National identities and European unity. Gaëtane Ricard-Nihoul was absolutely right to revive Jacques Delors' blueprint for the future of Europe: a Federation of Nation States. She was right because this concept, today more than ever, offers a solution that could square the circle of protecting the national identity, which each people naturally wants to retain, and creating an increasingly effective European unity, which can respond to the political and economic demands of this century and the future.
The Delors suggestion is, then, more than just a soundbite. It is the result of deep thought and reflection which had already begun to take shape by 1989. The book by Ms Ricard-Nihoul(1) notes that, in a speech delivered in Bruges in that year, Jacques Delors had spoken of the desire to “reconcile what may appear to many to be the irreconcilable: the emergence of a united Europe and loyalty to our nation, to our motherland; the need for a European power able to address to the problems of our time and the absolute necessity of retaining our nations and our regions as the places in which we are rooted”. In 1992, he brought clarification: his conception of federalism “bears no relation to what its opponents say. For me, the federal approach consists of classifying the levels of responsibility, determining who does what. It protects the nation state. It buttresses subsidiarity … and subsidiarity is a guarantee against encroachment by Community action, against worries over assault from bureaucracy”. In July 2002, he was even more explicit in rejecting the doctrine of the early federalists who wanted to “go beyond, or even get rid of, nations. … From the first moment I became an activist in the European Movement, I disagreed. Globalisation demands that reference points and wills be strengthened. The public has to be able to find strength and courage in its national traditions”. And he was just as critical of the suggestion of a United States of Europe, which, he felt, suggested a supranational super-state.
Spirit of cooperation lacking. Mr Delors coined the phrase Federation of Nation States in 1992, in an interview with German newspaper Der Speigel: “The federal structure is the only one that can increase our power externally while at the same time not weakening the national state and democracy within states. It clearly sets out who is responsible for doing what”. From that time, Jacques Delors has remained faithful to his model and he believes that in today's EU there exist “references and practices of the Federation of Nation States”. He is not, for the moment, optimistic, however. In the preface to Gaëtane Ricard-Nihoul's book, written at the start of the year, he states that an essential is currently lacking: “I believe the spirit of cooperation to be the key driver of federation. The lack of this spirit of cooperation goes a long way to explaining why the Economic and Monetary Union is working so poorly. … Public opinion has forgotten what it owes to 60 years of European construction”.
“Differentiation” needed. Gaëtane Ricard-Nihoul highlights, too, a principle that Jacques Delors has always supported: differentiation between the member states' levels of ambition, and, therefore, the possibility that they do not all move forward together at the same time in all areas. The EU already has variable geometry cooperation and differentiation can take various forms: enhanced cooperation, opt-ins or opt-outs, transition periods, and so on. It is nevertheless essential, she says, that “political Europe is formed around a group of countries that is clearly identifiable to citizens and on the international scene”. In her view, there is only one solution: the Federation of Nation States need not be made up of the same countries as the EU. There are some areas where progress absolutely must be made: tax convergence, budgetary cooperation, a joint energy policy, preservation and encouragement of cultural difference, unified external representation on money matters, etc. She says: “If the 27 member states do not have the will to advance together, a group of pioneer states will have to venture into the unknown; … At eurozone level, or even at the level of the centre of gravity within the eurozone, it would be commonsense to push on further”.
The Federation of Nation States could be the right framework for this Europe of the future.
(FR/transl.rt)
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(1) Gaëtane Ricard-Nihoul: “Pour une Fédération européenne d'États-nations / La vision de Jacques Delors revisitée” Published by Larcier