In 2012,
David Cameron of Britain “suffered his first major House of Commons defeat” in
governing “when some in his party failed
to back his position on the budget negotiations and urged him to secure deeper
cuts” in the pending 1 trillion euros E.U. budget for 2014-2020. Although Cameron had stated he would veto the
European Commission’s proposal to increase the overall E.U. budget by 5%
annually for the seven-year period, he did not support cutting the federal
budget. Because the vote in his state legislature for cuts in the federal
budget was non-binding, the governor was free to ignore it in the European
Council, where the state governments are represented. The European system of
public governance suffered from at least two major weaknesses here.
The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires, available at Amazon.
The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires, available at Amazon.
David Cameron representing his state at the E.U. (AFP/Getty)