What still needs to be done. Why is it that the existing economic and monetary union still does not correspond to the original project by Jacques Delors? In theory, the main shortcoming has been remedied because the European authorities have finally understood that they cannot ignore the economic part and so after a full 20 years of dithering, the economic side of things has finally been introduced. At the celebrations on Tuesday 7 February 2012 of the 20th anniversary of the Maastricht Treaty, Jacques Delors not only explained how costly this two decade delay had been for Europe and its people, but also set out what still needed to be done.
At the 20-year celebratory conference of key players at the Maastricht summit and leading Europeans of the present day, Jacques Delors, who submitted to heads of state on 7 February 1992 a report bearing his own name, explained the decisions and secrets of that fateful day, outlining what had been achieved and what had not. I was able to ask him some questions. He pointed out that he had been at great pains, but had been unable to get long-term unemployment and youth unemployment added to the criteria for a properly functioning EMU (alongside keeping tabs on public debt and inflation). Now, at last, people are starting to talk about this! The crucial aspect is the critical need to ensure that monetary affairs run hand-in-hand with economic affairs, with the latter seen as more important. All that Delors had managed to achieve back then was to get people to agree to add the word “Growth” to the Stability and Growth Pact! People seemed perfectly happy with just adding the word as if a word without action had any meaning! How many years were wasted - it was not until the summit of 30 January 2012 that the Statement for Employment-friendly Growth was issued!
Questions, questions. Our readers will not need reminding about the economic leg of EMU, and that Jacques Delors has fought tooth and nail to get people to understand that EMU was hopping around on only one leg. Has this now been remedied? Far from it - in order to get the economic leg up and running, although it has now been recognised, various aspects ignored 20 years ago need to be applied, namely monitoring the social situation, especially employment in general and youth employment in particular; ensuring well-functioning national civil services; the cost of political activity; and other areas of wastage. These areas must be addressed as shared problems. At the moment, the euro is “on the brink”. The situation will become clear when we are able to answer the following question: “Is a single currency possible among countries with such different economic standards, mentalities and willingness to cooperate? This question, the big question, needs to be discussed around a table, rather than simply looking at means and mechanisms.” Of course, the Community method needs to be saved. Every time people move away from it, the result is deadlock because every government looks after its own interests, which prevents anything from moving forward.
“Enhanced cooperation?” Yes. Jacques Delors hesitated about whether the future could lie in a federal Europe. He clearly has some doubts and questions about the matter and I will certainly ask him about this when I get a chance. He has no doubts, however, about the usefulness of “enhanced cooperation”, or strengthened cooperation, to make progress in areas where some member states are lagging behind (or will never join in); after all, if a single government can veto everything that leads to stagnation. The clumsy term “differentiation” allows the formation of an avant-garde. Have people forgotten what the EU was like before the creation of the euro? Unpleasant and often tragic Saturday meetings with the devaluing of national currencies in the face of hostile markets, painful arrangements to keep the common agricultural policy functioning, and so on. Youngsters never experienced the stress of those Saturdays… and even talk nonsense about scrapping the euro…
The Mastricht summit also discussed other areas of the European project. The Social Protocol, signed initially by 11 member states, breathed new life into worker-employer relations and laid the foundations for future progress. Jacques Delors says that the CFSP (Common Foreign and Security Policy), on the other hand, is an area dominated by nominalism, meaning that it is terminology invented to hide the fact that the king has no clothes. On the military side of things, most heads of state at Maastricht believed that NATO was enough and there was no need or desire for anything European.
(FR/transl.fl)