EUROPE

Summer 2007

by Pavel Telicka

European governments‘ over-riding concern with national interest is too often binding their diplomats‘ hands, regardless of the EU’s common goals, says Pavel Telička, a former Czech Ambassador to the EU and Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister

Crisis, what crisis? The deadlock over Europe’s constitutional treaty may mean the EU is dragging its feet a bit, but it still works, its institutions continue to function, laws go on being enacted, decisions taken and fines imposed. We could be doing much better, of course, and clearly we need a new treaty. But crisis is a too strong word, and anyway its not the signal to send to the European public at large.

Europe’s real problems lie elsewhere. For decades, the Union has been designed and led by politicians who believed passionately in European integration. Their vivid memories of World War II and its aftermath, together with the chill of the Iron curtain, were a firm basis for creating a united Europe. There was more to it than that, of course. Leaders like Konrad Adenauer, and Robert Schuman and latterly Helmut Kohl and François Mitterrand, not only had a shared vision but also the courage to identify the real issues and take tough decisions. And they took these even when they meant compromises that impinged on their own national interests, or were at the expense of their personal popularity.

Today the EU no longer has the Cold War or even the nightmare of real wars as its cement. Society has changed too. It has become consumer-led, thanks in some degree to the EU’s own success. People take the achievements of the European integration process for granted, but is that any excuse for the current lack of leadership? I think not.

Today’s politicians all declare their commitment to EU policies, but how genuine is this when negotiations within the Council are so dominated by national interests? How often does positive and determined political statement by an EU member government go unmatched by its own deeds? The reality is that EU countries’ diplomats in Coreper − the permanent negotiating forum for the EU-27 − are often given inflexible negotiating positions that put the national interest above all else. In short, the Union’s member states have become more nationally-oriented than in years past and seem increasingly preoccupied by their own internal problems. Shaky domestic politics and the hypnotic effects of opinion polls mean that in quite a few EU countries events back home can carry more weight than the EU agenda. The lack of political audacity that this engenders leads to an inability to introduce change, especially structural change. The point is easy enough to illustrate. How many summit conclusions did have we had on implementation of the Lisbon strategy? What genuine efforts by member states can we point to? How often are ministers who speak of better regulation able to point to their own government’s track record on this? Yet for all these obvious shortcomings, leadership is crucial and without it the EU will surely keep on dragging its feet. So if there is a crisis, it is not of the EU and its institutions. The crisis is one of political leadership and maybe of some member states’ politics. Perhaps we should call it a crisis of spirit, for which, alas, there is no simple magical cure. And that is especially true because we, the political classes of Europe, have taught the general public indolence by not communicating with it and not getting it interested and involved.

If there is one positive sign, though, it is the impact that Germany’s Angela Merkel has been having on the EU scene. One may not subscribe to all her ideas, but she clearly is now providing the EU with leadership, and it remains to be seen whether she will continue to do so when the German presidency is over.

Europe’s problems are anyway about more than leadership. Perhaps we need to re-shape the EU’s agenda and get Europe moving again with some new project on the same scale as the Single European Act or Economic and Monetary Union. There are clearly many reasons why the EU has been dragging its feet, but the absence of leadership and the primacy of national interest have done much to cause the standstill. On its own, a major new project couldn’t suddenly re-start the EU, and without political leadership it would be driven only by officials and would fail. As to the idea of a new project driven by an avant-garde group of progessive EU states, it is hard to imagine such a group being formed in the present political climate. The only project worth the risks that it would involve is the new constitutional treaty that the EU needs, and for which there is still a reasonably solid foundation. There seems, for all the doom and gloom in the media, a clear political awareness that a new treaty is vital, but that its scope and content have yet to be negotiated.

It is clearly essential that the EU must make progress on a number of topical issues, and not just in terms of more strongly worded European Council conclusions. One of the greatest strenghts of the EU, and one that is widely appreciated by the public, is its single market. But there are still important questions as to whether the EU’s internal market has been completed, how well it rules are being implemented and what remaining natural barriers must be addressed. Few would disagree that a thorough review is now necessary, with full completion and implementation of the European marketplace as its goal. How can it be that member states are able to set a 1.2% target for their “transpositions deficit”? It is as if citizens where to target to comply 98.8% with the law. And the present situation in which member states calculate they have up to two years before infringement procedures are initiated is also unsustainable.

Along with this internal market review and the adjustments that would follow it one could also foresee implementation of a concept of better regulation. Strange to say, there still isn’t a genuinely European consensus on what constitutes better regulation, and what its priorities should be. Any simplification that risked confusing better regulation with deregulation should be avoided, and must be emphasised that better regulation is not just lowering administrative costs or simplifying legislation. It is much more comprehensive than that; spanning transposition, implementation, enforcement, impact assessment, ex-post assessment, alternative forms of regulation, including self-regulation and more efficient infringements procedures. Somewhat belatedly, the Commission now has a number of better regulation measures and proposals in the pipeline, but apart from four countries or so, the record of member states on this is extremely poor.

It is essential that Europe should begin to make substantial progress on these and such other issues as energy and innovation. Only then will we be able to engage public opinion in support of fresh projects of even greater magnitude.