El debate ciudadano en la Conferencia sobre el Futuro de Europa
In the run-up to the Conference on the Future of Europe that is expected in theory to start at the end of this year and continue for the first half of 2022, the Spanish Federal Council of the European Movement has decided to publish this work, bringing together contributions from 60 figures from universities, politics and civil society. It aims both to present the process leading into the conference and its objectives and to provide a documentary foundation on the state of the EU and the challenges it can expect. Many of the contributions highlight the need for broad civil society involvement and the absolute importance of achieving a solid result in terms of EU reforms.
Although some of the articles set out to retrace, in great detail, the history of European construction or to present, with a great deal of objectivity, certain European policies, from the EMU to the Green Deal via migration and trade, there are also many which call for greater integration, in some cases with an unmistakably federalist tone. Under this heading fall the articles by Spanish Socialist Domènec Ruiz Devesa and parliamentary assistant Alejandro Peinado Garcia promoting, amongst other things, the Spitzenkandidat system and transnational lists for the European elections. Unsurprisingly, many articles refer to the coronavirus crisis, calling, like the former President of the European Parliament, Enrique Barón Crespo, for greater European solidarity or, as with Josep Borrell (in the foreword), for greater efficiency in decision-making which, in the view of the High Representative, requires an initial extension of qualified-majority voting in the Council. This imperative, incidentally, was also reiterated by the President of the European Commission in her first state of the union speech at the European Parliament in Brussels on 16 September.
The former deputy President of the Basque government, Ramon Jauregui, goes even further in describing the institutional reforms he deems necessary: he calls for the Commission to be given greater capacity for making decisions and taking political initiatives; for the trialogue system to be improved and made more transparent; for the transparency of the Council to be increased, making it similar to that of a parliamentary chamber; for the Parliament’s powers to be bolstered (control of the executive, political initiative, extending co-decision); for the powers of the Parliament in terms of appointments to be clarified; for the bridging clause to be used to extend the use of qualified majority voting, although the author considers that a better option would be to modify the treaty to limit areas in which unanimity is used to particularly serious issues; to adopt new European electoral law including transnational lists and providing for the candidate at the top of the list or the individual with a sufficient majority to serve as President of the Commission.
Jauregui adds a list of challenges which the EU must deal with as quickly as possible: (1) the future relationship between the EU and the United Kingdom; (2) the institutional architecture of monetary union, which should be consolidated (the author also suggests speeding up the accession to the single currency of all member states with the exception of Denmark); (3) fiscal harmonisation; (4) a reconstruction of migration policy, with the dual dimensions of control and hosting (revision of the Dublin regulation, with more coordination and solidarity in managing refugees, but also with an integrated European management plan for socio-economic immigration, including the social integration of immigrants), according to the author, who stresses that the European demographic situation means that welcoming migrants is a necessity; (5) a “New Social Deal” based on the body of existing rights and fighting deregulation and unbridled competition (in another article, Maria Hernandez Peribáñez, a lecturer at the University of Valladolid, refers to a “common social policy”; (6) the New Green Deal; (7) the digital agenda; (8) stepping up the effectiveness of the single market, with greater harmonisation in all sectors; (9) the external and security policy, eliminating unanimity and developing a “true defence Europe”; (10) enlargement to the Balkans, with a negotiating framework to be set in place under this legislative period, in order to make accession possible during the next (the author stresses that if this does not happen, the region will increasingly become a playground for China and Russia); (11) the financial market, which must be regulated at EU level in all dimensions; (12) fighting anti-European nationalist movements, for instance by more cultural and university exchange programmes.
It is simply not possible to build a political Europe when its defence is delegated to an organisation that is external to the European Union, according to General Ruben Garcia Servet, up until earlier this year the head of the NATO Combined Air Operations Centre in Torrejón. He adds: “a European policy must be strategically independent. By definition, strategic independence requires autonomous defence, the ability to defend oneself independently” (our translation throughout). However, the unavoidable observation is that “on paper, the EU forcefully repeats its strategic independence ambitions that are actually drowning in words that bear no relation to the essence of that concept”. This makes it nothing more than a “stated ambition” with no concrete application. Strategic independence would mean developing a European armaments industry and various instruments, but it consists mainly of activating the mutual defence clause set out in article 42.7 TEU, he argues. “There is no future for European politics without its own collective defence and strategic independence is impossible without credible self-defence”, the General adds, arguing that such defence, including its technological and industrial development components, should be paid for jointly and be truly European: it cannot consist of supporting (and artificially adding together) capacities developed for separate member states or technologies originating overseas; the United Kingdom has left the EU and may no longer participate. To take the European defence dossier off ice, we need to do away with a series of dogmatic affirmations or reflexes, he adds, specifying the following: non-duplication of effort with NATO; the mental restriction on self-defence that makes article 5 of the Treaty of Washington the single system of recourse to collective defence, which should in fact be exercisable as a first resort at European level; limiting the EU to low-intensity missions; the “outdated definition” of the EU as a civil power; the nuclear deterrent (which should be debated at European level); the military inferiority of the EU (which will continue until it awards itself the resources to remedy this). Olivier Jehin
Francisco Aldecoa Luzarraga (editor). El debate ciudadano en la Conferencia sobre el Futuro de Europa. Marcial Pons. ISBN: 978-84-9123-846-8. 553 pages. €46,60
Comme un empire dans un empire
Despite its title, borrowed from a Spinoza quotation, Alice Zeniter takes us on a journey in a contemporary world. A world of shadows and depths which everyone can navigate or dive, sink or swim. A world of inside and outside, with its overlaps between hopes, encounters, confrontations and concerns.
The novel begins in autumn 2018 in the France of the ‘yellow vests’ and ends in spring 2019, just before the European elections. Two parallel existences come together outside of their own contradictions. Antoine is parliamentary assistant to a Socialist member of the French National Assembly. His dream, unrealised, is to write a book about the Spanish war. He wants to believe that he can do some good in his own bubble. L (for Leila?) is a hacker and a web addict. She lives inside and rarely goes out, and then usually only to provide support to women who have been bullied on the Internet.
The real and the virtual comprise these interlocking empires with which everybody is faced in their own way. They plunge us, in record time, into a huge range of different universes, each with its own code and its own vocabulary. The language is rich and the structure of the novel simple and effective. Here and there, however, there are a few unfortunate lengthy passages and even more regrettable is the little attention paid by the editor to proofreading and punctuation. (O.J.)
Alice Zeniter. Comme un empire dans un empire. Flammarion. ISBN: 978-2-0815-1543-7. 394 pages. €21,00
Multilatéralisme: crises et perspectives
The diplomat and former Swiss minister Jean Zwahlen paints a picture of multilateralism in crisis, subject to attacks from Donald Trump that must make “Xi Jinping think that all his birthdays have come at once” (our translation throughout). With the American President cutting the country’s contributions to the UN, denouncing treaties and putting a stranglehold on the way the institutions function, to name but a few, the field has been clear for China to profess faith in multilateralism and to move into the space left vacant. Even so, the Chinese concept of multilateralism remains shot through by the intransigence manifested by Beijing in at least four areas: state capitalism, non-interference, intellectual property and human rights, Zwahlen reminds us, expressing concern at the growing rivalry between the United States and China.
“Multilateralism is in danger”, but “its life is not at risk”, amongst other things because China is in the process of taking back its traditional place as a major power and “wants the world to look like it”. However, this means that the “epicentre of multilateralism is gradually moving towards Asia”, states the author, noting that “all new organisations have their headquarters in China” and that the “West has already lost much of its preponderance in the voting rights within these institutions”. “Geopolitically, the move of the epicentre of multilateralism brings with it danger for democracies and their values, because China is openly fighting to discredit democratic regimes and legitimise autocratic methods of governance”, states Zwahlen, who adds that “in view of this development, Europe, which is politically weak because it is incomplete, is in a very delicate situation since it can no longer count on the indefectibility of the Atlantic Alliance and is increasingly faced with a conquering China. It needs to pull together while there’s still time!”
In the same publication, Zwahlen explains the challenges of 5G for the European Union and Switzerland, calling for sizeable European efforts. (O.J.)
Jean Zwahlen. Multilatéralisme: crises et perspectives. Fondation Jean Monnet. Collection Débats et documents, no. 17, July 2020. ISSN: 2296-7710. 53 pages. The essay, which is available in French only, can be downloaded free of charge from the website of the foundation: http://www.jean-monnet.ch
Fairness in EU Competition policy: Significance and Implications
This collective work offers a critical analysis of the concept of fairness in the European competition policy. As many contributions reiterate, the use of the term “fairness” and of the expression” fair competition” was developed mainly on the basis of the communication activities of the Commission, with the word appearing only twice in the section of the Treaty given over to competition. Article 102 TFEU, for instance, provides that the abuse of a dominant position may consist of “directly or indirectly imposing unfair purchase of selling prices or other unfair trading conditions”. And, as Pinar Akman (University of Leeds) points out, this article does not set out to define possible cases of “unfair conditions”, with the attendant risks of legal insecurity.
Other contributors, such as the lawyers Maurits Dolmans and Wanjie Lin (Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP), point out that in law, the notion of fairness was principally developed on the basis of article 6 (fair trial) of the European Human Rights Convention, but also finds its place in contract law and consumer protection. They argue that the concept of fairness is too subjective and vague to be used in the definition and implementation of competition policy. Nor is it necessary, because there are plenty of other more objective and precise concepts: - consumer welfare; - the “anti-competitive effect” and “merit-based competition” as fundamental criteria to assess compliance with the objective of free and undistorted competition; - proportionality and the “useful effect” to assess remedies; - respecting procedures and the rule of law.
The President of the General Court of the European Union, Marc van der Woude, states that there is no general principle of fairness in European law and the European Court is even required to dismiss considerations of fairness if the contested measure corresponds to the result sought by the European legislator. Concerns of fairness can nonetheless guide judges whenever the rule of the applicable law allows a number of different interpretations or if the legislator grants the European Court unlimited jurisdiction on the basis of article 261 TFEU, as is the case for instance with fines or penalties imposed by the Commission in competition matters. (O.J.)
Damien Gerard et al. Fairness in EU Competition Policy: Significance and Implications – An Inquiry into the Soul and Spirit of Competition Enforcement in Europe. Bruylant. ISBN: 978-2-8027-6632-2. 185 pages. €80,00