Confusion and reticence: Guy Verhoftstadt and Daniel Cohn-Bendit's initiative for a European Federation (see this column in EUROPE 10702) has had a positive impact - relaunching the debates and controversies on the future of the European construction. They must be congratulated - but this does not mean that their project has garnered a great deal of support. Even support given in principle includes reservations.
Vergilio Dastoli, the head of CIME (Consiglio italiano del movimento europeo), has recognised that in several areas simple cooperation between national governments is ineffective - including industrial policy, energy security and immigration. However, he doesn't seem to share the way reckoned on by the Verhoftstadt/Cohn-Bendit pair. Dastoli considers that the amendment to the treaties must be started before the end of the year and that the European Parliament should very quickly table a project of reform for the Union. This is not provided for by the Treaty, but in his view the European Parliament must be daring and should even do something provocative - bring the 2014 elections forward by a year, with the aim of creating a constituent assembly. The Commission would also be replaced without delay. It's clear that it is an approach that has little relationship with the Verhoftstadt/Cohn-Bendit programme, which is precise and well-defined with its third force policy to be created alongside the EPP (European People's Party) and the Socialists, and its fundamental law to then be put to a referendum.
François Foret, professor of politics and holder of the Jean Monnet Chair at the University of Brussels (ULB) has expressed the perplexity of the academic world at a project which in practice would bury the concept of Nation State. Questioned by Martin Labaki (from the Belgian newspaper, Le Soir), Foret stressed the careers and intellectual weight of Guy Verhoftstadt and Daniel Cohn-Bendit, recognising three merits in them - frankness, audacity and the ability to arouse debate. But he did not hide his scepticism on the substance of the project: “I don't believe in 'only ways' in history”. The two MEPs have shown the way which seems to them the most practicable, but “there are other models. Their way is one of the strong ways, but there are others.” And on the explicit question of the Federation envisaged, he replied: “I think it's neither good nor bad, because it's not going to change a lot” (our translation throughout).
Let me recall that this column expressed an opinion in favour of Jacques Delors' Federation of Nation States.
Two aspects to be considered. The choice between the two models of Federation calls for other remarks which, in my opinion, must not be neglected, particularly:
(1) Incomprehensible. The difference between the two models cannot be retained by the whole of public opinion and that's normal. The citizen doesn't have the duty, nor the desire, to make a distinction between European Federation and Federation of Nation States. If he is in favour of strengthening European unity, his choices show it - we must not ask more of him. And yet, it's very much the identity of our States - which sometimes date back an extremely long way - which is at stake. The first formula aims to reduce this identity, the second to strengthen it. A choice is needed - Jacques Delors made it after years of reflection (and of action in favour of the unity of Europe). EUROPE's readers may understand this linguistic nuance and its challenge (European Federation v. Federation of Nation States), but we don't have the right to ask it of public opinion in general.
(2) Guy Verhofstadt - obvious ambition, but ... Every political personality has his/her convictions and tries to explain them and to make them concrete. This is all the more so if his name is Guy Verhofstadt. As prime minister of Belgium for nine years from 1999, he always fought for the European construction. He has since then done it at the European Parliament, where he leads the Liberal group. In 2004 he could have been appointed as the president of the Commission, if it had not been for the British veto. It was an understandable veto - in London they feared his European spirit and efficiency. If this role is entrusted to him tomorrow thanks to a positive result of the 2014 European elections, it would be positive for Europe - and more than well-deserved for him. But the same ambition has been expressed by the EPP (European People's Party) and the PES (Party of European Socialists). The latter stated this clearly last week - “The PES will choose its leader who will become, in case of success, president of the Commission” (see EUROPE 10700)
I don't believe that Mr Verhofstadt has chosen the appropriate way. His manifesto and his programme (creating a new political force, in competition with the EPP and Socialists), with a view to launching a European Federation which would place the member states in the shadow, arouses several perplexities. It's a shame but it's like that.
(FR/transl.fl)