It’s just one after the other, a whole series. And this one, like so many on television, is poor fare. Intolerable even. Each new episode further fuels the suspicion that European citizens are entitled to feel about the European Commission, Europe and, at the end of the day, politics. First there was the revelation of former president Barroso’s revolving door out of the public and into the private sector – Barroso who was the very first to have to deal with the fall-out from the financial crisis that was born in the USA following the subprime scandal – joining one of the most controversial players in world banking. Everyone knows the role played in Europe by Goldman Sachs in massaging the books so that Greece could join the eurozone and, ultimately, the terrible consequences of this for Greece’s retired and ill, left in dire financial straits. Then – because whistleblowers, that some would dearly like to silence, were about to reveal all – came the admission by former vice-president Neelie Krooes that, when she joined the European Commission in 2004, she had omitted to declare that she was employed by an offshore company in the Bahamas. Her defence? Apparently she remained a director of that company without realising and thus, according to her lawyers, only “unknowingly” breeched the commissioners’ code of conduct. Does all this not remind one of the French cyclist who, caught bang to rights taking drugs during the Tour de France, argued that he had used these products “unknown to his consent”? Until there is proof to the contrary, this demonstrates a lack of intellectual integrity from former head of DG Competition Kroes – who cannot understand why the Commission acted as it did against Apple and now advises Uber and a (different) US bank. Yet more reason for doubts. And finally, the cherry on this indigestible cake: it has been announced that former climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard has joined the international Sustainability Council set up by Volkswagen – the same Volkswagen that brought about the diesel scandal. So Hedegaard, among whose tasks was monitoring CO² emissions from cars, trots off – unpaid, she assures us! – to green a polluter which is looking to buy a cheap get-out-of-jail card not develop a conscience. Disconcerting.
The worlds of politics and business have always built connecting bridges that have allowed a number of leaders to cross in one direction or the other. French Socialist MEP Emmanuel Maurel is not wrong to point out that “close links between the European Union’s political elite and oligarchs, between private interest and representatives of the general European interest were already well documented” (Le Monde, 24 September). What this saga reveals is that restraint and decency are no longer required in the world of today’s leaders, whether European or national, as can be seen from the case of former Spanish finance minister and ex-IMF boss Rodrigo Rato who was arrested in his home country on suspicion of concealing his wealth and tax evasion.
In these circumstances, it is tempting to cast our minds back to the 1930s and, for example, the political-financial scandal which, in France, cost the life of Alexandre Stavisky and provided the extreme right – and some right-wing forces – with the opportunity to launch successful hate campaigns against the elite and all the foreigners in the country, with Jews naturally being the main target. After all, are we not in a similar foul-smelling period in Hungary, and many other countries of the Union, only today it is Muslims who are the target of populist wrath? Perhaps we should heed François Mitterrand who wrote in 1945 that it “would be foolish to believe that fascism took root by chance”. This future President of the Republic went on immediately to say: “While its origins can be found in the machinations of the enemies of the people, it must also be recognised that the corrosion of our institutions provided them with arguments”. In these days when information makes mock of borders, the elites who inhabit our European and national institutions have a duty more than ever to be above all reproach.
Fortunately, this is no longer the 1930s. That majority of European citizens of Hungarian nationality who send Prime Minister Viktor Orban home to think again about his mad dreams that belong to another time bear living testimony to a European people slowly, little by little, taking shape. The action taken within the institutions and by those who signed a petition calling for Mr Barroso to be required to justify himself is the forging a European civil society that demands fairness, where the great and the good are subject to the same duties as other mere mortals, whether they be officials or not. Journalist Jean-Pierre Stroobants suggests that the Barroso Commission has ultimately shown itself to be “the best propagandist for Europe’s critics”. He will only be right if the Juncker team continues to hide behind claimed observance with a code of conduct which is no more than a corporatist fig leaf for a lack of personal standards. Michel Theys