Wind In Europe's Sails.

It’s all very fine for M. Juncker to be saying saying* that the "wind is back in Europe's sails"! Is he a sailor? Well if he is, he knows that the wind is a fickle thing. If he wants something of a trade wind that will last a while, then I will agree with Mr Farage this far: there are some lessons that need to be learned. Actually they are lessons that were present in the minds of the E.U.’s founding fathers, but seem to have got lost along the way; lessons from Catholic Social Teaching, as a matter of fact, of which the ‘warp and weft’ are solidarity and subsidiarity.

‘Subsidiarity’ can sound obscure. It simply means that responsibility should reside where the action is, on as ‘low’ a level as possible. To understand what I mean, it would be helpful to have read last week’s despatch From the Fractal Frontier, recounting my story of herring fishing in Donegal in the 70s. It demonstrates very clearly why the present model of market capitalism is not fit for purpose; but I do not wish to suggest that mere state control is the answer, even less more diktats  from Brussels or anywhere else. Both the national Government and the Common Fisheries Policy have their place, but they need to be focussed by way of particulars.

We have seen how the present set-up is by destroying the resources on which it is based, draining the life out of peripheral communities, and creating on one hand a rather obnoxious breed of super-rich and on the other an under-class of people sucked into cities where there is little prospect of a satisfying way of life. A massive abuse is further being perpetrated in Ireland at present, whereby pelagic super-trawler owners midwater species can buy up tonnage from the poorer whitefish boats, albeit at a proportion of three units to one. This only exacerbates the tendency, tacitly approved by our Government, of centralising the fishing industry in a few big ports and its ownership in the hands of millionaires; all in the good long tradition of clientalistic politics, whereby brown envelopes of cash opened all sorts of doors, and goes to show that our national Government is far from providing a remedy.

I fear it is a luxury to feel one can trust one’s own State, but the French have got one thing right at least. ‘Tonnage’ is not, as in Ireland, a marketable commodity, but remains vested in the State, though allocated to particular vessels. The fisheries are a common resource, and since access to that resource nowadays depends on having tonnage, on one’s being licensed for a particular size and power of boat, this is surely fair; but who is doing the allocating and on what basis? Such standards really need to be thrashed out on a European basis.

I do not wish to deny for a moment the importance of the market. Indeed it is the fact that in Europe we all depend on a Continent-wide market, as well as the other facts that fish and the environmental factors affecting them do not respect national boundaries, which provides a rational basis for having a Common Fisheries Policy. But there is no need to reiterate that it has often failed dismally to follow through with a rational policy, as when it has so often resulted in dead fish being dumped back into the sea. How then should it be followed through?

With the sea under such chronic pressure, and so much technological power at our disposal, a fishery’s management has to become the prime concern of every participant. Upon this concern, authorities must be built that hear their voices: those of the fishermen themselves, and those who sell their fish, consumers, scientists, even bureaucrats, or should I say, lawyers! They must be tailored to be accessible to those participants, and support them all. They need to knit together local communities with the big structures. They require a degree of actual, face-to-face, physical presence, one level leading on to another.

The C.F.P. has attempted to move in this direction through establishing Producer Organisations, but they have not been empowered to tackle the critical issues and have generally failed to engage the men left struggling with the realities. Despite much hand-wringing, a few simple mechanisms are all that are required to manage fisheries, once one really understands what is involved; ‘technical measures’ concerning the fishing gear allowed, control of the size and power of boats that are allowed (which should be as small as practicable), control of time of access (as in for example closing fisheries for weekends or more drastically when necessary, taking into account the welfare of the fishermen and helping to bear the cost of such closures), and where possible modulating supply to fit the market.

Now that would be real democracy and solidarity! What we have does not work because it fails to confront powerful interests and address the deep structural issues.  But we have to build painfully with as much consensus as possible, and the trouble is, time presses! We should not however fall for that spurious kind of democracy that elevates a small majority into ‘the Will of the People’. Even M. Juncker spoke the other day about having to ‘respect the will of the British people.’ This is where we have to be careful what we mean by solidarity.

Mr Clement Atlee was on the ball when he rejected Mr Churchill’s call for a referendum as ‘a device so alien to all our traditions as the referendum, which has only too often been the instrument of Nazism and Fascism.’  All M. Juncker has to deal with is the will of Her Majesty’s Government, while it is the historic right of the British people to throw rotten eggs and generally grumble. If those in power are wise, they will not close their ears to the grumbles, but they will also have the gumption to ignore them as  and when it is appropriate.  The first of the Nazi referenda, by the way, was to withdraw from the League of Nations. A year later, in 1934, there was another one merging the posts of Chancellor and President in the person of the Fuhrer.

The concept of subsidiarity was developed as an antidote to all that. To provide the heft to make such an approach actually work is a challenge for all the peoples of Europe. To really bring it to fruition involves the rediscovery of spiritual realities that have been forever under our noses, but more often than not, ignored. To make some little contribution to the required genuine sense of shared identity, based on mutual recognition and knowledge of each other, particularly for those of us who live along the Atlantic coast, is the object of this blog.

*https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/sep/13/jean-claude-juncker-plays-down-brexit-in-eu-state-of-union-speech

Sorry, no Dispatch From the Fractal Frontier this week. J.A.