Initial over-enthusiasm for the Lisbon treaty, much of it based on misunderstandings, may have contributed to its downfall, suggests Pierre Moscovici. He believes the treaty has its virtues, but even if saved is unlikely to give answer to the question: What kind of Europe do we want?
The Lisbon treaty has brought chaos, yet it had promised a more realistic and reasonable way forward than the ill-fated constitutional treaty it replaced. What went wrong? The Lisbon treaty had been greeted with enthusiasm, with pride, even with hubris. Did this very positive reception mean that a central feature of its rejected predecessor – the notion of “constitutional patriotism” – was still alive? Some of Lisbon’s more hubristic supporters certainty hoped so.
Constitutional patriotism was an idea developed by two German philosophers, Dolf Sternberger and Karl Jaspers; it replaced the nationalism that had been discredited in Germany by the country’s Nazi past. The idea was that as the European Union evolved into a federal state, its loyal citizens would reject nationalism based on ethnic affinities and would instead identify with the democratic principles of the federation’s constitution. Democratic passions would thus thrive beyond the confines of the nation state. This sort of fantasy has now been unambiguously rejected by Irish voters, so it seems fitting to remind ourselves that the ancient Greeks who gave the word hubris to the western world, saw it as a portent of tragedy leading to downfall, to nemesis.
MATTERS OF OPINION |
Election? What election?
Only one in six (16%) Europeans knew the date of the next election to the European Parliament when quizzed in a Eurobarometer survey. Another one in 10 (9%) made wrong guesses and three-quarters had no idea. These figures are not necessarily dispiriting. The interviews took place last year between March and May, more than a year before this year’s elections.
In a similar poll six months earlier, only 10% knew the date so it is reasonable to claim that there is a growing awareness of the elections to the most-trusted European institution (52% trust the organisation). But the Eurobarometer report acknowledges that 75% is a negative result and says that the gloomy economic climate may have had an effect.
The survey did not predict the turnout of the
elections, but offered an “initial trend” that 30% of those interviewed said they would definitely vote.
It adds that the middle-aged and well-educated citizens were the most likely to vote.
Worryingly, respondents in a majority of the EU's new member states said they were not interested in the election. In Poland 53% showed no interest, in Slovakia 68% and in Latvia 79%. If the new EU states remain so unenthusiastic this may well affect the overall turnout. At the last European Parliament elections in 2004, the turnout was 45.6%,down from 49.8% in 1999 and 63% in 1979.
http://www.gallupworldpoll.com/ |
Did the ambitions of the Lisbon treaty’s designers thus condemn it to failure? And indeed has it really failed? Let’s look at the conditions of acceptance, the compromises and the votes. The European construct may meet obstacles, but it is still moving forward. France’s Robert Schuman, one of the EU’s founding fathers, said in his ringing declaration of May 9, 1950 that “Europe will neither happen in one go, nor as a whole construct: it will happen through concrete achievements, first by creating a de facto solidarity”. Many thought Europe had achieved that solidarity with the signing on October 29, 2004 of the treaty that outlined a constitution for the European Union that was to come into effect two years later. But by then only 18 member states had approved it; two in referendums until France and the Netherlands then rejected it in their own referendums. Seven other states then halted the constitutional treaty’s ratification process.
The European construct thus found itself faced with an unforeseen obstacle, there had earlier been obstacles involving treaties, of course. Denmark had said No in a 1990 referendum to the Maastricht treaty, but the result had been close and as the other member states had ratified the treaty, a second referendum in Denmark proved successful once the Danes had been promised various guarantees. Then Ireland voted No in a referendum on the Nice treaty in 2001, but the voter turnout had been low, and as with Maastricht all the other member states had ratified the treaty. After the insertion of an opt-out close in the treaty, even though that was politically and intellectually unsatisfactory, Irish voters then accepted it.
But relatively easy solutions of this kind were not available when France and the Netherlands, both EU founder countries, voted against the constitutional treaty. Their votes had to be interpreted as a full rejection of the path to community building. And as both had voted No by a fairly large majority and with high voter turnouts, it was clearly impossible to envisage fresh referendums.
Faced with this situation, the European Council had only two choices. One was to stick with the Nice treaty as the basis of the Union’s workings. But that admission of failure would have weakened the political dynamic of the European project and severely constrained its scope for the future. The second possibility open to EU leaders was to look for compromise, and this was the Council’s choice. The terms of this compromise were set out for all to see when on December 13, 2007 the leaders put their signatures to the “altered treaty”, in other words the Lisbon treaty. |
Over and above these considerable advances, the treaty aims to make the Union more democratic. A group of citizens would be able to “invite” the European Commission to propose new legislation. National parliaments would be given a say in Union lawmaking as the treaty recognises the roles of parliaments in the “adequate workings of the Union”.
Yet despite its undeniable importance and its contribution to the EU’s development, the Lisbon treaty is far from being the key to everything. No one has forgotten the cumbersome processes that were such a feature of the constitutional treaty. This is a simplified treaty replete with protocols, dispensations and opt-out causes. Former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt was quite right when he spoke of the treaty as a set of “footnotes”. It also has many flaws; one can, for instance, only regret that the Lisbon treaty does not change the statute of the European Central Bank to include growth and employment in its responsibilities. Nor does the treaty plan for qualified majority votes for tax and social issues, or open up new energy and environmental jurisdictions.
Meanwhile, with the Lisbon treaty blocked and no institutional step forward in sight, the underlying question remains: What type of Europe do we want to move towards? Lisbon is a treaty that is content with clearing pathways rather than creating new horizons. It mainly gives member states’ leaders the responsibility of implementing various EU advances, and sketches only tantalising glimpses of Europe’s full potential. It doesn’t condemn the European Union, but as President Nicolas Sarkozy likes to say, but it doesn’t save it either. The political authority of the member states remains the motor of European policymaking, with all that this implies in terms of coordination, compromise and negotiation.
It is now up to the Union’s political leadership to move quickly and take a firm grasp of the achievements that initially gave birth to the Lisbon treaty. A charter of fundamental rights has, for example, been integrated into the treaty, but unless the member states bring it to life it will certainly fail to yield concrete results. Fair rather than free competition in trade is proposed, but what does this mean if member states are not able to reach consensus on how to make it happen? There is clearly much work to be done by European political leaders if they are to take advantage of the Lisbon treaty’s full potential. |
A final point worth emphasising is that Lisbon moves away from many of the ideas that could be the foundations of a European federal super-state. The disappearance from the treaty of such terms as “constitution” and “minister of foreign affairs” showed all too plainly that the ambitions of the constitutional treaty had already been scaled back.
To move forward without Ireland by setting up a new Union with only 26 countries is legally impossible. But to start a new cycle of institutional negotiations also seems improbable. Europeans citizens are tired of these recurrent discussions – since 1995 there have been Amsterdam, Nice, Rome and Lisbon, with none of them entirely fruitful. So yes, some believe in the end we will find a compromise, a ruse to make the Irish succumb, and that thus we will have a treaty but without qualified majority vote, without reform of the commission and with a new opt-out on the charter of fundamental rights. But it will all take time and it will not resolve the EU's essential problems; the estrangement between the European Union and public opinions across Europe. Perhaps hubris has finally delivered nemesis in the form of a Union without people, where treaties have replaced the spirit of Europe.