With the European Union relaunching a reflection on its own functioning ahead of its enlargement to more than thirty countries, we are publishing the speech made by the former President of the European Commission, the late Jacques Delors, at a conference held jointly in Brussels on 20 May 2003 by the Greek Presidency of the Council of the EU and Agence EUROPE, to mark its 50th anniversary (see EUROPE 8467/1).
At the time, the Convention on the Future of Europe was in full flow and was about to conclude a proposal for institutional reform aiming to smooth the integration of ten new member states from Central and Eastern Europe. The procedure suffered setbacks that would soon make the headlines, as the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe was not ratified, particularly after it was rejected in referendums by France and the Netherlands. The Treaty of Lisbon would carry over most of its institutional innovations, such as the creation of the positions of President of the European Council and High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
Mr Delors stresses the importance of the Community method and of fair cooperation between the member states, with a strong Commission guaranteeing equality of treatment. In his view, differentiation is a factor in the dynamism of European integration and one without which the creation of Economic and Monetary Union and the Schengen free movement zone would never have been possible.
SPEECH DELIVERED BY JACQUES DELORS ON THE OCCASION OF THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF AGENCE EUROPE
"Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have to tell you, using the first person for once, how happy I am to be one of those attending this 50th anniversary of Agence Europe, which has helped us a great deal, needless to say, and which remains an incomparable instrument of information. Atthe same time, as well as its objectivity, I greatly value the care it takes to report on everything - events, books - a tool of the militant struggle. And I remember my dialogues, and also reading the editorials of Mr Gazzo, now written by 'brother' Riccardi, which I have always found penetrating and challenging.
And if you will allow me, for it may seem incongruous, I would like to mention Mr Dastoli, a long-time campaigner for Europe, and who is, after all, the person who continues Spinelli's thinking. Mr Spinelli was not very pleased with my 'Single Act', but he unwittingly did so much to bring the Single Act into being that I did not want to forget him or Mr Dastoli today.
And since this Convention is all about countries large and small, and since I don’t want to recount my past to little children or people like you who don't have much to do with it, I would still like to say hello to Jacques Santer and Jacques Poos, who were the leaders of the smallest country in the European Union and who contributed so much to the European Union. Let me remind you of the preparation of the Maastricht Treaty, the pitfalls they encountered, the enormous difficulties, almost as great as climbing the Himalayas, and they were always there and e, I must say, always fraternal with me, aware of what the institutions were, having truly understood the testament of the fathers of Europe.
So, at a time when the Convention is dealing with the large and the small, I beg them to remember this episode among others which showed that in Europe as we conceive it there are no large or small countries, there are people who play their roles at a given momentin time, play their role in line with their positions and there are leaders, starting with the President of the Commission, who take all this into account to try to identify the European interest, which is often difficult to do. So, today, I would like to the "little founders", if I can put it that way!
And may the new small countries, whose narratives I read throughout the Convention process, learn from them. Because Luxembourg had both the ambition of Europe and the modesty of its performance and I believe that this is an example that should never be forgotten. Thinking about what I might say to you today, apart from this praise which I believe to be well-deserved, I had to find a reason for annoyance - there are several - or disappointment - of which there are many. And the theme that irritated me the most was that of "rebuilding Europe".
That's why I've chosen to talk to you for a few minutes about "continuing Europe", a phrase that can't be translated into other languages, but which shows that for me there is always a link between what has been handed down to us by those without whom we wouldn't be here, and those who are in charge of Europe today. Of course, the term "refounding" can be understood in terms of the challenge of numbers: when there are 25 of us, it's not the same as when there are 6. But when I listen to the heads of government (because I sometimes meet them at their request - I don't ask them for anything), I see that refounding is a kind of "let's forget the past, a new era is here and let's build it together". I want to fight against that, not in the name of old Europe versus new Europe, a concept I leave to those who are intellectually on a par with Mr Rumsfeld.
But we do need to delve into our roots. And I will very quickly mention six points, more as notes. This is not an exposé in the French style, especially coming from the enarchie.
1. The first is the testament of the fathers of Europe. When you have read all the texts written by Jean Monnet as far back as the 1940s, when you have also read the very fine texts by those who, before and during the war, suffered under Nazism and sometimes paid with their lives for the idea of another Europe, three key formulas come to mind. I won't emphasise peace, although Europe will have a lot of work to do in the Balkans, but let's move on. Autonomy, there are texts by Jean Monnet in 42 which show how much he feared, seeing the coming American power, the post-war reconstruction, how much he feared that Europe would not be up to the task (here, the Americans gave us a lot with the Marshall plan, it must be said).
And finally, influence, which I prefer to independence. Influence means both defending our interests and, given the universal aspect of Europe's genes, being able to offer the world - at a time when it is in the throes of questioning, if not total upheaval - how we are going to manage what we now call globalisation and the new challenges and risks to our security. So, peace, autonomy, influence, we must always remember this testament.
2. My second point, and I apologise for talking about something so in the moment, is the relevance of the Community method. I'm going to reassure some people right away: the European Council is being added. Even when I was President of the Commission, I had a lot of trouble getting some of my colleagues to accept this, but the European Council is here, a supreme decision-making body that issues and defines the guidelines within which Europe will act. But in order to do this, it is necessary to prepare the discussion on the guidelines, to decide and to follow the guidelines. And this is where the Community method is absolutely irreplaceable. Not only was it appropriate for the Europe of Six, the Europe of Ten, the Europe of Twelve, the Europe of Fifteen, but it will be even more so for the Europe of 25.
I don't need to tell you what it consists of: the European Parliament/Council/Commission triangle, for the creation of the European interest. Jean Monnet explained to us, and it was he who explained it to me, that we always had to listen to what the smallest country was saying. And then I remember the words of Robert Schuman, who once said to an ECSC Council: "you are not here to debate, you are here to decide". How many times have I seenpoliticians take up this idea during my time at the Commission; and even Sir Geoffrey Howe, for the British, saying "one day or another we have to decide, we have to decide", and that I believe is truly the testament of the fathers of Europe.
And this triangle is all the more necessary now that Europe is enlarged. The other day, a foreign affairs minister said to me: "I was at a meeting of the 25. We are discussing, not deciding". I found this man's youth quite remarkable: I would have preferred him to have learned about the history of Europe at ENA or elsewhere, so that he would have known that at such times, the Commission's power of control and implementation must be clarified, so that the heads of government can discuss the essential issues; for the rest, for everything that concerns the functioning of the European economic and social area, that is the Commission's role. And it must not be prevented from doing so, through this sort of 'steeplechase' known as comitology.
This is essential: the more of us there are, the more necessary it is for the Community method to be applied. You will notice that I am not asking for new powers for the Commission, nor am I asking for it to have the power of initiative in foreign policy. That has never been an issue for me. I'm calling for a good compromise between the Community method and the intergovernmental method. And I believe that the Convention's current results do not go far enough, and that the Community method is underestimated in terms of what it can achieve, especially in a Europe of 25. Why is this? Because engineers and architects are not always good mechanics, and that's my third point.
3. Behind the institutional, there is the mechanical: you have to prepare the decision, you have to take the decision and you have to execute the decision. Sometimes the decision is taken at European Council level, because it is a major policy, sometimes it is taken at Council level and, to do that, ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, you don't just have to look at the design of the car, Mercedes, Renault, Peugeot or Fiat, you have to lift the bonnet, a phrase that Mr Giscard d'Estaing found good enough to borrow from me.
And when you lift the bonnet, you realise that what counts is the tandem between the Commission and the General Affairs Council. Once a major decision has been taken, such as the financing packages that Jacques Santer is only too familiar with, who makes the distribution? It's not the finance ministers. The finance ministers are in their Olympus. They believe that the world is made up of sinning ants and that they alone have the truth, and of course, within the Economic and Monetary Union, they will never harm each other because they have to get on together; that's why the "bride is not beautiful", it's because there is no economic cooperation.
But the General Affairs Ministers did, and so the Commission/General Affairs Council tandem is essential, not just to the Community method, but to Europe's success. It is they, plus the Commission's right of initiative, who prepare the European Council.
Have you seen the European Councils of recent years? 50 or 60 pages of "conclusions" with the possibility for a head of government, the day before, to say I want this or that issue to be dealt with. Sometimes it's an issue that has already been dealt with, such as a boat adrift on the sea, but in the end it pleases public opinion to know that France has pounded its fist on the table. Heads of State are never happier than when they have two or three options to decide on, except of course for those who want to make a big noise about their participation in the Summit.
And there you have it! This means that once the decision is taken at the European Council, and if it is a difficult decision on joint foreign policy action, everything is dealt with in the same place: the Commission offers foreign policy all the instruments at its disposal under the 1st pillar, to put it briefly, i.e. economic, financial, monetary, humanitarian aid, financial aid, development aid. When it comes to foreign policy, can you think of any government that doesn't use all the instruments at its disposal? Well, this is not the case in Europe today, although it would be so easy if we wanted to lift the bonnet and be faithful to the Community method.
4. The fourth point, which picks up on my malice towards the Ministers of Economy and Finance (which they well deserve, by the way), is the lack of cooperation. This is the Union's Achilles heel. We discuss whether a competence will be national, shared or European. But the real problem, because we – quite rightly - don't want to transfer everything to the European Union and because we like subsidiarity - few of us know how to define it, but we like it - is the rest: cooperation. This, dear friends, is the Achilles heel of the European Union.
The most obvious example is Economic and Monetary Union. We have a European Central Bank that takes decisions, good or bad, but we don't have the economic arm. The economic pillar of Economic and Monetary Union was in the Delors Commission report, and it was in the Treaty, but we are not doing it ... Why not? Because these ladies and gentlemen are taking it easy on each other, because there are asymmetries, and so on. As long as there is no cooperation on economic matters, we will not have Economic and Monetary Union, but we will have a repeat of Latin Monetary Union. This explains why the euro is the dollar's "poodle"; sometimes the dollar precedes it, sometimes the dollar puts the "poodle" in front, but we don't exist! How can we tolerate that? How do we tolerate having embarked on such a great adventure, Economic and Monetary Union, and being incapable of striking a balance between the economic and monetary arms.
The Committee I chaired was made up of a majority of central bank governors, and yet it put more weight on economic cooperation than on currency. This is an obvious point, without which Europe will not exist. Lack of cooperation in research and development, in infrastructure, I won't dwell on.
The fact remains that for me, economic and social Europe, even if I have alluded to the rest, Europe is founded on three principles: competition that stimulates, cooperation that strengthens, solidarity that unites. The solidarity that unites, we have a date with financial package number 4. I will say no more about it.
5. My fifth and penultimate observation is differentiation. Oh, what an ugly, incomprehensible term! But at last you... you understand!
Differentiation is a dynamic factor. Let me remind you of the quarrels about the avant-garde. I proposed an avant-garde in the 90s, and the new candidates, particularly the Poles, cried foul. And then there was talk of closer cooperation, which, it has to be said, the Treaties of Amsterdam and Nice stumbled over.
But what has experience taught us? Because that's what's important. Education, which we want for all our children, is what humanity has learned about itself. And what would Europe be without what we have learned about ourselves over the last 50 years? And then there was Maastricht and the 'opting out'. If it hadn't been for the two 'opting outs' at Maastricht, on EMU and on the social chapter, Europe would have been at an impasse.
So some countries decided to go further. They did not close the door to the others, they simply said to them: "if you want to and, I would add, if you are able to, you will be able to join". Economic and Monetary Union is a question of simple common sense: if we had waited for all 15 to agree, when would it have happened? And then, Schengen, to move quickly.
So differentiation is essential. We have to accept it and stop being insulted by those who say "two-speed Europe" with a pejorative connotation. Europe has advanced thanks to differentiation. It would not be where it is today without differentiation. So maybe we need to find a term, but that's not my job, I've never been a candidate for high office, like the Presidency of the Republic, so I don't know how to say that in simple terms. Perhaps we need something other than "differentiation", but we need to find a term that explains it.
And secondly, there is the constant underestimation of the specific nature of foreign policy. If you look at all the nonsense that was said after the Iraq affair, I would refer you to our sorrow at the Yugoslav tragedy, to tell you that we have to be reasonable. And here, frankly, an institution will not create a miracle. Just because we appoint a Minister of Foreign Affairs does not mean that we will have overcome all the differences that stem from different histories, strategies and geopolitical legacies. But I've already seen that at Maastricht, the effect of the announcement, for our politicians, is greater than the effect of the realisation.
6. And finally, the last of the elements, and I've finished: vision and realism. Vision, and I have witnessed people with a vision who have put that vision ahead of their electoral interests or even their short-term interests since I started campaigning for Europe, vision strengthens transparency and democracy. It transcends difficulties and even opposition, but only triumphs at the price of realism.
Hence my insistence that vision must be accompanied by realism. And I'll give you two examples: I've already mentioned one of them, the usefulness of closer cooperation, provided that it is feasible, and in the Treaty or in the Constitution, as you wish; and also the fact that when we are twenty-five, do we understand what we are announcing to people? What can 25 of us do?
For my part, I've been saying for three years that we can create an area of peace, we can create a framework for sustainable development, we can create a whole that respects the diversity that is so strongly emphasised in the Convention, but no more. For the rest, let's appeal to differentiation. But no one dares to say such a thing. Always because of the announcement effect. So we mustn't let the temptation to make announcements conceal the difficulty of achieving, step by step, the political integration of Europe.
Thank you very much.