Readers have perhaps made the same remark themselves: the main orientations obtained from the colloquy organised by the “Notre Europe” group (see this column in EUROPE 9312) correspond to what Jacques Delors has being suggesting, recommending and advocating for a long time. This wasn't a homage being paid to the founder of “Our Europe”, by the new generation of European leaders, the debates were open and passionate; Guy Verhofstadt, Josep Borrell and Poul Nyrup Rasmussen and the other participants were there to defend their ideas. We can simply make the observation that Jacques Delors continues to be a source of inspiration and that some of his ideas once regarded with distrust have lasted the course. The book (1) in which he summarises ten years of “Notre Europe's” life (chaired successively by himself, Pascal Lamy and currently by Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa) had just appeared and the participants at the colloquy had not yet had the chance to read it. Therefore it is the beginnings that I will quote from and the passages on the three main orientations obtained at the colloquy.
1. The avant-garde. Mr Delors wrote that, “I would like to stop, first of all, at one of my proposals, the avant-garde, which my friends from Central and Eastern Europe do not understand well. I am one of those who think that within the interior of Greater Europe, it is vital to leave the door open to what I would describe today by the rather unattractive term - I agree -, as “differentiation”. What I mean by this is that a group of Member States should have the opportunity of going forward towards integration without obstacles being made to it by other countries, or those which don't want to, or which are quite simply not prepared to go forward. The history of European unification is marked by the example of differentiation…This is not a matter of creating one or two lines in Europe but of respecting the rhythm that each Member State is able to adopt in progressing down the road of integration”.
Addressing the World Bank in a speech in April 2001 he said, “This is the only way that will enable Europe to go beyond contentment with managing a vague and precarious free-trade zone, and assuming its share of world responsibilities”. At the colloquy on 18 November, the former prime minister and minister of finance in Hungary, Peter Medgyessy said that he agreed.
2. Controlling globalisation. During the period of his presidency of the European Commission (therefore, before 1995), Jacques Delors launched the idea of an “Economic Security Council” at a global level, which would have constituted to a certain extent a United Nations Security Council for the economy. He doesn't like talking about this very much because (as he said in his Memoirs), “the term was taken up but without the content or modalities of application”. He had at the time even predicted that China, India and Brazil would have been part of it. This body would have had the means to organise “hearings” of the large international organisations like the IMF, World Bank, WTO and ILO etc., float experimental initiatives, make the world less unequal with more solidarity through limited but concrete and gradual changes, which would have allowed for going beyond the idea that “the market is the only way for effective distribution of wealth”. In his new book he explains that, “today we can no longer say that free trade leads to progress for all…In particular, for mastering globalisation, the environment has to be included in all policies”; and he stresses the need to set up a framework “that is propitious at developing global rules” by reverting to the concept of the Economic Security Council, at which the EU would represent part of the model.
The idea of international rules (social rights, union freedom, fair trade regulation) was at the centre of the reflections at the 18 November colloquy on globalisation.
3. Rejecting tax competition between states. In this column I have already quoted the very tough views expressed by Jacques Delors against the practice of tax competition between states that would be added to the competition between companies and which, if generalised, would destroy the Community spirit. In his new book, he speaks of a “mortal risk” to the EU. At the Paris colloquy, his orientation (which is far from being shared by all, even at the European Commission) received the very firm support of Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, who intends to include it in the programme of the Party of European Socialists he presides.
It remains to be seen if the most recent idea launched by Jacques Delors, of a European Energy Community based on the model of the ECSC (see EUROPE 9308) will also follow its course.
(F.R.)
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Jacques Delors' “L'Europe tragique et magnifique” Saint-Simon publishers, Paris.