Europe seems condemned to generate endless discussions between various stakeholders, some of whom completely miss out on the issues at hand. Two different behaviours more or less sum up the way the debate is shaping up these days. On the one hand, ‘truant’ European countries — namely Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia — spend their time complaining about what they consider as repeated attacks on their sovereignty by other European countries — namely, the European Union (EU) founding partners. Loose immigration policies, fight against displaced workforces and arrogant warnings on insufficient democratic governance or independence of the judiciary — all these issues that are regularly raised by Eastern European countries, and pinpointed at the same time by long-time EU members, as being not satisfactorily tackled.
On the other hand, there are ‘mature’ European countries headed by France and Germany that argue that Europe is a whole and not a supermarket where one comes for shopping. The premise goes like: When joining a club, one should abide by its rules or leave it.
As a result of a growing confrontation, the ‘bad boys’ raise the guard, and the ‘nice guys’ threaten not to pay any more. Meanwhile, ‘naughty’ Poland is investigated under Article 7 of the EU Treaty because of the growing loss of independence of its judiciary — which may theoretically lead to the country’s exclusion. This is when the ‘good apostles of the European tenet’ join the discussion and provide soothing phrases to everyone.” French daily Le Figaro carried an op-ed that summed up the situation: “Everybody should take a step towards the other, Brussels should understand it, even though Europe is based on values which are non-negotiable.”
This is how Europe has been going through for years, and the recent initiatives by French President Emmanuel Macron “to relaunch the process” are likely to change little. A reason for that, whether fair or not, is that nobody actually likes Europe. The concept is abstract (non-elected international civil servants managing governing bodies); it doesn’t work very well (huge bureaucracy with intrusive missions); and it costs a hell of a lot of money. If one adds the particularities of newly-joining countries, including substantial economic discrepancies or Trump-like incongruities such as some comments by Czech President Milos Zeman or Polish Premier Jaroslav Kaezynski, one is faced with an obvious question: Why has nobody ever asked the people what they expect from a ‘united’ Europe?
Actually, the question was asked indirectly once to the French people — and the answer was a blatant ‘no’ to a European ‘Constitution’, although former French president Nicolas Sarkozy eventually managed to bypass it through parliament. In the end, such an artifice proved dreadful because questions of essence deserve genuine debates — and there has been no serious debate for years about the kind of Europe its people wanted.
The question is a rather straight one: Should Europe lean towards a kind of ‘federal’ structure, with each country losing most of its sovereign prerogatives to the advantage of a ‘European State’ benefiting by a single currency, a unified European defence, a common budgetary policy and so on? Or, should Europe facilitate exchanges between its member-countries, put up reinforced cooperation in key areas, compete together with the non-European countries on a stronger basis, based on sovereignty and thereby defuse any possibility of renewed intra-European conflicts?
This question was never put directly to the people. Most European leaders, over the past 50 years, have always moved towards the first option, while claiming that they agree to the second! It has resulted in a situation marked, at best, by indifference or at worst, by deep hostility.
It is therefore exciting to see what Macron will pull out of his hat. There is no doubt that Macron is leaning towards the federal option and one may think that together with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, if and when she wraps up a government, that is, they both will ‘relaunch’ the European construction as a great leap forward.
AT the same time, it is important not to dismiss the adversaries of any federal structure as ‘Stone Age dinosaurs’ — or worst, ‘populists’. There are indeed reasonable people in both camps and one cannot see why a deep and serious discussion on the pressing matters of Europe — moving away from a sterile confrontation between full-steam liberal Europe and ‘Frexit’ — cannot be initiated. On this count, French right-wing leader Laurent Wauquiez has a unique chance to offer an alternative based on a revived vision of the nation — but he will need a majority of French opinion on his side, something that cannot be taken for granted, though.
Luc Debieuvre is a French essayist and a lecturer at Iris (Institut de Relations Internationales et Strategiques) and the Faco Law University, Paris.
