Diametrically-opposed demands. Jacques Delors's views on the role of the nations in a united Europe and on the European social model (see this column yesterday) take on a new topicality in the context of the reflection launched by the European Council on the future of the EU. For this reason, it seems like a good time to clear up a few aspects of them.
The most obvious misunderstandings on this future currently concern the economic nature of Europe. Everybody talks of the need to modernise the "European model of society", but precious few admit that demands and trends are going in opposite directions. The innovations called for by the British go towards a more accentuated economic liberalism, involving a reduction in the number of State rules, regulations and interventions and increased competition, not only on trade and investment, but also in the policy and in services; those who campaigned against the European Constitution in France were calling for the exact opposite.
Against competition between the States. According to Jacques Delors, those who wish to impose their own national model on Europe have got it all wrong. He talked about this in Brussels on 20 April, at the ceremony hosted by the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the resumption of European social dialogue, which he was a great proponent of from his appointment to the Presidency of the Commission (1984), and which he made concrete in 1985. His speech opening the ceremony last spring was summarised in our bulletin 8930; I would now like to refer to his improvised speech at the end of the work. On the European social model ("a form of social market economy in which regulations are agreed to across such things as agreements between social partners"), he said that Europe should "take account of the diversity included in this model. We must not confuse the social-Democratic model of the Nordic countries with the Rhenish model of the Germans, or with the state-based system of the French, or with the social-liberal model of the United Kingdom. We must respect these differences, not impose an approach at European level which would wipe out all of our diversity and our wealth".
The possibility of respecting this diversity depends on two conditions, according to Jacques Delors. The first relates to the imbalance between the monetary plank and the economic plank of the EMU, the second to what is generally understood by the notion of tax competition between Member States. On the former aspect, Mr Delors's views were laid out in this column yesterday. On the latter, he said: "the second ambiguity, which I feel is very serious and which will doubtless be one of the major underlying struggles of the years to come, relates to the basis of the European economic integration. This integration is based on liberalisation, deregulation and harmonisation. But if competition between the nations adds to the the competition between companies, then one day, it will all be over for European integration. It would be too easy to practise social or tax dumping to an outrageous degree. Respecting the spirit of the treaty does not mean having the same tax system or the same social system; it means avoiding the scenario of various governments trying to undermine Europe by playing at competition between the nations within it. If that happened, I do not feel that the European Union would get very far".
Efficiency and honesty. The previous remark in no way means, in my mind, and that the States should not keep much autonomy in various fields. The employment, education, culture, health care and social security policies should remain national, or its least the essential part of them. Jacques Delors then added: "this is why you cannot blame high rates of unemployment in such and such a country on Europe: what that country does not do itself, Europe cannot do for it. Certain countries have managed to adapt to the new world economic and demographic situation, others have not done so yet". He rejected the simplistic idea that there was a direct link between unemployment levels and the degree of intervention on the part of the States in the economy. In his memoirs, he relates that in 1996, at a press conference in Paris, a journalist asked the Danish Minister for economic affairs the following question: "how do you get away with obligatory deductions in the region of 60% of GDP?" The minister replied: "you might to say that the Danish feel that they get their money's worth". Jacques Delors commented: "I was very pleased with that answer". What matters is the efficiency and honesty with which the State uses public money. As for the details and the amounts, each to their own.
(F.R.)