A dangerous illusion. Our governments and our people are soon to choose the type of Europe in which they intend participating. In this section yesterday, I said that, in my opinion, any rejection of any serious advances in foreign and security policy would also have repercussions on current policies in economic matters. Let me explain: in my opinion, those who imagine that a European Union reduced to a kind of free-trade area would nevertheless retain its common policies and financial solidarity are deluding themselves. Solidarity is a global thing: no country has the right to claim it when its suits them, and reject it when it doesn't. The Community preference is not a simply something to take or leave.
Let's not misunderstand ourselves: support and aid are not placed into question. Nobody can forget what the United States did in its time with the Marshall Plan in favour of Europe brought to its knees by war, and, for its part, the European Community has not shirked its duty towards its countries and regions lagging behind. It has and will continue to do the same for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. What could not resist in a diluted Union, without effective institutions, without Community preference and without political coherence, are, as I see it, the contractual and permanent obligations, that provide the beneficiary Member States with definitive rights. If, in future, a country refuses through principle to buy its military equipment in Europe, what right has it to claim all the agricultural subsidies for its farmers? In a purely intergovernmental edifice, where each decides as they choose without any obligation or constraint, even financing would be decided on a case-by-case basis, depending on the willingness of net contributor countries, without automatism nor definitively acquired rights
Should the Convention fail… How can one not understand it? How can one imagine, for example, that the common funding of the common agricultural policy could survive as if by miracle among the debris of Community Europe? Or that the Cohesion policy, with its Regional Funds and its Cohesion Funds, automatically distributing their funds on pre-established criteria, would continue swimming in the absence of other common rules binding on all? Should the Convention fail, the whole Community edifice would be lesser. Such a development may please quite a few people, in Britain, in certain circles in Scandinavian countries, and even one or other new Member States, and the EU would nevertheless remain a fundamental achievement guaranteeing peace and political stability on the Continent, in addition to the large single market and it advantages. But the French "sovereignty-minded" cannot imagine that, in a Europe governed by the intergovernmental method, a federal policy like the CAP, jointly managed and funded from the Community budget, would be able to withstand on its own. If political and defence Europe is rejected even in the cautious and reasonable dimensions described yesterday in this section, structured regional and cohesion policy would also gradually disintegrate. And those are only some examples.
My reason for making these remarks is that I still believe in the possibility of a positive development, through "differentiation" between Member States (on the model of the single currency), that would render progress possible in the framework of the EU among Member States wanting it. Is that an illusion? I don't think so, and I'm not alone, far from it, despite certain painful drop-outs.
Michel Rocard no longer believes in it. Why do I speak of drop-outs? A recent declaration by Michel Rocard (to the weekly "Express" of 19 December last) disconcerted and saddened me. Here it is: "one could have hoped, in the early 1970s still, that Europe would become a quasi-federation, capable of speaking as one and with weight on the international stage. That project died with the accession of the United Kingdom, on 1 January 1973. The British were not the only ones to have buried it (…). Europe has changed in nature. I have long dreamt of a Europe, driving force in foreign and security policies. But I believe that this dream is condemned and that we are in the presence of a new reality. Today's Europe is not an international public power, capable of playing its role in peace, war, ecology…" Why did Michel Rocard rule out that it could become that? True, he acknowledges that this Europe has other capacities and potentials: beyond the purely economic aspects, it could "assure institutional contagion regarding human rights, it's a well of prosperity and democracy". Which may be essential. But remains to be seen what would be left if the more ambitious dream were dashed.
(F.R.)