A useful book. The latest book by the European parliamentarian George Berthu "Europe: democracy or super-State" is welcome for two or less reasons. Firstly, it offers us a synthesis of the position held by the "pro-sovereignty lobby", those who feel that Europe must base itself on cooperation between the States, without the pooling by the growing parties of their sovereignty and without independent supranational authorities. Thus it enables to get to know "from the source" the thesis and motivations of opponents of the "Community method". The second reasons is that by emphasising certain failings and errors of the present Europe, the author will help us - even if this is not his aim - to correct them.
The titles of the previous books by Georges Berthu - member of the "Union for a Europe of Nations" group - were already eloquent: "To each people their currency," "The Amsterdam Treaty against democracy," "Europe differently". This time, the author establishes a sort of compendium and update of the previous texts, by completing through the description of the alternative model to the Community Europe that he favours: a "network of national sovereignties," which he defines as "the contract Europe", an original system of cooperation that "leaves out the leading centre" and aims to favour the interconnection of national democracies "in the most neutral manner possible." I do not intend to enter into a doctrine based debate nor to analyse the details of this plan. Though I would like to explain why such a project, and all those of the same nature, seem to me, to be in vain and ineffective.
Young, rich and beautiful… If you ask a citizen if he prefers keeping his national currency, without explaining to him the reasons and the benefits of the single currency, if you ask him if he prefers that his country is large, powerful and autonomous, without explaining that alone it will be neither large nor powerful nor autonomous, you will obtain the answers you want. This is more the technique consisting of saying that it is better to be young, rich and beautiful rather than old, poor and ugly. Giving the impression that a European country, anyone one, can have its currency, its foreign policy, its complete autonomy, and at the same time have weight and influence in the world, stems for the least from a sin of omission. Let them cite to me, the pro sovereignty lobby, a single example of a world problem resolved by a European country - in the Balkans, in Africa, in the former USSR or in Asia - I will apologise. Let them cite an example where Europe cannot act effectively as a whole, if it progresses down the path of its integration. I am also convinced that only the Community method can be effective.
As soon as we exceed the EU borders. Certainly, we must agree over the words. If we want to mean by "intergovernmental cooperation" that the peoples and governments must cooperate, it is obvious. The idea of a European building process that would not have as a basis the desires of the people and those who represent them is absurd. The aim to unify Europe is old, but the attempts of the past were doomed to failure as they were based on the hegemony of a country, and the people only waited for the opportunity to revolt. Of course it is for the governments and national parliaments to determine what is voluntarily pooled. Though, afterwards, simple cooperation between the governments offers no guarantees. The three or four fold alliances, the "concert of nations", the unbreakable friendships… Do we want to return to these saddening lies? The intergovernmental method exists for centuries and has never prevented that, every twenty years, Europeans fight against other Europeans. At this rhythm, give my age, I will be at my third war. It is enough to caste an eye beyond the borders of the EU to note that the conflicts and hatreds are still there, cruel and unforgiving. The qualified observers feel that even Union countries, Greece for example, would have been involved in one or other of these conflicts, if they had not been members of the Union.
The single currency: lies and omissions. After this proof, let us look more closely at one or other of the idiosyncrasies of the "pro-sovereignty lobby". The single currency? One must have truly lost recent memory to not be able to see the benefits already gained, before even landing in the citizen's pockets. The continual devaluations and reevaluation of European currencies were disastrous for the prestige of many countries, pernicious for relations between Member States, destructive for the common market, source of uncontrollable complications for agricultural policy…The free movement of goods itself could not have withstood it as the conditions of trade were distorted. Following one of the devaluations of the Italian lira, France had intended introducing import duties on automobiles and textiles from Italy for a valid reason: their prices had dropped in the same proportion as the currency. Tensions, political even, ran high. The meetings in Brussels on these sad Sundays of inescapable devaluations were tense to the extreme. The President of the Euroroup for the second half of last year, Mr. Fabius declared that: "given the crises we have suffered over three years, several European currencies would have been devalued. This uncoupling would have had its consequences: a very steep rise in interest rates and thus an amputation of growth". And the current President of the same Eurogroup, Mr. Reynders, has confirmed that the previous so-called monetary autonomy was a illusion. When the Belgian franc was pegged to the mark, Belgium's monetary policy was decided in Frankfurt, but by the German central bank; today it's still decided in Frankfurt, but by the ECB, where the governor of the Bank of Belgium sits and discusses with his colleagues, is what he said in substance.
As for the French franc, for quite a lengthy period its devaluation was attributed to inadequately robust economic and budgetary policies; but the latter occurred when French economic management was "faultless", simply because the mythical "market" had so decided. With the euro, monetary storms hardly affect the EU, and the advantages of internal stability are incommensurable. It's easy to pass by in silence. Is it correct?
The inevitable escalation of national measures. Similar considerations are valid at institutional level. Over and above theoretical debates, Europe without independent institutions and Community procedures would simply not work. The EU would not be a Community of law, as there would always be a government which, in specific circumstances, would do as it wished, invoking the national interest; the country considering itself badly done by would respond in its own manner, and it would be an escalation of national measures and counter-measures, or else the hegemony of the strongest. In an intergovernmental system, each country has the weight it has. 20 million fewer inhabitants, that weighs. A currency that regularly loses in value, that weighs. A less powerful industry, that weighs. Only the Community method in a Community of law can provide guarantees for the weakest. How can one fail to understand that? Without an institution responsible for having the Treaty respected and ensuring the common interest, the Community's collapse would be more rapid that we believe and even mere cooperation would be placed into jeopardy. The Commission may at times get it wrong, but a una tantun error is preferable to permanent arbitrariness (and this also goes for the Court of Justice).
The arguments of George Berthu have not shaken any of these convictions: they have strengthened awareness that the "Community method" needs improving, rendered transparent, more comprehensible to people, but certainly not replaced by an intergovernmental method, whatever its formulae. But we must, of course, avoid confusing the "intergovernmental method" (inadequate in itself) with the will to cooperate, the will of governments, nations, peoples, to cooperate, work together, have common goals, recognising that they share a civilisation, a history, while safeguarding national particularities. How to explain the concept of "two homes" - one's own and Europe - to someone who does not feel it in their soul, their blood, their very fibers? I know full well that when the time comes, the last words to come to my lips will be in my mother tongue, and by Dante no doubt:
"al poco giorno ed al gran cerchio d'ombra
son giunto lasso…" (1)
But I also know, with the same serene certainty, that "my" civilisation is as much that of Bach and Shakespeare, of Moliere and Cervantes, as that of Michael Angelo and Verdi. Pontificating over the euro and the "Community method" is useless for those who do not feel or understand it.
(F.R.)
- - - - - - - - -
(1) With daylight scarce and circled in shadow - I arrived, tired….