Vision of the future or an improved market? The procedure for relaunching the debate on the European Constitution is important but what is essential is being left out. Politically, the wishes of European Parliament reporters, Andrew Duff and Johannes Voggenhuber to immediately relaunch the constitutional process is understandable, as they fear that the pause would in fact become an anaesthetic from which the patient would never wake up. The European Commission President's reply is that an institutional scenario will not mobilise citizens who are calling for economic and social measures to meet their concerns (see yesterday's section). In fact, institutional reflection and concrete action are closely linked. It is difficult for the EU to define economic and social policies if it ignores its own character and goals. Agreeing on reflection procedures always requires a degree of compromise. The real problem consists of the basic divergences about the answers. At a time when the current European crisis is erupting, everyone appears to agree on launching the reflection period. We can now ask ourselves whether all the governments, institutions and political forces really have the will to carry it out or whether some quarters believe it preferable to extend the equivocation which Europe has been experiencing since British accession: going forward as best as possible under the flag of pragmatism. On Monday evening, the president of the European Parliament, Josep Borrell astutely summed up the situation, “Some believe that the European Union can dispense with a political project of the future, a vision of the future. Improving the functioning of the market and continuing enlargement is enough for the European Union. I believe that the problem runs much deeper. It is to do with the political sense of the project and its geographical dimension”.
Dangerous confusion. Mr Voggenhuber cited (see our bulletin 9033) the questions we need to answer: what is the EU's final objective? What are its borders? What are the foreign and security policy goals? What is the future for its economic and social model? Clear and uniform answers do not exist. Member States are very divided, as proved by the Turkish question, autonomy of EU foreign policy, “European preference”, food autonomy. But it is not up to the Constitution to provide the answers! Many of the difficulties with the Constitution derive from this colossal equivocation, the mistaken ideas that responses have to be contained within a constitutional text. The Constitution cannot say yes or no to Turkey but has to set out the principles and define the institutional procedures that enable a decision to be taken. The same applies to the economic and social arena: the contents of the policies to be followed will be determined by the results of national and European elections, as it is the institutions and governments that will define them according to their respective responsibilities. I am aware that I am repeating some banalities and I would avoid them if I had not personally realised, as late as last week, to what point the public is dangerously confused about the Constitution and economic and social policies, as well as EU and national competencies.
It was during the debate between citizens organised by the European Movement of Belgium and “Le Soir” newspaper (see this section in our bulletin 9034). Some of the contributors explained that their opposition to the Constitution was due to poverty in some European regions (citing Wallonia) and by the linguistic imbalance in favour of English (which compromises other languages and cultures). It is obvious that European rules are the same everywhere, in Wallonia as in Flanders, in Denmark as in Sweden, in Greece and in Portugal. National and local differences cannot result from identical constitutional norms! The Constitution goes in the right direction. With its solidarity instruments, the EU is transferring some of the resources of the most prosperous countries to the most deprived areas (Wallonia itself has benefited from this) but the Constitution does not determine the effectiveness of local economic and social policies at all. It imposes respect for all languages and cultures but every country keeps its autonomy regarding cultural policy and if a country decides that learning English is compulsory in primary schools, it is their choice. The EU is responsible for the linguistic regime of the institutions but this is a very partial and almost secondary aspect of language policies and it is done through decisions that are unrelated to the Constitution.
There is a lot to say about national responsibility for social and cultural matters but for today it is enough to underline to what extent confusion is damaging the constitutional debate.
(F.R.)