Jean-Luc Dehaene's European Commission. Among the dozens of interviews, speeches and other arguments through which Europe's political leaders divided the two major European events last month (first the Stability Pact and then the Constitution), I award Jean-Luc Dehaene the prize for the best interview in November. The best because the Convention Vice-President does not know of oratory precautions, he honestly says what he thinks, and he thinks 'European.' Below we look at he says on the two delicate aspects of current Community policy, there where other politicians would have been concerned with not upsetting anybody and would have accumulated nuances and delicate distinctions (interview with Sabine Verhest, published in 'Libre Belgique' of 29 November).
1. Composition of European Commission. "It must be able to work like a college and reflect a balance of credibility. Thus, I am in favour of a Commission with fifteen members, in which the large countries each have a permanent national representative and the others would have theirs when it is their turn (…). The small countries see their visible presence in the Commission as more important than the institution's effectiveness. However, it is precisely the small that have the greatest interest in having a strong Commission.' (unofficial translation)
It must be underlined that Mr Dehaene is a national from a small country, and that alongside his interview he signed (with Valery Giscard d'Estaign and Giuliano Amato) an official pensum defending the hotchpotch formula put forward by the Convention; a duty of position, which does not end his own beliefs. The formula he favours is politically unusable today, but we should not turn our back to its future value.
2. The Stability Pact. "What took place around this Pact, is the absurd proof that an intergovernmental approach does not work. The small countries are always duped (…). We must act at the Commission level and in accordance with the European general interest, while transcending national interests. However, the attitude of the small countries in the debate over the formation of the Commission is counter productive: they are precisely in the process of weakening the Commission.' (unofficial translation)
Anti-Semitism and politically correct speeches. As was too easily foreseeable, the attempt to hide the document on the rise of anti-Semitism in the EU had the opposite effect to that desired. They wanted to hide something and it was given maximum exposure, as all the media threw themselves on this banned text. The European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), body that is directly dependent upon the European Commission, clearly felt that the document's conclusion was 'politically incorrect': investigators noted that those responsible for the rise in anti-Semitic acts and demonstrations in 2002 mainly came from the movements of the extreme left and young Muslims, mainly of Arab origin. Supporting several examples in various member sates, the document's authors assert that 'physical attacks against Jews, the profanation and destruction of synagogues, have often been done by young Muslims' and that 'it is the parties and groups of the extreme right that have played a key part', while also being themselves sometimes responsible. (unofficial translation)
These realisations do not correspond with the EUMC's main concern, which is to condemn racist behaviour against immigrants. This is an honourable intention, which must be confirmed, but which does not allow for the hiding of other equally unacceptable deviations. All the more so given that this exercise is a pure loss.
The necessary condition. Antonio Martino, acting President of the 'Defence' Council (that has no autonomous legal existence, but which gathers from time to time), felt that the EU should abandon, with regards to Iraq, the principal of 'no money, no soldiers' and present itself on the ground. I feel that a prior condition is crucial for such an initiative, namely a push for a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) guaranteeing that all future decisions by the member states over fundamental issues such as participation in the war in Iraq are forcibly preceded by consultation between the member states, in order to seek a common position. However if certain member state call (as was recently done by the British Minister for Foreign Affairs) for total national decision-making autonomy, outside all common procedures, then the governments that decide alone must assume responsibility for their actions, without implicating the EU or calling a posterori for its solidarity. Either we work in a European sense, or we refuse; in the second case, he who chooses to be militarily present in Iraq must face the consequences of their decision, especially if the Muslim world increasingly sees soldiers on the ground as an occupying force.
(F.R.)