be agreed upon by its member nations. The European Security and 
Defense Policy is one manifestation of these efforts, and it has 
certainly caused a great deal of concern because of the potential to 
weaken NATO and undermine the solidarity of the North Atlantic 
Alliance. Another manifestation is the emergence within the European 
Commission of much more strident economic and trade policies which have 
fostered increasingly bitter and divisive disputes between the U.S. and 
our European trading partners.
  The ruling of the European Court of Justice in the Connolly case 
strikes at the heart of our common traditions and institutions which 
are pinned upon basic precepts of human rights. None of which is more 
fundamental than freedom of speech. If the EU truly believes that it 
can set itself up to be beyond the reach of spoken or written criticism 
of its policies, then Mr. Connolly's statement, ``The Court is acting 
as the sinister organ of a tyranny in the making'' is completely 
accurate, and those of us who value the trans-Atlantic relationship 
need vigorously to speak out against it. Our relationship with our 
friends in Europe will only ensure so long as we continue to hold in 
common our belief that human rights are fundamental in our society, and 
our faith in the traditions and institutions that underpin our 
democratic form of governance.

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