EUROPE

Autumn 2007

by Daniel Cohn-Bendit

How cynical and manipulative are the EU’s national leaders in the European Council? Daniel Cohn-Bendit, co-president of the Greens/Free European Alliance Group in the European Parliament, charts the twists and turns of their commitment to the European ideal, and prescribes treatment for their bouts of political amnesia

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Is amnesia an integral part of politics? Recent events suggest it is, most notably when it comes to European politics. Let’s examine the “illness” that overcomes certain heads of state and government and leads them to forget the past, even the recent past. Busy with their domestic political affairs, certain leaders of questionable scruples do not hesitate to use Europe as a scapegoat to avoid breaking bad news to their fellow citizens. Some display separatist tendencies that worry, and frustrate, their electorates. It would seem that they never stop to consider Europe as a new space to govern. It’s not surprising, then, that so many of our fellow citizens refuse, or at least hesitate, to embrace the European cause.

The rigid political outlooks of Europe’s national power-brokers leave little room to examine the needs of European construction. Their political grammar is limited to the present and excludes both the past and the future.

So let’s simply write off 50 years of history: the long-lasting peace of a reunified continent; freedom of movement, a single market, environmental standards, foreign policies based on multilateralism, the devising of a new method of governing ourselves and ending the competition between powers in favour of a civilizing pact. And it is just too bad if the troops are demoralised because no agreement can be reached on helping to run the world.

The present tense used in this form of political racketeering may win elections, but it destroys global perspectives and sabotages any opportunity to experience, or to perceive, politics as a process that can contribute to global development.

If grammatical style were our only concern, this criticism would be meaningless. But we are talking about our collective efficiency when considering world-wide changes affecting the economy, geopolitics and the environment.

According to Gordon Brown, Britain’s new prime minister, globalisation strips the European project of any meaning. But we who still see ourselves as Europeans should deplore this refusal to explore new avenues. Such political autism will prevent the EU from adapting to change and finding solutions to its challenges. Happily, political programmes that are openly anti-European are not the norm, at least not yet. In fact if, on the eve of the 2009 European Parliament elections, the new Reform Treaty does indeed come into force, each member country will not only be able to clarify its position, but also to justify its acts.

Thanks to “reinforced cooperation”, those states seeking to make progress in building the Community will no longer be hindered by the recalcitrants. The latter could even resort to an “opting-out” process, radical though that would be, and leave the EU. Thus the Reform Treaty offers reluctant member governments a real possibility of “liberating” themselves from Europe, perhaps by means of a referendum.

As the hoped-for fruit of the Portuguese presidency, the treaty will not only be essential to the proper functioning of the European institutions but also for the further “deepening” of the Union, something that many call for without necessarily really wanting to achieve. Europe has reached a stage at which it can influence the equilibrium of world politics and face such 21st century challenges as climate change and the energy crisis. As for European political union, having gained a little in terms of structure, we now find ourselves at a stage where we’re going to have to choose whether or not to consolidate and then strengthen the EU’s cohesion.

For anyone infuriated that EU enlargement has not been accompanied by greater “deepening”, it’s worth noting that this is no fault of the candidate countries. The slogan “No widening without deepening”, in itself quite sensible, has somehow been twisted and distorted.

Others, who are still nostalgic for the Europe of the Six, may well see enlargement as a development that will lead the Union to its doom. For all their faith in the European ideal, they are apparently able to ignore the changes in the nature of European federalism. The Europe of the cold war certainly “fulfilled its mission” at a point in our history, but it is no longer capable of determining the sort of Europe we need today.

With scant regard for either the past or the future, some critics use the somewhat crude argument of “deepening” to block the paths of current and even future candidate countries. But who, unless they have a crystal ball, can reasonably claim to know what shape the Union will need to take to meet the challenges of 50 or 100 years hence?

Already issues like climate change and energy supply are demonstrating the futility of isolated national actions and the critical importance of deepening and even further enlarging the EU. Having suffered from disruptions in oil and gas supplies following disputes between Russia and Ukraine and then Belarus, the EU’s member states have finally understood that their survival depends on their capacity to diversify their sources of energy.

It is undoubtedly in Turkey’s interests to join the European Union, and in Europe’s too. If things work out and Turkey does somehow eventually join the EU, Europeans will not only be able to boast of political consistency and having kept our word, we’ll also be able to celebrate a qualitative step forward in the European project. As well as the constructive role that Turkey could play, especially in the Middle East, its membership would also be vitally important in terms of energy.

For politicians like France’s Jacques Chirac or his successor Nicolas Sarkozy, who have little need to explain themselves in years to come, such considerations may be meaningless. But what if Turkey were to put an end to its European ambitions and switch its strategic sights to join Russia or even Iran?

Then there is Britain’s political leadership. For them there is no question of deepening or even consolidating, but rather to give free reign to non-regulated enlargement to hasten the dissolution of political Europe. Such British ideas are obviously not for everyone, and in certain continental countries preference is given to disjointed scenarios. Some heads of governments have even developed a form of amnesia that enables them to consider their country’s commitments as reversible.

The European Council last June spoke volumes on this. What should we make of the Poland of the Kaczynski brothers that signed the constitutional treaty in 2004? The quick-tempered twins took issue with the voting system in Council, and then stole the limelight from Pope John-Paul II with their own homophobic declaration. This excluded any possibility of integrating the EU’s Charter of Rights into Poland’s domestic statute book, but perhaps it was a relief for Polish families to know that public morality was to be the preserve of their country’s own reactionary national legislation.

As for Tony Blair, this Summer’s European Council brought him face to face with the “other Tony” who in 2004 signed up to the European constitution. Think what you will, but it seems that in the meantime Blair had felt it imperilled the sovereignty of Great Britain, so he arrived in Brussels armed with “four red lines” to better protect his island. And what of his new allergy to the Charter of Rights? Russia’s President Vladimir Putin would not be the only one to extend a warm welcome to this new camp of second-rate citizens excluded from the Community of values.

In this climate of tickleness, it can have been no problem for Dutch Prime Minister Peter Balkenende, still bogged down in his country’s “no” vote, to win British, Czech and Polish support for measures making it possible to cut back the EU’s areas of responsibility. It’s even possible he wouldn’t have minded ruining the EU’s entire legislative engine by granting national parliaments a veto.

In a very different style of politics, theatre-lovers must have appreciated French president Sarkozy’s performance; loudly claming to have fathered the “simplified treaty”, the Bionic Man has brought us a re-worked version of Aeneas draped in the French flag. For France’s reasons for defending the constitution remain the same for the new Reform Treaty because it preserves the bulk of what was in the constitution. It still contains enough concrete elements for Europe to move forward again, although for anyone concerned with clarity and transparency, it has been somewhat disconcerting to see the text repackaged by master craftsmen so as to get it signed by all the states of the Union.

But sadly, long gone are the dynamics that were created in 2001 at the EU’s Laeken summit that paved the way for 18 states to ratify a constitution written and openly debated by the Convention. This was certainly not how things worked during June’s European Council, even if its aim was to reassure us that this process was still able to deliver results. Now, we can but hope that open hostilities will be kept at bay during the intergovernmental conference, and that we can count on those states that helped to keep the Council in line.

But “some” support is simply not enough to make significant progress, especially if others appear inclined to renege on their commitments. As the June summit proved, divine intervention against the tower of Babel proved unnecessary for our statesmen to begin talking in tongues. The political survival instinct was such that as soon as they trod the soil of their motherlands, each had their own version of what the summit had achieved.

What we Europeans really need now is to strengthen the European Community through institutional law and balances. We have to enlarge the scope of decision-making with a view to determining political practices with the commitment of equally responsible partners. Is the only way to break out of the vicious circle of always waiting for a miracle to fall from the sky.