The pleasant month of May brings with it, this year, a faint glimmer of hope, of renewed expectation. No, the many and various reasons for the gloom that has enshrouded the citizens of Europe over past months - and years - has not miraculously dissipated. On the contrary, many seeds of turmoil continue to grow and others are beginning to show. Everything is conspiring, then, to keep the European Union a “disoriented club”, after it “lost its compass, the information that allows its peoples to set a course and even their leaders to chart it” as former European Commission official and one time journalist Renaud Denuit so lucidly put in La Revue Nouvelle in 2013.
Nevertheless, a glimmer of hope is returning. This hope is fragile, as fragile as Federica Mogherini appeared in a press conference in Amman a few hours after the terrorist attacks on Brussels on 22 March. Unable to hold back her tears, the high representative that day gave the European Union back its humanity and did more for the credibility of the European project in the minds of citizens than the vast majority of political-technocratic agreements and compromises reached after long-drawn-out negotiations behind closed doors. It was the credibility of the humanist project the “fathers of Europe” had in mind that she has just defended in condemning the prison sentences imposed on the orders of President Erdogan on two journalists. So, plainly unintentionally but because it was the right thing to do, she has reminded the members of the European Council that Realpolitik cannot under any circumstances become a panacea or even an acceptable compromise, unless one takes the view of Charles Pasqua when he was French home affairs minister in 1994 that “the rule of law ends where reasons of state begin”.
In fact, hope is burgeoning because voices are now beginning to be raised challenging what is becoming more and more like a wretched re-writing of the tale of the pied piper of Hamelin: from one summit to another, heads of state and/or government busy themselves in drowning problems as they cobble together intergovernmental solutions which are very quickly seen to be unsound. Their unwillingness to pay for a radical, permanent solution means that it is now their fellow citizens, the people of Europe, they are leading down to the river. And, with them, it is the Union that is at risk of drowning! On 6 May, Prof. Christian Lequesne observed in Le Monde: “What the European Union is so desperately lacking are voices from the continent setting out, loud and clear, a positive plan for the future of the EU”. There is no doubt that those such as Schuman, Monnet, Spinelli and Delors have few heirs among the political generation at the helm today. This is so much a truism that some even have formed the view that the days of the builders of the glorious European project have been replaced by those of the wreckers.
Fortunately, there is one man who has “heard” the call of the French political analyst, an Argentinean who dared chastise European leaders with the scathing question: “What has happened to you, the Europe of humanism, the champion of human rights, democracy and freedom?” As he received the Charlemagne Prize, Pope Francis ignored diplomatic civilities and other linguistic niceties and spoke the language of truth to his guests in the Vatican, holding them accountable before History. “I dream of a Europe that promotes and protects the rights of everyone, without neglecting its duties towards all. I dream of a Europe of which it will not be said that its commitment to human rights was its last utopia”, he told them, urging them, among other things, to find “new, more inclusive and equitable economic models”, especially for the young. There speaks the voice of reason, one that can reach the hearts and minds of the Poles who, not two weeks ago, took to the streets of Warsaw to demonstrate against their government and for the EU, the young Greeks, Spaniards and Portuguese who see only a future of unemployment and insecurity.
And here, too, is something that is even more of an indicator: how refreshing it is that a contender for the French Presidency, Gaullist Alain Juppé, should acknowledge that what is needed is closer integration as a bulwark against the inevitable ravages that a return to exultant nationalism would bring. A race is being run between the forces of life and the forces of death. It is too soon to say which will carry off the victory but Francis and the Warsaw demonstrators might be the heralds of a new dawn.
Unfortunately, at the same time, there are murmurings that Chancellor Merkel, actively aided and abetted by David Cameron, has embarked on less than glorious political machinations to ensure that it will, once again, be for the members of the European Council alone to decide who will be the next Commissioner president, succeeding Jean-Claude Juncker. Let us hope that the European Parliament will remind Angela and her acolytes that, in any democracy worthy of the name, sovereignty lies with the people. Will Parliament be brave enough? Since the re-selection of MEPs as candidates for election is entirely within the gift of national parties, it is tempting to fear the worst. But who knows? Michel Theys