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NERMEEN SHAIKH: We begin todays show in Brazil, where former President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva has been convicted on corruption charges Wednesday and sentenced to nine-and-a-half years in prison. He will remain free on appeal. Lula has been the front-runner in the 2018 elections and is widely considered one of Brazils most popular political figures. The former union leader co-founded Brazils Workers Party and served as president from 2003 to 2010. During that time, he helped lift tens of millions of Brazilians out of poverty. The sentencing of Lula comes a year after his successor, President Dilma Rousseff, also of the Workers Party, was impeached by the Brazilian Senate in a move she has denounced as a coup. Prosecutors allege a construction firm spent about $1.1 million refurbishing a beachside apartment for Lula and his wife in exchange for public contracts. He is also facing four other corruption trials.

AMY GOODMAN: But Lula says he has been the victim of a political witch hunt. Lulas legal team has vowed to appeal the conviction. In a statement, they said, "For over three years, Lula has been subject to a politically motivated investigation. No credible evidence of guilt has been produced, and overwhelming proof of his innocence blatantly ignored," they said.

Meanwhile, many of the lawmakers who orchestrated Rousseffs ouster last year are also facing corruption scandals. Last month, federal prosecutors charged President Michel Temer with corruption, accusing the president of taking millions of dollars in bribes.

We go now to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where were joined by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald for the hour. Glenn is the co-founder of The Intercept.

Well, Glenn, were going to talk about a lot of issues this hour, but lets start in Brazil. Talk about the indictment of the former president, Lula.

GLENN GREENWALD: Its hard to put into words what an

AMY GOODMAN: The conviction.

GLENN GREENWALD: extraordinary political earthquake this is for Brazil. Lula has been the singular dominant figure in Brazilian politics for more than 15 years. He is identified internationally as being the brand of the country. He was president for eight years, from 2002 until 2010, and oversaw extraordinary economic growth, left office with an 86 percent approval rating, and is currently leading, as you said in the introduction, in all public opinion polls for the 2018 election. Hes a polarizing figure now, to be certain. Theres a large segment of the population that despises him and that doesnt want to see him return to power, but theres a large segment of the population that wants to see him be president again. Certainly, he has more support than any of the other prospective 2018 candidates. And so, to take somebody who is this dominant on the Brazilian political landscape, not just in terms of its recent past, but also its short-term future, the person overwhelmingly likely to become the countrys next president through the ballot box, and convict him on charges of corruption, bribery and money laundering, and sentence him to a decade in prison, just a little under a decade in prison, you really cant get much more consequential than this.

Independent of the merits of the case against Lulaand the extraordinary thing about this case is that theres a lot of different corruption charges and claims against Lula, including being at the center of the Petrobras corruption. This has alwaysthis was always regardedhas been regarded as an ancillary case, not very strong. It involves kind of obscure questions about who is actually the owner of this triplex apartment that received the benefits. Lula insists that he is not even the owner of the apartment, whereas the state insists that that was just a scam, that he really is the owner and these benefits went to him. But leaving aside the merits of the case, which will now be adjudicated on appeal, if you look at actually what has happened, its amazing, in Brazil. You have, first, the leader of the country who was elected president, Dilma Rousseff, impeached on charges that, even if you believe them, are extremely petty in the context of the corruption claims lodged against the people who removed her. So, you took out the elected president of PT, which severely harmed PT, and now you take the next PT candidate, who was president and who likely will be president again, and you convict him on charges and make him ineligible to run for office for the next 20 years. It certainly looks like, whether, again, these claims are meritorious or not, that there is a real attempt to preclude the public from having the leaders that it wants, which are the leaders of PT.

And at the same time that you have that going on, once Dilma was removed from office, you move from a center-left government, with PT, to a center-right government, with her successor, Michel Temer, who formed a coalition with the right-wing PSDB party, and now theyre talking about removing Temer and installing the next person in line, Rodrigo Maia, who is the head of the lower house, essentially the speaker of the house, who is a member of the right-wing Democrats party, which means youll go from a center-left party to a center-right party to a right-wing party without a single vote being cast. And so theres a lot of concern and a lot of perception on the part of Brazilians that this is a further blow to democracy, that this is really just politically driven, that there are all kinds of corrupt figures on the right, including President Michel Temer and Senator Acio Neves, who was the candidate the right ran against Dilma in 2014 and almost beat her, about whom theres much more tangible and concrete evidence of criminality, and yet havent been convicted, havent even left office. Acio is still in the Senate. He was ordered by a court to be removed, and now hes been returned. And Temer remains running the country, even though the whole country heard him on audio approving bribes paid to witnesses to keep them silent.

So, I think it has to be underscored that there is reasonable debate about how strong the case is against Lula. But the way in which these cases are being prosecuted, the people who are paying prices and the people who are being protected, does give a strong appearance of it being politically motivated, whether thats really the intention or not.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Glenn, there have been reports that protestersor people came out on the streets yesterday following the conviction, both in support of the conviction and opposed to it. So could you talk about that and the people who have beenwho have approved, who think this is a good decision made by the judiciary to convict Lula?

GLENN GREENWALD: Sure. So this goes back to the protest movement against Dilma, which the Brazilian media, which is a corporate media very much opposed to Dilma and very much in favor of impeachment, depicted as this kind of uprising on the part of the people. And the reality was always much different. There is a huge segment of the population, primarily the wealthy, the oligarchs, the upper-middle class, that dislike PT because of its socialist policies. PT has become much less socialist over the years. Theyve actually gotten into bed with some oligarchs, the way the Democratic Party has in the U.S. But theyre still perceived as a socialist party. And compared to the right, they certainly oppose austerity more. They favor greater spending on social programs and the like. And so there is a segment of the country that hates PT on ideological grounds. And that is the segment of the population, that has been trying to defeat PT at the ballot box for 16 years now and has failed to do so, that were out on the streets demanding Dilmas impeachment. The same people who wanted to beat her at the ballot box and failed then went to the streets to demand her impeachment, which is not surprising. And so, the people who are out on the streets now demanding that Lula be imprisoned or celebrating his imprisonment are the people who have just always hated PT and hated Lula strictly on ideological grounds. Then there are people, sort of the hardcore loyalists of Lula and Dilma and PT, who are out on the streets protesting his imprisonment.

This is really the big question that continues to lurk over Brazil, which, I should remind everybody, is the fifth-largest or fifth most populous country on the planet. Its a country of 260 million people. So it really matters what happens here. The lurking question is: Are you going to move beyond the kind of hardcore political junkies on the right and the left, when it comes to street protests? We havent seen massive street protests demanding the removal of Michel Temer, and we havent yet seen people pouring out onto the streets in anger over Lulas convictionalbeit its been less than 24 hours since it happened. We might see that.

And the reason is, is that Brazilians are just exhausted. This is not a country where there are isolated corruption cases against specific political figures. This is a country which, for decades, has had a political class that is systematically corrupt. It runs on corruption. And the only thing that has changed is that you now have an independent judiciary, a judiciary thats a little bit more or a lot more aggressive about holding people in political office accountable. Theres more transparency. And so its being exposed. And what Brazilians have seen is that the entire political class in Braslia, virtually, is itself corrupt, that their political system is one based in corruption. And so, they really arent convinced that they should be out on the street demanding Temers removal, as much as the country hates Temer across the board, because theyre not convinced that whoever replaces him is going to be any better, just like Temer replacing Dilma actually made things worse. And I dont know how much loyalty there is to Lula at this point among the broad population, given that people are really disenchanted with and exhausted by political scandal. And so, I dontif I had to bet, I would say there isnt going to be a mass uprising protesting Lula. There will be some people out on the street who are hardcore PT followers, but I dont think youre going to have massive social instability over the fact that Lula got convicted, especially since they havent put him in prison. They said he could remain free pending appeal.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to the ousted Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who was recently here in Democracy Now!s studios in New York. She was talking about Lula.

DILMA ROUSSEFF: [translated] I think that Lula will run for president, unless there is an effort to convict him on appeal, because, today, if Lula were the candidate, well, hes still the only person who has a significant number of votes. He has a 38.5 percent support. The others in the latest polls all had around 10 percent, 9 percent, 5 or 6 percent. So there is that difference. There is a concern on the part of those who carried out the coup. They are very concerned about this situation. Now we have to see how things evolve. I think its very difficult to convict him twice. I dont think theres any basis for that, because the witnesses who were called, when I called him, they did not incriminate him. In addition, I think there could be other efforts to avoid the 2018 elections, because certainly those who carried out the coup and are pushing the coup program are not going to enjoy popular support. I can assure you of that.

AMY GOODMAN: To see the full-hour interview with the ousted President Dilma Rousseff, you can go to democracynow.org. Glenn, your response?

GLENN GREENWALD: So, I think maybe she overstates just a little bit the inevitability of Lulas victory. As is true for polls in the United States a year or more out of an election, polling tends to be about name recognition, and then, ultimately, as the election proceeds and people pay more attention to the more obscure candidates, theyre able to get some traction. But shes definitely right that if you had to bet your money on one person to win in 2018, it would be Lula. Thats certainly who I would put my money on, not just because hes leading in the polls, but because there is no political talent even close to Lula in terms of his ability to just be persuasive and charismatic and to appeal to peoples gut in a way that very few other politicians that Ive ever seen in my lifetime are capable of doing. So you certainly wouldnt bet against him.

And, you know, youIve been on your show many times talking about the impeachment process, and you know what a political upheaval and crisis it was for this country to remove Dilma, to remove a democratically elected president who is part of a party that won four consecutive national elections. It really tore the country apart. Imagine if the elites of this country endured all of that, went through all of that to get her out of office, only for a year and a half later PT to return to power in the person of Lula. So, yes, they are petrified that Lula is going to return to power. They do want to make certain that he is ineligible by making him ineligible through this criminal process.

But there is another aspect to it that I think is important to point out. Its not so black and white, this morality play, because there are a lot of politicians in Braslia across the political spectrumon the right, on the left and on the centerwho are very vulnerable to corruption charges and to having criminal proceedings brought against them. And they are petrified, all of them. They have watched some of the countrys most powerful politicians and its oligarchs go to prison, including Eduardo Cunha, who was the most powerful and feared politician in Brazil over the last several years, whos now sitting in a federal prison without any real hope of getting out anytime soon. Its a serious threat.

And what we see now is them start to unify. Recently, Lula gave an interview in which he actually sort of defended Michel Temer and said, "Lets not jump to conclusions about whether hes really guilty. We need to see the evidence." Theres starting to be a movement on the part of all these politicians who are vulnerable to corruption charges to unify against the Lava Jato investigators, against the corruption investigators.

And so, how much of a threat Lula really poses to the oligarchical class? Hes become very close allies with a lot of the leading plutocrats, a lot of the leading oil and construction executives. Hes made a lot of money by doing business with a lot of these extremely wealthy and powerful financial interests in Brazil. Hes not the Lula from 1986, where he was this firebrand, you know, hardcore socialist union leader. Hes been integrated into the power structure. And so, I do think that they want to make sure PT doesnt come back to power, but I dont think its accurate to depict it as them viewing Lula as some kind of towering enemy of the elite. I think that the elite has found a way to work with Lula and accommodate their interests with Lula. And so I dont know how petrified they are of his return.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Glenn, very, quickly, before we go to break, I wanted to ask you about something else that occurred on the very same day that Lula was convictedthat is, yesterday, Wednesdaywhich is that the Brazilian Senate approved a government-sponsored series of labor reforms. So could you tell us about those reforms and how the approval by the Senate, as reports are suggesting, might boost the Temer governmentTemer himself, of course, facing corruption charges, as you mentioned, and, in fact, Brazils first sitting head of state to be formally charged with a crime?

GLENN GREENWALD: Yeah, Im really glad that you ask that, because theres no way to discuss the situation in Brazil without understanding the agenda of international finance and domestic oligarchs, in particular, their desperation to impose extremely harsh austerity measures on an already suffering poor population.

Michel Temer, shortly after he was installed as president, came to New York and spoke to a gathering of hedge funds and foreign policy elites in New York and said that the real reason Dilma was impeached was not because of these budgetary tricks she was accused of using, but it was because she was unwilling to impose the level of austerity that international capital and the business interests in Brazil wanted. Thats why they put Temer into office, to, quote-unquote, "reform" pensions and labor laws, to make people work longer, to extend their retirement rate, to reduce their benefits. This is what the whole thing is about. And its amazing because every time it looks like Temer is going to stay, the real increases in strength, as does the Brazilian stock market. Every time it looks like hes in trouble, the real decreases, and the Brazilian stock market weakens, because international finance wants Temer to stay, because hes the only one willing to impose these harsh austerity measures, because hes already so unpopular and so old that hes not going to run again and cant run again, so he doesnt care. Hes willing to do their dirty work for them.

At the same time, yesterday, when Lula got convicted and it looked like or the court has declared him ineligible to run again in 2018, what happened to the real? It skyrocketed against the dollar. The Brazilian stock market boomed because international finance wants the right to take over and continue to maintain power in Brazil. So, everything is about the underlying attempt to take away the benefits from the nations poor that PT has legislated for them, to make people work longer hours, to make them have fewer benefits, to transfer wealth from the laborers in this country and the poor in this country back to the oligarchs. Thats why Dilma was removed. Thats why Michel Temer is in power. Thats why they want to make Lula ineligible. And so, that is absolutely what lurks at the center of all of this intrigue.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Glenn, please stay with us. Were talking about the former Brazilian President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva, convicted on corruption charges and sentenced to nine-and-a-half years in prison. When we come back, well speak with the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald about the Putin-Trump versions of their meeting at the G20, and also about the latest brouhaha, the Donald Trump Jr.-Jared Kushner-Manafort meeting with a so-called Russian government lawyer. And well also talk about whats happening with NSA whistleblower Reality Winner. Stay with us.

See the article here:
A Further Blow to Democracy in Brazil? Glenn Greenwald on Conviction of Lula Ahead of 2018 Election - Democracy Now!

Supporters of Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of Turkeys opposition Republican Peoples party, wave Turkish flags at the rally in Istanbul. Photograph: Lefteris Pitarakis/AP

Opposition to Turkeys authoritarian president, Recep Tayyip Erdoan, has been re-energised by the success of a month-long, cross-country anti-government justice march and last weekends unprecedented mass rally in Istanbul attended by more than a million Turks.

The show of strength momentarily shocked the government into nonplussed silence. This week is supposed to be dominated by a series of official events marking the first anniversary of the 15 July attempted coup the planned culmination of which is Erdoans address to parliament in the early hours of Sunday morning, exactly a year since the attempt was launched.

Erdoan will stress the perils the nation has faced and his own heroic steadfastness, by way of justifying his subsequent harsh crackdown. But the anniversary is being dominated instead by excited talk of a resurgent Turkish democracy, led by Kemal Kilicdaroglu of the centrist main opposition party, the Republican Peoples party (CHP). He has vowed to fight Erdoans one-man regime and overturn what he calls the second coup the Erdoan power grab that has followed the failed putsch.

Turkey was on the brink of a new beginning after one of the darkest periods in its recent history, Kilicdaroglu told an estimated crowd of 1.5 million people in Istanbul on Sunday. Its a new climate, a new history, a new birth, he said.

A shy, unassuming man, Kilicdaroglu has often been dismissed as a political lightweight. But his show of defiance has transformed his image and that of the CHP, and mitigated the sense of hopelessness many Turks feel about the repressive political climate.

Turkey is no longer the country of 25 days ago, said Murat Yetkin, a columnist for the Hurriyet newspaper . There are signs that the pacifistic but huge action of the justice march has started to change the ruling Justice and Development partys (AKP) stance. It may also have changed the wider political culture in Turkey.

About 190,000 people have been detained, fired or suspended from their jobs since the coup attempt, which Erdoan is accused of exploiting to neutralise opponents. They include judges, army and police officers, lawyers, academics, politicians and journalists. Kilicdaroglu has been widely abused and threatened by AKP officials and supporters, and condemned as subversive and a traitor.

Erdoan went even further, at one point condemning the justice marchers as terrorists. But as people from different, non-political backgrounds rallied to Kilicdaroglus banner, Erdoan was forced to back off. This was partly because polling showed scant public sympathy for his stance. Even AKP supporters were unhappy, particularly over the politicisation of the judiciary, Yetkin said. The march was supported by the main pro-Kurdish opposition party whose co-leader, Selahattin Demirtas, is in jail on terrorism charges as well as trade unionists and other civil society groups, and ordinary citizens.

No one expects an overnight miracle [but] Kilicdaroglu has reinjected hope in millions of Turks who are deeply worried about the rapid deterioration of their democratic and secular system, wrote Semih Idiz, a commentator. The government was caught completely off guard by this act of protest [that] garnered a lot of public sympathy on the way.

Kilicdaroglu is now trying to build on the momentum by pushing a list of 10 demands. They include restoring parliaments authority, lifting the state of emergency, re-establishing judicial independence and releasing detainees. The effect would be to roll back sweeping executive powers granted to Erdoan after he narrowly won last Aprils constitutional referendum.

Kilicdaroglu promised further street protests and warned on Tuesday against AKP attempts to abuse the commemorations. He is also organising what he calls the worlds biggest petition on behalf of the detainees, some of whom are taking legal action in the European court of human rights.

An AKP spokesman, Mahir Unal, said the CHP leader was playing a dangerous game and accused him of encouraging anarchy. If you are calling on people to hit the streets, this is fascism, Unal said this week. But Erdoan has remained unusually quiet.

Increasingly vocal domestic resistance is putting growing international pressure on Erdoan to ease his iron grip on Turkish society. Relations with the EU commission and European parliament are already strained. The US ambassador to Turkey recently urged the government not to abuse its counter-terrorism powers. And the Netherlands and Austria have followed Germany in refusing to allow Turkish ministers to address expatriate Turks on the coup anniversary.

See the rest here:
Talk of resurgent Turkish democracy dominates failed coup anniversary - The Guardian

We are witnessing a striking shift in the global paradigm of how the world views nuclear weapons.

The Titan II ICBM at the Titan Missile Museum in Arizona (Steve Jurvetson, CC BY-NC 2.0)

On July 7, 2017, at a UN Conference mandated by the UN General Assembly to negotiate a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons, the only weapons of mass destruction yet to be banned, 122 nations completed the job after three weeks, accompanied by a celebratory outburst of cheers, tears, and applause among hundreds of activists, government delegates, and experts, as well as survivors of the lethal nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and witnesses to the devastating, toxic nuclear-test explosions in the Pacific. The new treaty outlaws any prohibited activities related to nuclear weapons, including use, threat to use, development, testing, production, manufacturing, acquiring, possession, stockpiling, transferring, receiving, stationing, installation, and deployment of nuclear weapons. It also bans states from lending assistance, which includes such prohibited acts as financing for their development and manufacture, engaging in military preparations and planning, and permitting the transit of nuclear weapons through territorial water or airspace.

We are witnessing a striking shift in the global paradigm of how the world views nuclear weapons, bringing us to this glorious moment. The change has transformed public conversation about nuclear weapons, from the same old, same old talk about national security and its reliance on nuclear deterrence to the widely publicized evidence of the catastrophic humanitarian consequences that would result from their use. A series of compelling presentations of the devastating effects of nuclear catastrophe, organized by enlightened governments and civil societys International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, was inspired by a stunning statement from the International Committee of the Red Cross addressing the humanitarian consequences of nuclear war.

At meetings hosted by Norway, Mexico, and Austria, overwhelming evidence demonstrated the disastrous devastation threatening humanity from nuclear weaponstheir mining, milling, production, testing, and usewhether deliberately or by accident or negligence. This new knowledge, exposing the terrifying havoc that would be inflicted on our planet, gave impetus for this moment when governments and civil society fulfilled a negotiating mandate for a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination.

Perhaps the most significant addition to the treaty, after a draft treaty from an earlier week of talks in March was submitted to the states by the expert and determined president of the conference, Ambassador Elayne Whyte Gmez of Costa Rica, was amending the prohibition not to use nuclear weapons by adding the words or threaten to use, driving a stake through the heart of the beloved deterrence doctrine of the nuclear-weapons states, which are holding the whole world hostage to their perceived security needs, threatening the earth with nuclear annihilation in their MAD scheme for Mutually Assured Destruction. The ban also creates a path for nuclear states to join the treaty, requiring verifiable, time-bound, transparent elimination of all nuclear-weapons programs or irreversible conversion of all nuclear-weapons related facilities.

The negotiations were boycotted by all nine nuclear-weapons states and US allies under its nuclear umbrella in NATO, Japan, South Korea, and Australia. The Netherlands was the only NATO member present, its parliament having required its attendance in response to public pressure, and was the only no vote against the treaty. Last summer, after a UN Working Group recommended that the General Assembly resolve to establish the ban-treaty negotiations, the United States pressured its NATO allies, arguing that the effects of a ban could be wide-ranging and degrade enduring security relationships. Upon the adoption of the ban treaty, the United States, United Kingdom, and France issued a statement that We do not intend to sign, ratify or ever become party to it as it does not address the security concerns that continue to make nuclear deterrence necessary and will create even more divisions at a timeof growing threats, including those from the DPRKs ongoing proliferation efforts. Ironically, North Korea was the only nuclear power to vote for the ban treaty, last October, when the UNs First Committee for Disarmament forwarded a resolution for ban-treaty negotiations to the General Assembly.

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Yet the absence of the nuclear-weapons states contributed to a more democratic process, with fruitful interchanges between experts and witnesses from civil society who were present and engaged through much of the proceedings instead of being outside locked doors, as is usual when the nuclear powers are negotiating their endless step-by-step process that has only resulted in leaner, meaner, nuclear weapons, constantly modernized, designed, refurbished. Obama, before he left office was planning to spend one trillion dollars over the next 30 years for two new bomb factories, new warheads and delivery systems. We still await Trumps plans for the US nuclear-weapons program.

The Ban Treaty affirms the states determination to realize the purpose of the Charter of the United Nations and reminds us that the very first resolution of the UN in 1946 called for the elimination of nuclear weapons. With no state holding veto power, and no hidebound rules of consensus that have stalled all progress on nuclear abolition and additional initiatives for world peace in other UN and treaty bodies, this negotiation was a gift from the UN General Assembly, which democratically requires states to be represented in negotiations with an equal vote and doesnt require consensus to come to a decision.

Despite the recalcitrance of the nuclear-deterrence-mongers, we know that previous treaties banning weapons have changed international norms and stigmatized the weapons leading to policy revisions even in states that never signed those treaties. The Ban Treaty requires 50 states to sign and ratify it before it enters into force, and will be open for signature September 20 when heads of state meet in New York for the UN General Assemblys opening session. Campaigners will be working to gather the necessary ratifications and now that nuclear weapons are unlawful and banned, to shame those NATO states which keep US nuclear weapons on their territory (Belgium, Germany , Turkey, Netherlands, Italy) and pressure other alliance states which hypocritically condemn nuclear weapons but participate in nuclear-war planning. In the nuclear-weapons states, there can be divestment campaigns from institutions that support the development and manufacture of nuclear weapons now that they have been prohibited and declared unlawful. See http://www.dontbankonthebomb.com To keep the momentum going in this burgeoning movement to ban the bomb, check out http://www.icanw.org. For a more detailed roadmap of what lies ahead, see Zia Mians take on future possibilities in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

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Democracy Breaks Out at the UN as 122 Nations Vote to Ban the ... - The Nation.

Jean-Claude Juncker. NurPhoto/SIPA USA/PA Images. All rights reserved.In March this year Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission, presented five scenarios for the future of the European Union.

They failed to include ideas about how the future EU could make its citizens happier, healthier or better off. The scenarios were more about reforming European integration and finding ways to make Europeans less frustrated about the European project, as living in a peaceful cooperation without a war for many decades no longer seems to be enough. And for many people, just ask the Brits, it is clearly not enough.

In a response to these five scenarios, European civil society came up with an alternative vision, the 6th scenario. In this paper, inspiring policy goals, with potential to unite Europeans in reinvigorating the European project are put into the spotlight.

In our view, Europe (and the whole world), needs a future with sustainability at its heart. Because it is not progress that economic growth is skyrocketing, if at the same time millions of people cannot afford food or basic services. Equally, it is not progress if we manage to eradicate poverty - for a while at least - if we do this by undermining the ecological preconditions of our wellbeing. We would still end up condemning future generations to dangerous climate change, and the loss of one third of our crop yields due to the disappearance of pollinators.

So all in all, even if we achieve absolute financial and macro-economic stability, improved security and a more efficiently managed EU, if future reform does not achieve a deep socio-economic transition towards sustainability, it is simply good for nothing.

Of course, Junckers paper only presents broad ideas about European integration, and the devil is always in the detail. Following up on the five scenarios, the European Commission has published five reflection papers on different topics, including globalisation, the social dimension of Europe, and most recently on the future of EU finances.

The reflection paper on finances includes a lot of nice language, sometimes even too nice and too optimistic in its assessment of the current situation, but it also proposes some new ideas, which could truly contribute to sustainability and building strong democracies.

As an important innovation, it includes common European values: peace, democracy, the rule of law, freedom, fundamental rights, equality and solidarity as criteria for determining EU value added. Even though EU value added might seem like a small technical detail, it is still the most important criterion in making the decision as to whether a project or investment is worth financing with EU money.

Adding common European values to these criteria is a new idea, explicitly added to the list in response to public pressure. Others include supporting the EU objectives and obligations as enshrined in the Treaty, spill-over effects for instance between regions - as a result of Cohesion Funds payments, and the slippery concept of generating public good at a European level, which noticeably means something totally different for a Budget Commissioner and for a civil society activist.

If the EU budget is to support European values, including peace, maybe it should not start by diverting more and more European money to defence research, or by increasing its present assistance to partner countries in capacity building, as well as in military missions. Europe must remain a peace project.

It is also rather sad that building democracy is an emerging need in Europe, but let us face it: with recent developments in countries like Hungary, Poland or Bulgaria, where NGOs are under increasing state pressure that makes it difficult to operate freely and represent citizens interest, this is a reality.

Many Europeans think that these efforts should go well beyond supporting educational exchange programmes or NGO activism. Making the rule of law and the respect of fundamental rights an ex ante condition in accessing EU funds would be a strong message not only to national governments, but also to European citizens.

Many of us are already tired of turning Brussels into a punching bag for populist politicians. It is high time that the EU stands up for itself and also for its values, because no community of any kind can be successful without holding to common values.

Of course in a strong democracy citizens need to make well informed decisions, and when it comes to the functioning of the EU, the role of national and European decision makers, and particularly to specific European decisions in areas from food security to energy performance of buildings or youth unemployment, people today are surprisingly ill informed.

Especially if it lies in the interest of national governments to keep it that way. Otherwise it would be hard to carry out national consultations when false claims such as: Hungary is committed to reducing taxes. Brussels is attacking our country on this are being made. If you are not aware: tax rules are unanimously decided in the EU, with the consent of each Member State. The EU would be doing itself a big favour if the future budget also supported programmes to improve the EU literacy of the people.

Surely, strong democracies, resilient economies and a fair society need to be founded on a broader basis than just a bit more knowledge and common values. Therefore, within the cross-sectoral alliance of civil society organisations SDG Watch Europe, we have developed a set of sustainability principles, which, if mainstreamed into the future EU budget, hold the potential for meaningful reform.

These principles should work together to ensure that EU spending and lending makes peoples lives better, reduces our unsustainable environmental impact and builds a resilient economy where socio-economic inequalities are reduced.

Within our PeoplesBudget campaign, we will work towards introducing sustainability proofing, a new and innovative approach in the design and implementation of the future EU budget, which can ensure that the budget contributes in the greatest way possible to sustainability and the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals for the benefit of all Europeans.

More here:
How could we use the EU budget to strengthen democracy? - Open Democracy

The monsoon session of Parliament starts on 17 July. It is almost 70 years since independence. As an institution, Parliament is central to the very idea of democracy and was assigned a pivotal role in our Constitution by the founding fathers of the republic. Yet, so many decades later, it has neither evolved nor matured as it could, might or should have. If anything, slowly but surely, it has diminished in stature and significance. Indeed, it is now more a symbol than the substance of a vibrant democracy that has taken deep roots among our people. The time has come for citizens, whom it represents, to evaluate that performance.

There are three designated roles for Parliament in a democracy. It is responsible for legislationlaws of the landby which people govern themselves. It must ensure accountability of governmentson policies or actionsto the people. It should engage in discourse and debate on issues that concern the nation and the citizens. How has it fared in performing these roles?

The process of legislation is slow and lagged. There are times when it extends from one Parliament to the next. Laws are often passed in a rush through loud voices or large numbers. There is little scrutiny of draft legislation. And there is almost no follow-up on rules when laws are put in place.

It would appear that governments are more accountable to people at election time than they are to Parliament in session. The examination, analysis and evaluation by Parliament, so essential for invoking accountability, are not quite there. The only means, it seems, are questions asked by MPs, many of which are pedantic, unclear or on behest. For searching or probing questions, governments do their best to provide as little information as possible in answers.

Discourse and debate on issues of national importance were an attribute and highlight of Parliament during the first two decades of the republic, until around 1970. But this has eroded and diminished with the passage of time. There is discussion but it is often partisansometimes a dialogue of the deafbetween groups where party lines are sharply drawn. Thus, differences lead to protests in the form of walk-outs or rushing to the well of the house.

There are two reasons for this decline. Parliament does not meet or work long enough. And there are institutional constraints on its performance while working.

The chart (Parliament in India) sets out the number of sittings and the time lost in disruptions, in days per year, for the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha during the period from 2012-2016. This straddles the tenure of two governments in equal parts. The time lost due to disruptions, reported in hours and minutes, has been converted into days on the premise that, as a norm, Parliament meets for 6 hours per day. In these five years, on an average per annum, the Lok Sabha met for 69 days of which 20 days were lost to disruptions, while the Rajya Sabha met for 68 days of which 20 days were lost to disruptions. In the total number of sittings, disruptions took away 30% of the time in the Lok Sabha and 35% of the time in the Rajya Sabha. Both houses did sit for extra hours but that made up for a very small proportion of the time lost. Even when the Parliament sits and meets, there is more noise than debate, more shouting than listening, and more statements than engagement or debate.

The duration for which Parliament meets in India, compared with other democracies, is short. In the UK, both the House of Commons and the House of Lords meet for more than 150 days per year. In the US, both the House of Representatives and the Senate meet for 133 days per year. In Japan, as a norm, the Diet meets for 150 days per year and this is often extended.

It is not as if our members of Parliament (MPs) are not paid enough. The salary, constituency allowance and office expenses paid to each MP are Rs1.4 lakh per month. In addition, there is a daily allowance for presence in Parliament or its committees, plus free housing, furnishing, electricity, water, telephones and healthcare, which taken together add up to Rs1.52 lakh per month. Thus, the cost-to-country of an MP is more than Rs35 lakh per year, which is almost 40 times the per capita income of the nation. In addition, there are lifetime pensions.

Incomes apart, there are assets of MPs. The Association for Democratic Rights (ADR), which analyses the election affidavits filed before the Election Commission, reports that in the 2014 Lok Sabha, as many as 82% of the MPs have assets worth more than Rs1 crore each, as compared with 58% in 2009 and 30% in 2004. In the present Lok Sabha, on an average, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP is worth Rs11 crore while a Congress MP is worth Rs16 crore. The assets of the 165 MPs from the 2009 Lok Sabha who were re-elected to the 2014 Lok Sabha jumped from Rs5 crore to Rs12.5 crore per MP in just five years. The Rajya Sabha is a similar story. It is reported that two-thirds of its members have declared assets of more than Rs20 crore each.

It is clear that the elected representatives of our people are not representative of the people. Incomes and assets apart, the criminalization of politics is a reality that stares us in the face. ADR reports that 34% of the MPs in the 2014 Lok Sabha faced criminal charges, as compared with 30% in 2009 and 24% in 2004. The ADR data also show that, across parties, candidates facing criminal charges were more than twice as likely to win as compared to those with a clean record.

The story of state legislatures on sittings, disruptions, assets, criminal charges, and what is described as unparliamentary behaviourthat extends to smashing furniture and physical violence in the houseis far worse. This, too, needs exposition.

The factors underlying these developments and deterioration are not rocket science. The barriers to entry in politics are formidable. The only access comes from kinship or money. And muscle power matters as a determinant of success. However, any meaningful analysis of this reality would need another column.

In fairness, there are institutional constraints on the performance of MPs as well. The allocation of time for MPs to speak is proportional to the strength of their political party in the house and its leadership decides who gets to speak and for how long. The speaker of the Lok Sabha or the chairman of the Rajya Sabha have little discretion in the matter. The only other opportunities for MPs are during question hour or zero hour. Answers to unstarred questions are simply laid on the table of the house. Starred questions are too many. Only a few come up for discussion. And these are just not taken up if the concerned MP is not present at the time. In zero hour, the speaker or the chairman have the discretion to invite an MP to speak, but time is too little and speeches are often drowned out in pandemonium.

It is not only time. MPs do not quite have the freedom to speak in our Parliament as in other democracies. For one, they are afraid of what the party leadership might think, which could affect their future. For another, party whips, of three types, are a problem. A one-line whip is non-binding, informing members of the vote. A two-line whip requires attendance in the house for the vote. A three-line whip is a clear-cut directive to be present in the house during the vote and cast their vote in accordance with the party line. Any violation of this whip could lead to an MPs expulsion from the house. In India, the anti-defection law stipulates that a three-line whip can be violated only if more than one-third of a partys MPs do so. This is the unintended consequence of a law that might have mitigated one problem but created another, which is emasculating our Parliament as an institution.

It is not beyond redemption at least yet. The constitutional provisions are impeccable. Yet, these remain unused and are sometimes misused by the political system. There is also a redeeming feature in our parliamentary process. The standing committees and select committees can be diligent and are often not partisan. Alas, these committees are often used in form than substance. Moreover, their recommendations are not binding.

It is essential to recognize the complexity of this problem before we can find or design solutions. The answers lie, inter alia, in electoral reform through public funding of elections, combined with political reform that mandates disclosure on the sources of financing for political parties, and sets rules for elections within political parties to foster intra-party democracy that has been stifled not only by dynasties but also by oligarchies.

In conclusion, I can do no better than invoke R.K. Laxman, the legendary cartoonist who often depicted what ailed India with perception, wit and satire. I recall a wonderful cartoon about Parliament and democracy, in his strip You Said It. The then prime minister, Indira Gandhi, had her arm around the shoulder of a visiting Prince Charles, the monarch in-waiting even now (watched by Laxmans iconic common man with a wistful smile on his face), saying, The difference dear Prince is that, while you are a parliamentary monarchy, we are a hereditary democracy. This syndrome is now much more widespread than it was then. The hereditary principle of dynastic families in politics has spread much beyond the Congress Party, cutting across party lines, to most regional parties in India. The BJP is a little different at present but it is no exception to the rule. And it cannot be immune from what happens in our polity and society.

Almost 70 years after we began life as a republic, there is a clear and present danger that we could be the worlds most vibrant democracy with the worlds least effective, and perhaps most dormant, Parliament. It is time for MPs in India to reclaim their rights in Parliament as representatives of the people.

Deepak Nayyar is emeritus professor of economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He served as chief economic adviser, government of India, from 1989-91, and as vice-chancellor, University of Delhi, from 2000-05.

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First Published: Thu, Jul 13 2017. 11 57 PM IST

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Vibrant democracy, dormant Parliament - Livemint