EUROPE
Crisis-busting I: “Only a new ‘political core’ can drive Europe forward again"
Spring 2006
Europe’s constitutional crisis is inducing a political “siesta”, warns Belgium’s Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt. He argues that to reassert itself as a global player and to regain popular support, the EU must establish a core of integrationist countries prepared to act as a “United States of Europe”
When the European Council decided last June on a “period of reflection” to analyse what had happened in France and the Netherlands, the aim was also to give European leaders an opportunity to think about the way forward. Now the danger is that their reflections seem instead to be turning out as a “siesta”, a period of inertia. To avoid this we have to give fresh impetus to European cooperation and integration; we need a new debate to help dispel the scepticism that hangs heavily in the air.
From its outset, the European unification project has proved highly attractive. People like the Greeks, Spaniards or Portuguese, who had endured military dictatorships wanted to be part of the Union. It was in large part thanks to the European Union that they found the strength to cast off the yoke of dictatorship and take the path to democracy.
With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the dream of a truly united Europe at last lay within our reach. Nobody doubted that the lost sons and daughters of the communist bloc should rejoin the European family as soon as possible, and that happened within 15 years when on May 1, 2004 eight former Eastern bloc countries plus Cyprus and Malta, joined the EU. Membership of the Union is an equally attractive proposition for a number of other countries now knocking at our door.
But only a year later, the constitutional treaty that had been intended to give the newly-enlarged Europe fresh foundations was rejected by referendums in France and the Netherlands. This prompted other EU countries to postpone ratification of the European Constitution so indefinitely that in effect they shelved it. Increasingly the fear is that the Constitution is now dead in the water. Insult was added to injury last July when the European Council failed to agree on the future financing of the Union, thus sharpening the mood of euroscepticism that had seized public opinion across the EU. And even when an EU budget deal was agreed between EU leaders at last December’s summit, it was widely seen as a compromise that is neither elegant nor effective.
In short, our enthusiasm for the European project seems to have been ebbing away, to be replaced by indifference and fear; fear of “hordes from the east” coming to snatch work away from the local populace, fear of seeing our companies move their operations to one of the new EU Member States, and fear of competition from Asia that will spell Europe’s economic doom. Fear, too, of organised crime running amok and unbridled in the enlarged European Union.
Closer analysis of the referendum results in France and the Netherlands shows that the European project can still rely on the full support of older people, especially those who have lived through war and understand that European unification’s ending of centuries-old hostilities is unique in world history. Never before have so many countries voluntarily relinquished a degree of sovereignty for the sake of peace and prosperity. And never before has international cooperation proved so successful.
Younger people are less convinced. For them, the horrors of two world wars are the stuff of history books, and European unification is not an ideal but a fact. They travel freely through Europe, study at universities and colleges in other EU countries, and speak several languages. Europe’s existence is so obvious that they don't stop to think about it. But when they do, they think of a “Brussels” that is synonymous with incomprehensible compromises, an interfering Mount Olympus that is more like Kafka's castle, a maze of bureaucracy costing loads of money. In other words, Europe no longer inspires our younger generations.
But inspiration depends on choices, and it is choice that Europe has so signally failed to provide. We may live in a single market without customs posts or borders, and we may have a single currency, the euro. Yet Europe has accomplished its mainly economic objectives without really matching them with political counterparts. Choosing the political direction that Europe should take has never been publicly mooted.
An important page in history was turned 15 years ago when the implosion of the Soviet Union ended our previously bi-polar post-war world, leaving in its wake a disjointed patchwork of new countries, with the United States as the world's sole and undisputed superpower.
Today, new economic rivals are emerging in the east, with China and India following the trail blazed by Japan and undergoing unprecedented transformations. Within a few years, Asia has shifted the focus of the world economy in a development that looks certain to gain greater impetus. In some parts of south east Asia, the economy is growing 10 times faster than here in Europe, leaving many Europeans concerned that these new economic heavyweights are beginning to set the price of the clothes we wear and the petrol we put in our cars.
China, India and Japan are between them home to 2.5bn people, and their rapid economic growth will inevitably translate into greater political influence. So what role will Europe be playing? Europe’s unification was once the most promising of projects, but today the European Union is politically divided and economically weakened. At key moments, like the war in Iraq, the Union failed to speak with one voice. Economically, too, we have lost momentum. Our prosperity is under pressure from increasing globalisation, a challenge to which the Union is once again responding in an incoherent and fragmented manner. It is hardly surprising that more and more of our citizens now entertain real doubts about the EU.
If Europe truly wants to be a world player, it must become even more closely integrated. Only a “United States of Europe” that is capable of acting decisively can rise to the challenges that face us and meet our citizens' expectations. And that also means that the Union must switch direction; Europe, to use a shorthand for the EU and its institutions, must stop being patronising about the member states’ EU-level shortcomings, while also leaving them to deal with those issues that they themselves are better equipped to tackle.
At the same time, Europe must concentrate on a number of major tasks. The first of these for the “United States of Europe” is to develop a joint strategy for our two main socio-economic challenges, globalisation and Europe’s ageing population. Globalisation exerts pressure from outside the Union on the European social model, while the ageing of Europe’s population exerts pressure from within. A well-targeted response to both trends is the best way that Europe can combat weak economic growth and high unemployment. The basis of this joint strategy has to be convergence, which means setting minimum and maximum EU-wide requirements in areas that would include social protection and taxation. In this way the European economy could once again become competitive without descending to social dumping. The “United States of Europe” would also have to step up its efforts in areas like research and development and trans-European information networks. Over and above that, we are going to need a single European area of justice and security to fight crime more effectively. Last but far from least, we need joint armed forces and a foreign policy through which Europe will speak with a single voice.
Only through adopting a unified approach in all these areas will Europe really count as a world player. Preferably, all EU member states should take part, but if this proves impossible then all the countries belonging to the eurozone should be mobilised, plus those set to join it shortly. In such a scenario, Europe would comprise two concentric circles: a political core that is a “United States of Europe” based on the eurozone, and surrounding it a confederation of countries, or an “Organisation of European States”.
Naturally, this political core must never prevent or oppose any form of broader cooperation. All EU member states wishing to join it, old or new, should be able to do so; the sole precondition should be their willingness to work unconditionally on pushing ahead with the overall political project.
The notion of a “United States of Europe” is the only option for the old continent. It makes no sense for us all to continue bickering about which path to go down when other continents are sailing merrily past us. We face a clear choice: either do nothing and remain sidelined, or embrace reform and become a proactive global player.