Surface consensus. We're there. This month should see the opening of the major reflection on the future of the European Union: its nature, objectives and even its boundaries. When the European Parliament expressed the need for this, further to the rejection of the Constitution in France and the Netherlands, and when several governments, together with the European Commission, agreed, everybody (or nearly) welcomed this, and then Tony Blair basically imposed it, by rejecting the compromise drawn up by the Luxembourg Presidency on the financial perspectives 2007-2013 and by making any decision on this conditional upon a radical transformation of the way the expenditure (and thereby also the policies) of the Union is decided. Just as he was about to take up the Presidency of the European Council for this six-month period, Tony Blair once again demonstrated his skill and guile in presenting his programme to the European Parliament. The change in tack he recommends for the united Europe was dressed up as a necessary exercise to bring Community reality up-to-date, opening up a bright new future for our old, stagnating continent. He had considerable success in the hemicycle of the EP and in the observations of a large section of the media. I feel that in this column, I objectively summarised the support and approval he was met with. And in any case, how could I contest the need for this bottom-up reflection, which Europe has been skirting around for so long? After Tony Blair's speech (which was reproduced in its entirety in Nr 2417 of our EUROPE/Documents series), there were plenty of confused or sceptical reactions, on the part of certain members of the European Parliament (led by Jean-Louis Bourlanges, who is not to be swayed by formulae and whose caustic tongue is never far below the surface) and various commentators alike. But the predominant sentiment was summed up by the President of the European Parliament, Josep Borrel, when he brought the two successive presidents, Jean-Claude Juncker and Tony Blair, together in one common definition: two men who are passionate about Europe.
All is in order, then? Will the announced reflection really be able to sketch out the new outlines of Europe, by dint of a broad convergence of ideas on the objectives and on the means to achieve them? I admit that I don't feel that this is at all the case, and I am almost embarrassed to write it out so clearly in black and white. The summer break, which offers plenty of time for reading, and the analyses which are drawn from this, have brought me to the conclusion that the Member States' starting points and national viewpoints for this redemptive reflection continue greatly to divergence; what people think in London and a few other capitals has very little to do with what people think in Paris and Berlin or (for different reasons) in many of the new Member States.
A Summet which revealed much reluctance. The political decision-makers, aside from the surface consensus on a number of soundbites, are fairly broadly aware of the situation, as is shown by the misgivings recently expressed by the German Chancellor, by the French prime minister and by the president of the Eurogroup on Tony Blair's intention to hold an informal summit next month with a debate on the European social model and on the economic policies of the Union. Let's take things slowly, the above-mentioned personalities said. The German spokesperson said that Gerhard Schröder was wondering about the need for an immediate debate on the future of the European social model, feeling that it would be better to wait for the first half of 2006 at the earliest. For his part, Jean-Claude Juncker observed: "I don't see what it is that should be called into question now. The discussion on the European social model cannot be held in the abstract, as certain people seem to imagine". In his view, the revised Lisbon strategy contains all that is needed; all that needs to be done is to make the effort to apply it.
The French prime minister Dominique de Villepin published a "point of view" simultaneously in various European newspapers, in which he describes his vision of the future Europe, and it is putting it mildly to say that it has little to do with that which emerges from the British stances. It is not my intention to praise Mr de Villepin's vision to the skies, containing as it does various elements which are incompatible with the principles of a "Community" Europe (it is based instead on a decidedly intergovernmental vision), but instead to indicate just how much this apparent consensus on the coming reflection is based upon radically different concepts of Europe. Over the next few days, I'll come back on these profound differences, in the light of the various stances taken.
(F.R.)