Coming out of the informal dinner on the evening of Thursday 28 September, which preceded the ‘Digital Summit’ of Tallinn, Donald Tusk was delighted to announce that he had just been tasked with establishing the “leaders’ agenda for 2017-2019” (see EUROPE 11873). Nobody took any offence at this: it was, indeed, a job that quite naturally falls to a permanent President of the European Council. However, behind this seemingly benign announcement was undoubtedly hidden the beginnings of a major problem for the continued European adventure.
It is allowable, even quite tempting, to see this announcement as the intention of the heads of state or government to continue to be the sole masters of the game, both for the substance and the timing of the steps to be taken and the decisions to be made up until Brexit happens for real and in the run-up to the European elections of 2019. The fact that President Macron felt, after this meeting in Estonia, that he had sensed a “collective awareness of the vital need for action in Europe” is one more indication that the temptation to act – once again, in a vacuum – haunts the minds of even those political figures who are the most aware of the imperative need to involve the citizens in Europe. The problem is that acting in this way once more would, without doubt, be once too often.
The real challenge currently facing the political leaders is to admit that the only way to resolve the crisis of confidence harboured by the citizens towards the European Union is to allow them democratically to take ownership of the European project, so that they can shape it as they see fit. They need to understand that what Henry Maret, a pro-democratic priest of the 19th century, wrote in the newspaper L’Ère nouvelle (The New Era) is now true of the political entity we call the European Union: “The citizen will have a precious guarantee of obeying only just laws when he contributes, himself or through his representatives, to shaping the law itself. This noble duty will be the participation and exercise of sovereignty” (our translation) (¹). This quotation is not dissimilar to the speech given by Emmanuel Macron under the Acropolis on 7 September, when he spoke of sovereignty, asking what it was “if it is not the people deciding on the road that we will travel together” in the framework of the Union (see EUROPE 11858).
Naturally, there will be voices over at the European Parliament claiming that the European people are already expressing themselves, through their elected representatives in the hemicycles of Brussels and Strasbourg. Obviously, this is not untrue, but would it be impolite to remind them that they are above all ‘national’ elected representatives put into place by ‘national’ parties? Their European democratic anointing is, therefore, minimal – which, incidentally, gives full legitimacy to the Italian suggestions, approved of by the Elysée Palace, of placing the seats left vacant by the last British MEPs into an entirely European constituency (see EUROPE 11857).
In any case, the European Parliament is not at the top of the pecking order when it comes to the fundamental texts of the EU and all of the Treaties which, so far, have been designed to rein in European sovereignty in order to preserve national sovereignty. But today, the citizens can no longer tolerate this Europe, built on the interests of the states and not on theirs. They want no more of this Europe, which is built behind closed doors, which is the fruit of diplomatic machinations and technocratic calculation. They’ve had enough of a Europe that they have come to hate not because it might destroy national sovereignty, but because it is proving incapable of responding to their needs, which are thoroughly understood.
Let us bow to the evidence: there isn’t a citizen today who loves the Europe that was built in his or her name! And it is unlikely that anything will change if Mr Tusk and his bosses at the European Council keep the upper hand: tomorrow, even though the European dimension was not at all a factor in the German general elections, Chancellor Merkel will continue to have a considerable say when it comes to shaping the future of the EU. What democratic legitimacy does she have to do this? She doesn’t even have German legitimacy to do it, as Europe had no place in her manifesto.
No, the time has come for the citizens to force the states’ hand so that their voices may also – and in particular – be heard when the future of the EU is being played out. The road of citizens’ agreements sketched out by Emmanuel Macron and supported by Jean-Claude Juncker is sensible. However, as the Tallinn meeting showed, there is always a risk that this experiment is actually just smoke and mirrors. And setting its duration at six months while already providing for a “European re-foundation group”, made up of representatives of the member state and institutions, to separate the wheat from the chaff, shows that the idea of setting this process in place has come about in minds that are not used to sharing the reins.
It is up to the citizens, then, to take things up a notch in order to put a stop to these latest dirty tricks against this embryonic European democracy. Public opinion, which lends an ear to nationalistic, popular stick and extremist preachers, must now echo the calls made by a discontented European civil society. The civil society that is determined not to say ‘no’ to Europe, but which is resolved to flag up the Europe it wants and the Europe it is prepared to make waves for. It is up to this European civil society, which is called upon to take shape as a matter of urgency and to make it clear to the member states and their governments that the people of Europe are on the move, to bring a single European people to life, democratically. A sovereign that will embody 500 million citizens, rather than the pronouncements of a committee of 28.
It’s time for a Tennis Court Oath on a European scale and the European conventions must sow the seeds for a Constituent Assembly in due form. If the member states reject these favourable winds from the citizens, which are now indispensable, then there will no longer be any favourable winds of any kind whatsoever: they will have revolution – which will almost certainly have the effect of striking down democracy throughout Europe.
Michel Theys
- - - - - - - - - - -
(¹) Quoted by Claude Bressolette in “L’abbé Maret, le combat d’une théologie pour une démocratie chrétienne 1830-1851” (The Abbé Maret: A Theologian’s Fight for a Christian Democracy 1830-1851”)