Twenty Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the EU is a Reincarnation of the Former Soviet Union

Ah, and then there is, of course, freedom of expression. Article 11 establishes this unequivocally. Currently, all 27 EU member states have such a provision in their constitutions. Yet on at least two issues, EU citizens do not enjoy this freedom of speech. In a number of member states (Germany, Belgium, Austria, France, the Czech Republic) it is a criminal offense to publicly wonder whether six million Jews were killed by the Nazis during World War II. Even if you would believe that, say, no more than 4.5 million Jews were exterminated, this could land you in jail for years. It is effectively prohibited to conduct research into this topic (to try to establish how many Jews were killed during WW II), because it makes you a “Holocaust denier.”

Nor is it allowed in some states to make any sort of remark criticizing islam. This will immediately cause you to be prosecuted for what in the US is called “hate speech.” This is happening to Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who will be put on trial next January for making allegedly disparaging remarks about islam, whereas what he really did was assemble a movie using available footage, to demonstrate the violent nature of islamic teachings.

Free speech, or freedom of expression is really a very simple issue, a clear-cut case. Either you have free speech, in which case you may say ANYTHING at all, or you have no free speech. It is like being pregnant: either you are, or you aren't. It is impossible to be a “little bit pregnant,” just as it is impossible to have “some free speech.”

Thus in the EU today, there is NO free speech. Nor will there be any when the Lisbon Treaty takes effect. The EU crackdown on “illegal” downloads, threatening anyone caught downloading copyrighted items more than three times with lifelong exclusion from internet access, can be interpreted as an indication that a major offensive against one of the few remaining vestiges of freedom is underway.

I am afraid the EU “constitution” (rejected by European voters wherever it was subjected to an honest, fair referendum) in its warmed over version called “Lisbon Treaty” is no more than a useless piece of paper. It is about as meaningful as the old Soviet and East German (GDR) constitutions which, come to think of it, are surprisingly similar to the Lisbon Treaty.

Article 50 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution granted all citizens freedom of speech. But whoever dared voice criticism of the system in any coherent, vocal way, was severely punished. Punishments included loss of job, domestic exile (nuclear scientist Andrei Sakharov), and assignment to a mental hospital. There was no free speech in the old Soviet Union, like there is no free speech in Europe today.

Similarities between the Lisbon Treaty and its communist predecessors are quite remarkable, for instance in the clauses on equality before the law.

Article 34 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution proclaimed full legal equality for all: “citizens of the USSR are equal before the law, without distinction of origin, social or property status, race or nationality, sex, education, language, attitude to religion, type and nature of occupation, domicile, or other status.” The East German Constitution echoes this. Article 20:1 reads: Independently of his nationality, race, religious ideas, social background and position, every citizen of the German Democratic Republic enjoys the same rights and duties. Freedom of religion and belief are guaranteed. All citizens are equal before the law.” Coincidentally, the Lisbon Treaty is strikingly similar: “ Everyone is equal before the law ” (article 20), and “ Any discrimination based on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation shall be prohibited” (article 21).

And just to remind you, in the former communist world of Europe, basic human rights such as these were formulated in the Soviet and East German constitutions, were violated on a daily basis. Henckel von Donnersmarck's shocking movie “The Lives of Others” (2006) shows this in a most penetrating way. The Stasi, inheriting brutal, effective Gestapo methods, was keeping tabs on most of the East German population. Under the pretext of fighting terrorism, it listened in on all telephone conversations, opened all envelopes and read all letters. It kept controls on anyone entering or leaving the country. An army of almost 100,000 secret agents, helped by 200,000 civilian collaborators, spied day and night on East Germany's 16 million citizens. Most European governments today are using time-honored Stasi techniques to keep their citizens under surveillance. However, technology has advanced so impressively since the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, that today's government spooks glean more information on unwitting civilians than the most fanatical Stasi agent would have hoped for in his wildest fantasies.