Comment parler d’Europe ?
“Rethinking the way we talk about Europe is more than just an exercise in communication. It is not just a matter of choosing words, working on a ‘narrative’ or challenging governments, which are always tempted to nationalise their successes and pool their failures. Nor is it about drawing on the reservoir of clichés and using them at regular intervals to revive the spirit of the ‘Europe of the Enlightenment’ born in the aristocratic salons of the 18th century. It is about re-engaging with the meaning of the project which, being based on economic cooperation, all too often neglects political cooperation”, Richard Werly, journalist and France-Europe correspondent of the Swiss daily newspaper Blick writes in this short essay (our translation throughout).
“While it has long mobilised writers, novelists and even poets, reeling from the disasters of successive wars that turned the continent into quagmires and cemeteries, the fact of being ‘European’ these days no longer generates surprise, argument, adherence or even – with a very few exceptions – cinematographic or literary longing. The qualities that prompted envy or even admiration have faded away. Journalists and experts (the latter meeting in think tanks that are frequently co-funded by the European Union, creating a serious conflict of interests which is then exploited by its detractors) have taken ownership of this essential debate, while politicians continue to stand before microphones and cameras, never tiring of bringing forth national arguments to defend or denounce integration”, my colleague rightly argues.
Talking about Europe, but with whom, for whom and to what end? “Seen from the Berlaymont, the European Commission’s headquarters in Brussels, the answer is as simple as the text of a directive that has been copied and pasted from its predecessors, jampacked with that Community legal jargon which, experience shows, is without equal at confounding the hopes and ambitions of our armies of idealists. The purpose of communicating about the European Union is, for the bureaucracy which runs it on a daily basis from a series of mostly pale buildings in the Belgian capital, primarily to ensure that its member states are aware of its actions so that their citizens can acknowledge its merits. The result is an avalanche of formulaic statements, acronyms, official communiqués that have been carefully pruned to make sure that they do not offend anyone, infinitely pedagogical press releases, but so formulaic that they could soon (if it is not already the case) be written by robot spokespersons with decent artificial intelligence software”, the author observes. He criticises the concept of the Jacques Prévert-esque “Europe of the inventory” which, lacking poetry, confidently seeks to win hearts and minds with the additions it congratulates itself on. Werly interprets this as an “auto-immune disease afflicting the Union, made worse by its inability to reflect properly on its causes and look for a remedy anywhere other than the corridors of its institutions and governments”. This “disease, which leads to the malfunctioning of the European immune system (which is supposed to protect it from viruses or nationalistic, populist or simply egotistical bacteria), consists of neglecting the rationale in favour of the inventory”.
Furthermore, this “Europe of the inventory is a danger, as it is based on specific realities that are easy to deform, challenge or forget… Or replace with other false data, presented as necessarily correct, because they do not emanate from the Brussels microcosm. This is something that is well understood by conspiracy theorists and issuers of ‘fake news’, which may be instrumentalised by hostile foreign powers as part of an information war that bears no relation to the debates of yesteryear. All it takes is an exaggerated or even entirely invented figure, spoon-fed to the public to capitalise on their fears every time more migrants land on the Greek, Italian or Spanish coast. All it takes is to insinuate allegations of corruption between senior Union officials and pharmaceutical companies to put paid to the success of joint vaccine purchases during the pandemic. But how did the Commission respond to the allegations that its President, Ursula von der Leyen, had colluded with Pfizer? It didn’t. Listening to the spokespersons in Brussels, the quantity of vaccines produced – some four million doses – proves beyond any possible doubt that the operation was a great success and the European sanitary response highly effective. This is false. This kind of inventory means nothing. Quite the reverse: the more it is hammered home, the more it annoys people and strengthens the views of anybody who sees the shadow of statistical and medical manipulation behind the figures”, the author writes, an argument that is quite justified in terms of the Commission’s communication. It should perhaps not, however, be taken entirely at face value, pointing out that in the absence of a conspiracy, the absence of transparency is a real problem in this kind of scenario, as indeed the EU Court recently pointed out in a judgment dated 17 July. More generally, it should also be borne in mind that European integration has many democratic shortcomings and has become increasingly opaque over the last 20 years. But there can be no democracy without publicity, no democratic control without information about interests, actors, debate and decision-making procedures.
Pointing out that in a speech made in Luxembourg on 9 June 1955, Jean Monnet described the fledgling European integration as the “United States of Europe”, the author wonders whether it is not time to “bring this ambitious statement back out of the cupboard” to set an aim, give a direction that everybody can understand to a European project that feels disembodied. The phrase will have its detractors. However, the author notes, “Europe is still a strong and powerful model. Evoking and fostering dynamism and freedoms despite its deep divides and the political anathema that is Donald Trump”.
“Starting talking to the people about Europe again is the absolute priority. And not just through communication campaigns agreed upon in Brussels, on the basis of proposals drawn up by consultancy firms up to their ears in studies and surveys. De Gaulle, used to the language of the barracks and the men of his troops, spoke to people’s hearts. Jean Monnet addressed their wallets. Jacques Delors spoke to the intellectual appetite and the collective. Among the proponents of the European project, the future belongs to those who, like them, can find the words to move, capture imaginations and explain; where pedagogy meets inspiration”, the author continued, adding that it is “not possible to build an argument if you do not know your audience”.
This is followed by a small amount of bravura about the trade communication and we cannot resist reproducing this highly eloquent extract: “the European Commission is of course always coming out with advertising campaigns, such as the most recent one, entitled ‘You are EU’. Okay. But do they think that highlighting the material benefits of the Community, the 27 fighting against climate change and roaming charges, will spur people on to get behind the European project in a world in which material comfort is the prime consideration and luxury, which is synonymous with social inequality and frustration, has invaded the walls of our cities and shop windows? Do they think that the Europe of the people can be boiled down to this kind of highly utilitarian equation? Tell me what you consume and I will tell you what is European on your plate, in your car, in your supermarket or in your satchel! As if the European citizen was created in this way without knowing it, by dint of being convinced that Europe is his or her natural element. Let us call this the self-persuasion method of Brussels: repeat ad nauseam that Europe is our natural framework, that Europe defends us, protects us, vaccinates us and invests for us in future technologies (…). There is unfortunately nothing conclusive in this way of talking about Europe, which some people hold to be effective. Firstly, because it disregards people’s lived experience. It doesn’t matter that the individual benefits from infrastructure paid for out of the coffers of the European Union, he or she is driving on a French, Belgian or Dutch road. Even if these days, his or her food is governed by European health and hygiene standards, aiming to keep us in the best of health, the label on it is written in the language of the country in which he or she buys it. Take roaming, a victory over telecommunication giants allowing millions of Europeans to continue to use their smartphones in countries other than their own without extra charges. Who attributes this success to the European Union? Who thanks Europe for cutting their mobile phone bill by half or even more? Practically nobody. And that is normal. Other bills have replaced it and the average European citizen does not cross borders every day of the week to take advantage of the beneficial tariffs available to inveterate globetrotters. Basically, the European Union has by no means kept people’s expenses down as much as it could or should have done. Even worse, the promise of a competitive single market, i.e. one that benefits consumers, has largely disappeared, reduced to ashes by geopolitical shocks and tensions on the energy market (…). European utilitarianism has reached its limits and even the euro, the single currency that was supposed to create political adherence, is no longer doing the job. Cash is becoming a thing of the past. There is less and less paper money with pictures of bridges on it in circulation. The symbolism of the single currency is disappearing into the fog of electronic transactions. Credit cards are never European. Our everyday lives are not punctuated by an E for Euro, but by a V for Visa, an American company”.
And then there’s the hyper-personalisation of power by Ursula von der Leyen, in a world shaped by the Internet and social networks. “How is it to be hoped that a European citizen, whose daily universe continues to be national and who is being cajoled by their government into the idea that its borders still protect them, is not going to be shocked or even repelled by the tendency of the President of the European Commission to steal a march on everybody over everything?”, Werly asks. He goes on to say that “the question of ‘who is speaking’ is being abused, because the pace and choreography are no longer being respected. Effective communication first and foremost requires the person issuing the information to be deemed credible by their audience. Jean Monnet, Jacques Delors and many others were credible when they spoke on behalf of the future European Union. Who do we have today who is credible? The increasingly concerning centralisation of responsibility gives rise to a sense of general irresponsibility. How can anything Ursula von der Leyen says about immigration, a divisive and distressing subject if ever there was one, still be considered credible when the former Director General of Frontex (Fabrice Leggeri) stood as third-place candidate [and was elected on 9 June] on the Rassemblement national list, whose raison d’être is basically to unpick the European framework to leave nothing behind but the unidentified skeleton of the Europe of nations?”
“Only a strong European push, to foster security of employment and wages, can change the status quo and breathe new life into the political project. Social dumping and salary regression, which are attacked by the texts of directives but imposed in practice by waves of imported products produced under conditions of unfair competition, are ramparts that words alone are no longer enough to break down”, the author argues.
Werly includes by suggesting a five-point plan: (1) less talking: “stop communicating about every subject and taking the view that it is the European Union’s place to speak about every area, even those on the periphery of its competences as recognised by the treaties”; (2) talking simply, with tools such as illustration, infographics, calendars, timelines, questions and answers and the simple and immediate online accessability of this material; (3) focusing on effectiveness: “every representation or delegation of the European Union should have not a spokesperson, but a communication team capable of giving answers to the local citizens and institutions in real time and then publishing them”; (4) rehabilitating subsidiarity: “the national regional administrations of the member states of the Union should no longer be recipients of the European story. They should help to write it, be involved, in each member state, with its conception and wording to make it as effective as possible”; (5) pre-empting: “pre-emptory scenarios have the benefit of attracting attention. Creating a lab for the sole purpose of working on these narratives of the future is vital, even to the point, as some armed forces are now doing, of involving novelists, creators and artists”. (Olivier Jehin)
Richard Werly. Comment parler d’Europe? Les mots, les mythes, les faits (available in French only). Fondation Jean Monnet. Collection Débats et Documents, no. 35, May 2024. ISSN: 2296-7710. 48 pages. This essay can be downloaded from the website of the foundation: https://aeur.eu/f/d32
Regional Health Care in the EU
Working on the basis of data from the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021 (second year), this SWP study highlights the correlation between the level of economic and social development and excess mortality. According to Bayerlein, analysing regional disparities does not establish a link between the number of doctors for every 100,000 citizens and excess mortality. The number of hospital beds, however, is a factor associated with regional excess mortality. Although this study thus confirms difficulties in accessing healthcare for the poorest members of society, we feel that its purely econometric focus prevents it from taking account of the effects caused by the enormous disparity in health care systems, infrastructure and access to healthcare policies and, in the context of the pandemic, political communication and measures taken at the various levels: national, regional and local. It is nevertheless very interesting in its analysis of the effects of European intervention. Although it is not yet possible to measure the impact of the fund EU4health, with its budget of 5.3 billion euros, adopted in March 2021, the author stresses that the intervention of the structural funds in the poorest regions, particularly in Eastern Europe, is helping to increase the number of hospital beds and improve healthcare provision. The conclusion is that tackling emerging diseases requires an increased concentration of structural funds in the poorest regions. (OJ)
Michael Bayerlein. Regional Health Care in the EU – ESI Funds as a Means of Building the European Health Union Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik. January 2024. This study can be downloaded free of charge from the foundation’s website: https://aeur.eu/f/d34