Verhofstadt and the taste for self-flagellation. When presenting the "Wake-up Call for Europe!" (see our bulletin of 16 October, p.4 and the text in full in No. 2253 of our EUROPE/Documents series), Jacques Delors was questioned by our young Belgian colleague, Anne Blancpain on the draft preamble to the future "Laeken Declaration". In its current state, this text would seem to be a veritable act of accusation against the European Union: distant from its citizens, ineffective, badly managed, incapable of facing up to the major problems of its time and wasting its time on insignificant details. In all, according to Ms. Blancpain, who has had the opportunity of reading it, this draft, the intention of which is a "mea culpa" at the highest level, example of no little humility, in fact takes the form of demagogic banalities which - whatever the undeniable shortcomings of the EU and its functioning - does not correspond to reality (see this section dated 5 September). The text, says our valiant colleague, could only lead European citizens to conclude that the Irish were right in saying "no" to the Nice Treaty, and justify the negative judgement on European integration, forgetting its incommensurable merits and its new ambitions.
Jacques Delors' answer was laconic: "I share your views"
Four cures for the "wasting disease". What Jacques Delors, Etienne Davignon, Jean-Luc Dehaene, Jacques Santer, Filipe Gonzalez, Helmut Kohl and the other signatories of the "Wake-Up Call" highlight is not at all an observation of ineffectiveness (that would be easily shown to be false by the political and economic reality of half a century of a united Europe), but a "wasting disease" that leads Europe not to understand the scale of its potential, not to dare be what it could be. They acknowledge "the growing disaffection of the citizens", but at the same time recalling the results secured, which represent (says Delors) "an outcome that has to give us confidence in ourselves". To beat the ambient "wasting away", the cure may be generally summarised in four points
- first, evaluate and decide what we want to do together, before fighting over the institutional shape of things. In his presentation, Delors stressed the need to speak "both of the stakes and the rules", as it serves no purpose "to be ambitious without the means of achieving those ambitions" or "provide ourselves with the means without knowing what to do with them". We again come back to the eternal wisdom of Seneque: "ignoranti quem portum petat, nullus ventus suus est" (sentence I shall not longer try to translate, following the often valid attempts of several readers to pierce the lost secret of the Latin concision)
- as for themselves, the signatories to the Wake-Up Call take on board the formula of "federation of nation-States", which will probably have the faults that legal experts (and Giscard d' Estaing) find in it but that retains all its validity as political message stating that Europe's goal is not a super-State but a Union comprising federal elements, in the respect of national identities;
- then draw up an appropriate institutional shape of things, which, for the signatories, means the need to safeguard the "Community method" that has allowed for "essential achievements (…) from Customs Union to the single currency" and which comprises the retention of the "privileged right of initiative granted to an independent European Commission", as well as "the compulsory discussion of Commission proposals according to precise rules";
- use the "open vanguard formula", if it is necessary to move forward, as it is "more structured, more coherent and transparent" compared to the "enhanced co-operation" mechanism which "could lead to Europe bursting and cacophony". During the press conference to present the Wake-Up Call, a British colleague was surprised not to find the words "open vanguard" in the text he had before his eyes: Mr. Delors explained with a smile that the English version had been revised by Roy Jenkins who, armed with his legal and institutional knowledge, had not taken these two words on board. But, he stipulated that the words "open vanguard" certainly were in all the other linguistic versions. Notice to our readers who received the Wake-Up Call in English.
Solidarity is not a "value" that Europe can renege. On the same occasion, Jacques Delors explained that those who had signed the Wake-Up Call had felt the need to include in their text the list of values on which European construction was based (peace, shared prosperity, solidarity, democracy, respect of identities, respect of fundamental rights) so as to forcefully emphasise that these values represented an indissoluble whole: take one away, and the whole collapses. It's as an example that he mentioned solidarity. Of course, this was no innocent example: solidarity is precisely the one value that some Member States would like to put to one side, by abolishing regional policy and cohesion policy as genuine Community policies. German Finance Minister Mr. Eichel recently wrote to the Commissioner responsible for these policies, Michel Barnier, congratulating him for opening the debate on cohesion policy and for confirming that in his opinion this policy had already achieved its goals and should not be extended beyond 2006. According to him, it should be replaced by funding for the poorest regions (in practice, those of the new Member States of Central and Eastern Europe). I don't know if Jacques Delors was aware of Mr. Eichel's letter to the Commission: I simply write what I know, that is to say that, according to the former president of the Commission, should one of the values on which Europe is based vanish, the whole would be jeopardised.
The Council must participate in the executive power. On one important point Delors & Co are very clear: in tomorrow's institutional shape of things, the executive power will have to continue to be exercised by both the Commission and the Council. Their text reads: "The government of the Union should continue to be based on the Council and Commission, working under the directions given by the European Council". Romano Prodi's idea by which "the Council must exercise its role of legislator and not change into an executor" (see this section of 6 October) is thus not taken on board. Personally, I defined Prodi's idea as "a dangerous dream", as never will Member States give up an executive role: either they retain it within the Council (that's the right solution), or they appropriate it for themselves by further developing the "intergovernmental method" and leaving the Commission and the "Community method" with the sole role of managing the greater market and crumbs of common policies (and that's the bad solution). The choice of the signatories of the Wake-Up Call give me comfort. It would be appropriate for Romano Prodi to give his opinion on this subject, thereby dissipating ambiguities.
Summits are unavoidable. What the Wake-Up Call has to say about the European Council reassures me just as much. It is not a question of reducing its role, and even less so of effacing it: on the contrary, the two institutions that hold the executive power must govern on the basis of its directions. The Heads of Government have unquestionable democratic legitimacy, providing the EU with increased visibility, and their national responsibilities are such that it would not at all be appropriate to try to distance them from European decisions; moreover, they'd never accept that, as they are well aware that an increasing share of decisions and directions concerning their countries are now taken at European level. The question thus is not to reduce their European role, but to provide this role with more of a character of "impetus and guidance", and even more (even though the Wake-Up Call does not go into the details) of including the preparations of summits in Community procedures, by abolishing the role of the "sherpas" who work on the fringe of the institutions and handing the Commission back its place.
The young understand better. In an interview with Sabine Verhest ("La Libre Belgique"), Jacques Delors underpinned the dual characteristic of the Wake-Up Call. Firstly, it is based on the past, as "Europe need not be reinvented; it has to cross a new threshold, delving into its past, which enabled it to transform the dream into reality. What is striking in the Community method, is its memory of the past and its continuity. Without memory of the past, without continuity, what can we do?" Secondly, what the Thirteen are proposing "is not a project for old 'dick-heads', it's a project for tomorrow. The proof: many young people are interested in it". This interest among the young, I've observed it among journalists. The middle generation that dealt with the united Europe when it was already in place, is on the whole too often blasé and sceptical, inclined only to see the faults and neglect the historic successes, like the end of wars between Member States and (almost) generalised prosperity. For that generation of journalists, to criticise is easy: they arrived when most of the work, the hardest part was done. The younger generation now seem to be rediscovering, with a new outlook, the significance of European construction, its innovative nature, its inexhaustible potentials. The two aforementioned journalists are an example. Here at Agence EUROPE, we have others. As Delors said, many young people are interested in the new ambitions and the new prospects for Europe. And that's what's important. (F.R.).