International The Telegraph

INTERNATIONAL

-Catherine Wihtol de Wenden, Research Director, CNRS-CERI, Paris

The European citizen was born in Masstricht-Holland- on February 7, 1992 with the signing of the European Union treaty. European citizenship is conferred automatically on nationals of member countries, but seems to short of content in the absence of a common currency, a common language, a common history or any strong constituent symbols. Only when the lessons of the past, memory, the invention of traditions, have been brought to bear on the development of a new citizen’s voluntary and political identity, will European citizenship be fully achieved.

Being a citizen in Europe is a serious undertaking that goes well beyond its founding text, article 8 of the Masstricht treaty. Firstly, it means dissociating citizenship from nationality, a constitutional innovation. Then it come elaborating a common culture across state frontiers, resulting in a transnational citizenship that puts politics into harmony with the circulation of people, ideas and goods. Lastly, it means accepting new civic values unknown to the 1789 Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man and the citizen: non-discrimination; cultural plurality leading to a multiplicity of references and choices; solidarity; and secularism.

At a time of political Union and opening to the East, citizenship is searching for an identity. The reawakening of nationalism’s in the East, the emergence of minorities within the Europe of the fifteen, the exclusion from European citizenship of populations on the margins of Europe, are proof of this if any is needed. But above all, European citizenship also seems to be reinforcing the formation of a dual society. On the basis of European civility and urbanity, limited to individuals who share a common "language" (democracy, rule of law, aspiration to a political consensus, reconciliation with enterprise, individualism and the cultivation of private life), there is taking shape a citizens’ Europe which is also a two-speed Europe.

From a workers’ Europe to a citizens’ Europe:

A social texture is taking shape, centered on urban values incorporating a middle-class ideology, and with excluded groups around the edges: this is the citizens’ Europe which is replacing the workers’ Europe. Compared to the worker of 1957, the citizen of 1992 is assumed to have a basic knowledge of the European institutions, to be able to assert citizenship in them while knowing their limits, and to be vigilant towards any possibility of drifting among those in charge (secrecy, bureaucracy, lobbying, the proliferation of committees of experts) or the Europe of the "businessmen". The citizens’ of Europe that took a qualitative leap forward at Masstricht can not be constructed by decree or by a treaty….

Article 8.1 of the Masstricht treaty stipulates that "’any person having the nationality of a member state is a citizen of the Union". However, the Nation, as a community, defines itself in different ways: politically (as in the French case based on the social contract, the foundation of national consensus symbolized by the constitution), culturally (as in the German case) or territorially (as with Britain). So the definition of European varies with the way nationality is defined in different countries, with their different historical consciousness, in some cases colored by a colonial past.

In many ways, European citizenship based on reciprocity of rights between European seems to be a new frontier. As long as nationality of the receiving country was still the only difference between the nationals and foreigners, the distinction remained a binary one, and tended to diminish with the acquisition of equal social rights by immigrants who, for the most part, were workers. The situation has changed with the introduction of the category of Europeans, accentuating the difference of status between community and non-community nationals.

In its march towards unification, the European Community has seen the gradual transformation of freedom of circulation for workers within a common market into freedom of circulation for individuals within the frontiers of the Community, and then recognition of citizenship of the European Union. This freedom of access and abode was initiated before Masstricht, under the Schengen accords, signed on June 14, 1985, on the elimination of internal frontiers between the signatory countries and the strengthening of their external frontiers.

Any citizen of the Union residing in a member State of which he or she is not a national will have the right to vote or stand for election in municipal and the European elections. While the second ruling was first applied in the European elections of June 9 and 12, 1994, the first has been put off for the time being, until the municipal elections of 2001. Is Union citizenship going to complete and enrich national citizenship? Will it help compensate for the democratic shortfall implicit in a parliament whose powers are limited in comparison with those of national parliaments, and which is far more remote from its electors?

If need be, the European citizen who feels his rights are being flouted under Community law can seek redress in the European Union Court of Justice in Luxembourg, either through a national jurisdiction or, in some cases, directly.

Constructing the European myth: Some form of European civic instruction of common historical references will be essential for the realization of a cultural Europe resting on the multiplication of these symbols. Forty years is a short period for the construction of a common cultural identity among individuals who were in conflict not so long ago, and who have no consciousness of a collective identity.

European citizenship is not merely an intractable institutional puzzle or "the last utopia". It is a whole political and philosophic problematic for a post-national society. European citizenship is a compromise between a liberal concept of citizenship and its voluntarist component; between a political citizenship and a cultural one.

Call for crusade against corruption in B’desh

-Obaidul Huq, Dhaka

In course of her concluding speech at the 18th session of the Jatiya Sangsad Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina referred in unambiguous terms to terrorism and corruption rampant in the country that corrode the very fabric of society and administration. In her characteristic forthright manner she said that a job seeker unwilling to bribe the person concerned would certainly be disappointed even if he was armed with her (the prime minister’s) recommendation. The prime minister’s recommendation will, of course, be read and perhaps reread with due respect, but the job goes to the one who pays for it.

This is the obligatory practice, the unwritten rule that has the force and sanction of law. This is the accepted state of affairs in the country where practically nothing is done unless you grease the palms of the people who get fat salaries, allowances, increments and promotions from the public treasury to do the same things. Nothing is obtained gratis. Under the table payments have no longer to be made secretly. Now the words "illegal gratification" do not carry a mean meaning. How can there be any thing mean about one’s satisfaction? Over two hundred years ago George Washington wrote in his Moral Maxims "Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder".

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s agonizing appraisal of the moral situation in Bangladesh reminds us of the accusing words of the former US President Harry Truman: "’The President spends most of his time kissing people on the cheek in order to get them to do what they ought to do without getting kissed".

Although Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is the head of government that is responsible for smooth running of the country’s administration she alone can not be blamed for the moral decline. Obviously, it cannot be just over person’s war against the widespread invasion of corruption. With the conscience of the nation in a state of suspended animation, if not already a casualty, it is hardly possible to eradicate the evils of corruption single-handedly. There is a clear ring of deep sorrow in the Prime Minister’s confessional speech, which also contains a sincere inarticulate call to the people, at large to rise to the occasion and face the great challenge. Admittedly, efforts over the years for moral rejuvenation have not produced the desired results. In such a critical situation facing the nation it is imperative on the part of of all including the government and the opposition to part up a strongly united front and free the mighty challenge of national survival.

The Prime Minister really deserves to be warmly commended for facing the truth and boldly presenting a correct picture of the desperate conditions obtaining in the country. Instead of screening the facts and observing ominous silence over the menacing state of affairs she has taken the people in to confidence and sought their unconditional cooperation in combating the monster of pervasive corruption. It must be acknowledged and treated as a national imperative and it brooks no delay.

Considering the urgency of the matter, let us hope the danger signal sounded by the prime minister in her Sangsad speech will be promptly followed by appropriate action to root out the evil and that the people irrespective of sects and schisms will respond wholeheartedly to the call for ridding the society of the cancer of corruption. Let us all be proud participants in the crusade for salvaging the society so helplessly sunk in depravity.