Fortunately, they are still there. I am referring to a number of first class figures who have played a particular role in European affairs and for one reason or another appear to have been less directly engaged but who have just spectacularly proved that this is not in fact the case.
Available if asked. I am referring to Jean-Claude Junker, first of all, who has just made known that he would be available to fulfil the role of president in the European Council, on two conditions: a) that this role includes real responsibilities and is not just “ceremonial”; b) that he asked - “putting forward one's own candidacy for such a position is inappropriate and others should be allowed to submit their candidacies”. He added that, “if I were called on, I would have no reason to ignore the call” (see EUROPE yesterday).
Mr Junker has presided the Eurogroup since 2004. In this role he has made an essential contribution in helping affirm the single currency; he has reviewed the Stability Pact and robustly and relentlessly demanded that the unified single currency be accompanied by coordinated economic governance between Euro-zone countries. More recently, he did not conceal his bitterness about the way his country had been temporarily included on the “grey list” of countries that are not cooperating sufficiently in banking information affairs. The question has been clarified but the bitterness remained and Mr Juncker did not attempt to hide some of the exchanges of views he had had with Nicolas Sarkozy where, “we said certain things to each other”. He now considers that their relations are more amicable and he acknowledges that, “Europe has never been presided with such perspicacity as under the French presidency”.
When the presidency of the summit becomes stable, Juncker would like this new role to have a European objective: “Europe should be led in a coherent, inclusive and comprehensive fashion. The president should know how to develop plans, ideas, and the dreams of big and small countries alike. He must also be a facilitator for the Franco-German couple but without ignoring the enlarged dimension of the Union”. Mr Juncker added that, “My long experience has taught me that the Union is not only constructed on the ideas of the big countries, which often disagree. It is often the small and medium-size countries that get them to agree”.
He also considers that the quarrels for or against federalism are inappropriate, “I am not a federalist in the British sense of the word; Europe's vocation is not to resemble the USA…But I am a federalist in the European sense of the word”, which essentially means leaving everything exclusive to each country outside the EU “zones of influence.
The question is now one of knowing whether Jean-Claude Juncker will obtain the qualified majority needed at the European Council.
A “new look” at the single market? The second case involves Mario Monti. President Barroso assigned him with the task of formulating, “recommendations for an initiative to relaunch the single market as a key strategic objective of the new European Commission”. He will have the opportunity to organise consultations with the European Parliament, the future European Commissioners concerned, authorities of member states and other interested parties (who will, no doubt, be numerous).
Mr Monti was the European Commissioner for the internal market, financial services and tax policy (1995-99) and then for competition policy (1999-04). The action he took in both roles left their mark, as in the case of when he spoke out against the increasing imbalance between earnings from work (falling) and returns on capital (rising) and when he denounced certain abuses committed by certain big US firms. By accepting the new challenge, he was delighted to be able to look at how the final barriers to completing the single market could be got rid of and added, “this will, perhaps, require a new look at how the market and the social dimension of an integrated European economy can be mutually fostered”. I'll come back to what actually underpins this sentence by simply, for the time being, saying that I hope Mr Monti will not in his reflection ignore agriculture in the perspective of what this column has recently underlined” (EUROPE 9997).
The report by Pervenche Berès. Other cases will need to be flagged. I will at least give Pervenche Berès a mention. She recently had to leave the presidency of the Parliamentary Economic and Financial Affairs Committee (due to demands for geographical balance and the decline of the Socialist group) but was nominated rapporteur for the EP's Special Committee on the financial crisis. Her report is eagerly awaited.
(F.R./trans/rh)