For an editorial writer, the decision by Agence Europe to delve into its archives is a godsend. Ten years ago, at the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Rome Treaties which, in a sign of the times, took place in Berlin, Chancellor Angela Merkel pondered: “Will we one day have more to celebrate? On 25 March 2017, will we be celebrating the centenary of the Rome Treaties in a Europe still of peace and freedom, of democracy and of the rule of law?” (see EUROPE 11753). She answered, confessing: “We don’t know”. Ten years later, with the celebrations in Rome just past, the only thing that is clear is that we are more unsure than ever.
Why? Because it is by no means certain that the political leaders of our countries and European Union institutions will, in the course of the coming months and years, dare take the steps to avoid, as Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat whispered softly in their ears, going down in history as those who, “through their lack of action, dismantled a 60-year old project” (see EUROPE 11754). With populism growing in every corner of the continent, yet again their “Rome Declaration” has proved to be if not bankrupt then at any rate dramatically hypocritical, like a compass without a needle. Alongside the Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950, it is no more than homage of diplomatic vice to visionary virtue.
The void resulting from this “Rome Declaration” provides further grist to the mill of the populist forces who make the nationalist past their promised land. Once again, national blinkers have prevented the heads of state and/or government from facing reality: the democratic void embodied by the Union today is the manna on which nationalists feed, drawing strength from the prevarication and equivocation of leaders unable to take the path traced by Schuman and Monnet for whom coming together on the production of coal and steel was only to be, could only be, the “first stage of the Federation of Europe”.
Instead, from the Rome Treaties which were the first tinkerings with the European project after the failure of the European Defence Community and also, therefore, with a political Community, the relative “by-passing of politicians” which, according to André Grjebine of the International Research Centre at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, “set a course which continuously took powers away from governments elected by universal suffrage without replacing them with a democratic federal power” (Le Monde, 25 March). Today, we are no longer talking about steel or coal quotas but about issues that directly affect the lives of people – who have no say on them.
The proof that European democracy is unsound has just been brought accidentally by Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the finance minister in the (outgoing) Dutch government, who is better known to the citizens of the eurozone as the president of the Eurogroup, and in particular to those of Greece who felt the full weight of his intransigence in ensuring enforcement of the rules. Now they are seeing a man who, with haughty arrogance, accuses them of squandering their money on “alcohol and women” and then holding out the begging bowl to their partners (see EUROPE 11751).
Had this insult been directed in the Netherlands at Friesland or Limburg, there is no doubt whatsoever that the minister would have been forced to resign. In the European Union, which likes to give lessons in democracy to the world, no democratic mechanism exists for removing a person such as this. It may even be he would have been better making his borderline racist comment earlier because there is nothing to suggest that it wouldn’t have helped him personally in the Dutch general election of 15 March. Here is the proof that 27 national democracies do not add up to one satisfactory European democracy!
It is the proof of the urgency with which full European democracy needs to be built. Twenty years ago, at the 40th anniversary of the Rome Treaties, the Italian prime minister at the time, Romano Prodi, likened the Treaty of Maastricht to the “Common Economic Constitution” before going on to suggest that, through it, the peoples of Europe had recognised “the need to put limits on what governments can do” (see EUROPE 11752).
With the benefit of hindsight, it has to be acknowledged that this treaty has, on the contrary, encouraged “abuses by the Prince” since the representatives of our executives now do as they see fit, virtually without any democratic control, in the murky political inner sanctums which prevail in a Europe which more and more European citizens do not want. The currency, economic policy, immigration, how to control borders are all issues affecting citizens in their daily lives. It is not right, it is unacceptable, that they have no say on them. As Lucrezia Reichlin, Professor of Economics at the London Business School and previously Director General of Research at the European Central Bank, has so rightly noted: “Preserving national sovereignty based on institutions designed for the far less integrated European economy of the nineteenth century is a recipe for failure” (Project Syndicate, 14 March).
That is why the democrats of every country in the Union must now come together and take a stand to defeat the populists of every hue and once and for all tackle the deadly cowardliness of national leaders who only like democracy in their own countries. (To be continued.)
Michel Theys