DOES BRUSSELS WANT EUROPE?

Transcription

1 DOES BRUSSELS WANT EUROPE? Ernst Stetter Secretary General of the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS) September 2012 FEPS Rue Montoyer 40 B-1000 Brussels

2 In June this year, EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy, EU Commission President José Manuel Barroso, Euro Group President Jean-Claude Juncker and European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi laid out a master plan for the future of Europe. Master plan as a working document! But this master plan was merely a working document for the EU summer summit, which listed key points for a better functioning economic and finance policy, which are necessary to stabilise the euro. According to the document, Europe needs more integration in order to ensure sustainable growth, employment and competitiveness. Only in that way will it be possible to tackle the euro crisis. But the details as to how and by what means this is to be achieved are very sketchily drawn up. However, stronger democratic legitimacy in the political decision-making process is mentioned as one condition. It is therefore striking that the European Parliament was not involved in the writing of this document. In fact, according to the Lisbon Treaty that is in force, the European Parliament should not only contribute to the work with the same rights as the governments represented by the European Council in decisions in all fields of law. It should also co-decide and exercise political oversight in the context of an ordered legislative process. But the latest EU Council meetings and decisions show in a crystal clear way that the only democratically legitimate European institution, the European Parliament, is increasingly neglected by the EU executive, i.e. the 27 heads of state and government of the Member States. The EU s executive argues that, in the face of the dramatic crisis situation in many EU Member States, there is no alternative to the measures and they are therefore decided on quickly. The suggestion is that a long-winded parliamentary legislative process is basically holding back a solution!! Executive authoritarianism Emergency situation is the norm! The President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, therefore rightly complains that Brussels Europe is increasingly being shaped by executive authoritarianism. According to him, decisions are being taken in parliament-free areas and an emergency situation is becoming the norm. Since the outbreak of the crisis, it has also become remarkably quiet around the European Commission. And yet, according to the treaties, the EU Commission also has the right of initiative for EU Directives and Regulations. Walter Hallstein s dream of the Commission President as the central political figure in Europe has degenerated into a secretary who is given assignments to do by heads of state and government that are to be carried out by the Commission. The last EU Commission President who was not willing just to carry out assignments was Jacques Delors from 1985 to His set-to with Margaret Thatcher has not been forgotten. He acted like a politician while Barroso acts like a secretary. The Commission should and could be a lot stronger in its initiatives and in tabling proposals to solve the crisis. This would be more in line with the spirit of the Lisbon Treaty. And he would thus be more respected in the formally established procedures of the European Parliament. It would also be more European as the Commission is not called on to act in the national interest but in the European interest. 2

3 It is not surprising that the word federal does not appear anywhere in the master plan. The term political union is not used often either. The centre of power of Europe is not Brussels but the capitals, especially Berlin and Paris. Since the outbreak of the crisis, national interests have very clearly taken precedence over the European common wellbeing. Brussels is therefore not Europe. It is in the straitjacket of power relationships in the institutional structures of the European Union. Of course the euro crisis and political union are discussed in Brussels. But in substance the published papers and initiatives often lag way behind the initial proclamations advocating European integration, formulated by Victor Hugo in his speech on the United States of Europe back in He demanded the preservation of the individuality of European nations and a common sovereign parliament based on a general right to vote for the whole of Europe. Jacques Delors formula of a federation of nation states from 1994 goes in this direction too. But it is criticised more and more by many people in Brussels. As the speech writer of the EU Council President, Luuk Van Middelaar, said in a debate at the European Policy Centre, a leading Brussels think-tank, first of all concepts need to be seen in their political context. A political union and federalism would be defined totally differently in Germany, France and the United Kingdom. It would be a code word for a superstate in Great Britain, a synonym for the fairer political distribution of power at different levels of government in Germany and an existential question of national identity in a centrally-organised state like France. Even the much-discussed transfer of sovereignty to Brussels in order to be able to respond better to the current crisis is not seen by many people as a further step towards a European political union. For them is it what Europe is built on, namely trade-offs and compromises between States, or intergovernmentalism as it is known in Brussels jargon. National interests should and may not be surrendered or shared. That is why it is not surprising when EU Council President Herman van Rompuy recently spoke out in favour of a second European parliamentary chamber. This second chamber should be made up of representatives of national parliaments. National interests would thereby be expressed more forcefully in the European Parliament! Politicise to legitimise! But since the failed constitutional convention in Brussels, institutional reforms have become a taboo subject. In the current crisis, a new convention would certainly not be helpful. Rather, the conventional thinking goes like this. The current Lisbon Treaty gives sufficient room for manoeuvre. It should first be fully implemented and used before a new revision. Helmut Schmidt, Jürgen Habermas, Martin Walser and others in Germany are certainly thinking in a more progressive way than many in Brussels. But there is a consensus that there is a need for a stronger democratic legitimisation of the European institutions. This is the way they put it: Politicise to legitimise. A simpler approach, which is widely accepted and is also in a certain way written into the Lisbon Treaty, would be to personalise the vote in the European Parliament into a real debate about the future path of the European Union. The individual European parties should set out top candidates as 3

4 they do at the national level, who apply for the office of EU Commission President. The vote for the European Parliament would be a genuine debate about political content and would not, as in the past, be a secondary vote or a test vote for national campaigns. Even if the EU Commission President is nominated by the heads of state and government of the Member States, this would rule out appointing the winner of such a personalised Europe-wide vote. Citizens would have a choice between political concepts and ideas. Europe would be more political. The Parliament would be strengthened. The Commission would have democratic legitimacy. The citizens would, with their vote, make a decision that would be respected. The Commission President would be accountable to the voters, rather than to the Council and of heads of state and government. The European demos would have taken another step forward. The so-called Lisbon Strategy of 2000 also promoted national egoisms to a particular extent. It was not about common European strategies for better competitiveness on world markets but about competition between Member States. Unfortunately, nationalisms are the sorry consequence of this. That is why a genuinely European crisis policy is so difficult today. The financial framework a means to an end! Effective European coordination of economic and finance policy requires a certain degree of federalism. The euro has not become the symbol of European integration but has unfortunately only stayed as a tool. In the first decade of its existence it has been a convenient currency and accounting unit. It was never the basis of a political project, let alone of a social project for Europe. Soberingly, Pierre Defraigne from the Brussels Madariaga Foundation states that Europe will never be as loyal to the euro as the Germans were to the Deutschmark. The European Central Bank decides. International ratings agencies and currency experts, who see the euro only as an instrument to achieve their own economic and financial interests, are the real driving forces. European policy has lost its function as a medium to explain to the citizen. The legitimacy of politicians is being challenged. All of this is fertile ground for growing neo-populism. The Brussels administration seems to have lost sight of the long-term European goal. Admittedly people always point to the common European heritage and the accompanying common future but a genuinely European solution to the euro crisis as a precondition for this has not been mapped out. The proposals for solutions are based on national approaches instead of strategies which generate jobs and growth across Europe. Current European economic and finance policy neglects European solidarity and thereby promotes job losses and economic inequalities, which are major causes of the euro crisis. Over 25 million unemployed in the EU and over 50% youth unemployment in Spain should not just be alarming figures for people in Brussels. They must be more than just a spur to do everything in their power to find a new European consensus based on a new understanding of solidarity, social justice and wellbeing. Brussels moves into the final phase of negotiations about the financial framework this spring. National egos should be left aside. The new budget can no longer allocate more than 40% of its spending to the common agricultural policy, which is basically a hangover from the approaches adopted in the early days of European unification. The budget should be the expression of a common 4

5 economic and financial policy, which is based on the basic values of social justice and the right to work and provides impetus for education, training and research. Budget cuts alone are not enough. A political step forward from a federation of European governments to a federal Europe begins with a reform of the European Central Bank and the transformation of the fiscal compact. However, a communitised economic, financial and social policy is not feasible without giving up sovereignty to the European institutions. But the question is not whether the existing institutions, i.e. Brussels, want such a reform. The majority of EU Member States do not want it, first and foremost France, which still does not want to recognise the need for a federal European structure in a globalised world. But neither do the Northern and East European Member States, and in particular the UK, want a federal Europe. In that sense the question is not whether Brussels wants Europe but rather whether EU Member States want it! 5