All roads lead to Rome and Europe's route will inevitably pass through the Eternal City on Saturday 25 March, when Europeans - leaders and citizens alike - will commemorate, despite the likely absence of the British, the signing of the Treaty of the Rome instituting the European Economic Community 60 years earlier by the six founding countries.
This event in Rome will not be a birthday celebration, but "a birth moment of the EU27", said the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker on Wednesday 1 March, presenting the members of the European Parliament with five options for the European institution on how to organise communal life for 27 member states up to 2025, once the divorce with the UK goes through. "Quo vadis Europa?", he asked, adding that the time had come to reflect again on new answers to questions as old as the European Union itself.
Presenting the Commission's five options, aspects of which may be combined, Juncker chose not to express his own preference, stating that the role of the European institution was first and foremost to set the terms of the debate and launch a reflection that the governments, national parliaments and civil society should get involved in ahead of the European elections of 2019.
The Commission does not pronounce its own 'diktat' in "splendid isolation", he said, also measuring the disappointment of those who would have preferred him to have nailed his colours to the mast today (see other article on the reaction of the MEPs). However, he said that Europe could not be boiled down into just a free-trade zone or the single currency, as these are two instruments essentially at the service of the citizens.
Not taking position will also allow the Commission to hold the member states to their responsibilities to decide what they want to do together in the future. At the preparatory work sessions of the College of Commissioners (see EUROPE 11735), one of them is said to have called for the governments to be treated as a loved one, not spoiling or indulging them, but making them take responsibility, a source within the institution reported.
Five scenarios for a Europe of 27 in 2025
The Luxembourg Christian Democrat kept his language realistic when he talked about the missions to be entrusted to Europe in an unstable world and with the British getting ready to officially notify their intention of leaving the EU. Our job is to show what Europe can and cannot do, he said, calling on his interlocutors not to pretend that Europe can put everything right on its own and solve all problems, such as unemployment.
To fuel the debate, the Commission is therefore proposing five options that already exist in the public debate and listing the possible missions that could be conferred upon the EU and the organisational models to achieve this:
(1) the status quo: the EU focuses on its core objectives (deepening the single market, fighting terrorism and climate change, defence, targeted trade agreements) on which it can genuinely add value, on the basis of the objectives laid down in the 'Declaration of Bratislava' (see EUROPE 11626);
(2) the single market and nothing but the single market: the EU adopts the British standpoint, aiming to make Europe into a huge market stripped of its fundamental values, a scenario which – as the Commission freely admitted – would bring about the risk of a social and fiscal race to the bottom;
(3) authorising vanguards: member states wishing to do so may become increasingly integrated in areas such as defence, justice and home affairs, and tax harmonisation at Eurozone level in particular. This option of a variable-geometry Europe, which leaves the other states the option to join a vanguard later, is interesting, but is also more complicated to get across to the citizens and raises the question of homogeneity, Juncker said.
(4) doing more with less: the EU is capable of moving forward much more quickly in certain priority areas (innovation, managing migration, trade), but moves away from other sectorial policies such as State aid control, employment and social affairs, whilst the EU budget is redefined in line with these new priorities.
(5) continuing down the road of European integration: the EU decides to increasingly pool its fields of action (budgetary and defence unions). It adopts a commensurate budget and swifter mechanisms to make decisions and enforce the rules.
According to the Commission, the time is not yet right to talk about a possible revision of the treaties. Discourse on institutional reform is not of interest to the citizens, only to those installed in the comfort of the Brussels bubble, Juncker said, adding that it would happen when there is the collective will, which does not exist at the moment.
To support the White Paper on the future of the EU presented this Wednesday, the Commission announced that by the summer, it is to submit reflection documents on the following issues: - the social dimensional (end of April); - accompanying globalisation (mid-May); - deepening economic and monetary union (end of May); - future of Defence Europe (early June); - future of the EU budget (end of June).
After the summer, in mid-September, Juncker will make the State of the Union speech of the President of the Commission, in which he will offer his own vision of the future of the EU. The December European Council will provide the member states with the opportunity to take position.
However, the real moment of democratic choice will come with the next European elections, Juncker said. He called for the European citizens to be once again in a position to decide who will chair the Commission after 2019, as was the case in 2014 when he himself was made 'Spitzenkandidat' of the Christian Democrat family. "Believe me, I am neither tired nor running short of ideas; quite the reverse. And you'll see!", he said, in response to his detractors, who have accused him of announcing too early that he will be stepping down after the end of his first term in office. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion with the editorial team)