For and against a genuine European identity. How long ago it seems, the speech Tony Blair made before the European Parliament last June! It gave rise to the hope of a change in attitude towards European integration. Three and a half months later, not much remains of it. The personal sincerity of the British Prime Minister is not in question; only this Wednesday, in the hemicycle of Strasbourg, he took up the main thrust of his previous text. But in the meantime, it has to be said that the British concept of a united Europe has very little to do with that of the "founding fathers of Europe", which at least some of the continental countries and, in particular, almost all of the founder countries, wish to safeguard and bring back to the fore. Aside from the technical content of the two projects, which may coincide on many fronts, the essential difference relates to what I would call, for the sake of simplification, the European identity. For the first camp, this identity must be expressed in all fields of the economy (trade, industry, finances, agriculture) and also have a strong part to play in the scope of foreign policy and defence policy. For the other side, Europe needs to be placed within a Euro-American, or even a global, context. The notions of food self-sufficiency, an open, but first and foremost European, financial market, a Community preference on trade matters, have no place in the British vision of Europe.
Giving up the symbols ? It is not my intention to try to provide a theoretical and doctrinal description of what, it seems to me, is emerging ever more clearly from an observation of facts and attitudes. My role as a journalist is far less ambitious, it consists of referring to declarations and behaviour which lead me to conclude that some of Tony Blair's pro-European affirmations point to anomalies. The reality of Great Britain's vision is that of stances taken on the other direction. In a recent conference in Brussels, Douglas Alexander, the British minister for European affairs, said that Europe ought to give up the symbols featuring in the draft Constitution- the flag with its stars, the anthem taken from Beethoven's ninth Symphony, etc- because these symbols may feed into the idea of a European political identity in which his country does not believe. This is not the attitude of many political figures: it is the view of the majority of the population. In a recent survey, when asked who the United Kingdom could rely on if its security and liberty were under threat, the majority replied: on the United States of America. It is easy to understand this response, because the history of Great Britain last century could be summarised as follows: the country's liberty came under threat twice from external attacks; both times, these attacks came from the continent, and the decisive support came from the other side of the Atlantic. It is true that the definitive solution for getting rid of such risks lies in the unity of Europe, which will make it impossible for the sad events of the first half of last century ever to recur; but yesterday's wounds are not always healed by reason.
Two significant examples. The situation is very much the same for food. On the Continent, the gut instinct after the famines which killed so many during the war and the post-war period was to relaunch agricultural production. In the United Kingdom, the reflex of the old "imperial preferences” held sway first of all, and when they negotiated their accession to the European Community, the British fought to keep preferential agricultural imports from the Commonwealth. Still today, the significance of European food self-sufficiency is not fully grasped in the United Kingdom. This is why no real convergence is possible on the common agricultural policy; we cannot go beyond a few compromises and arrangements, without considering the idea of the United Kingdom leaving the CAP (see this column in bulletin 9040). The business of the cohesion policy is every bit as significant: the British government thinks that it should be boiled down into no more than a process of transferring resources from the richest countries of the EU to the poorest. It is not alone: the Danish Prime Minister recently came out in agreement. On the other end of the equation, the Member States of Central and Eastern Europe, which were considered to be quite close to the British view of things, are starting to see where their interests and preferences really lie. I could continue, quoting the financial domain for example (see this column in bulletin 9052 for more on this). I will add that in the strategic and military field, the question of relations with United States remain substantially opened, despite clarifications which have been made and the practical compromises reached. And it is the extent to which opinion differs which explains that the doctrine of "two Europes", which was described in this column yesterday, has seen the light of day once more. (F.R.)