Professor Peter G. Xuereb's contribution to the book European Union - The Next 50 Years

The European Union is looked to for the advancement of peace and prosperity in the world. It must also continue to deliver these 'at home'. The two are inseparable. Most of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe must be brought about for this double necessity. This must be fully explained to the citizen. Let it be made clearer that this is a Union Treaty of ultimately sovereign states and peoples, for the citizens have shown that they have no wish for a 'superstate'. Let us revisit any provisions that may, even implicitly, cast doubt upon this.

Secondly, therefore, let us at the same time affirm that the Union is willing and able to bring its members and its partners ever closer together in full respect and brotherhood through the practice of solidarity. Let us, with our neighbours, fashion a multilateral framework treaty, offering for this purpose the adapted use of the model of entwined but sovereign states and peoples. Let our next steps advance European cohesion and unity and at the same time accelerate the advent of a global order to which all men and women of good will aspire.

In my view, in the future - as over the first 50 years - the success of the European Project will continue to be defined by the ever more effective practice, both within the Union and also by the Union acting with its partners, of the art of maximum cohesion with necessary differentiation based on solidarity, with all directed towards the common good.

The 'common good' is increasingly perceived in wider terms, embracing the global common good. While enhancing this practice within the Union, the golden rule for the Union in its 'external' relations must be that of "doing with others as we do among ourselves". Internal and external practice must converge ever more closely.

New framework treaty

I am convinced that such ideas, rooted in shared responsibility, can give new life to Euro-Mediterranean integration. It seems not utopian, despite the challenges and disappointments, to begin to think in terms of a Euro-Mediterranean 'sense of citizenship' - a sense of common destiny that instils a common responsibility for the pursuit of the common good through proper mechanisms for dialogue and decision-making.

This calls for a stronger framework. I propose a new framework treaty, of stronger effect therefore than the Barcelona Declaration, that recognises essential diversity but equally recognises essential identity, and on this basis promotes maximum cohesion.

The Mediterranean region is crying out for the application of the Union model as an explicit expression of the proposed Union golden rule. Working on our model with our neighbours will at the same time make us better at practising our model within our Union. The better we understand our neighbours, and they us, through co-operative action at all levels, the better will we understand our own societies, our 'European society'.

While the logistics of perfecting the Union may require boundaries for the Union to be drawn, European thinking needs to go beyond Europe - not only in order that there be peace and shared prosperity with our neighbours but also for the European idea to come to its full fruition within the Union itself.

It is clear that we must engage in a dialogue that is ever deeper and more real. Ethics and values are relevant and must be made even more relevant to policy-making if loyalty among all EU citizens and long-term residents towards the EU and all that for which it stands is to be fostered.

So also if respect for, common ownership of, and loyalty to, the common processes and policies that we in the EU would like to think can be fashioned and embraced by us with our neighbours and others are to be fostered. This means full, equal, dialogue on values in the concrete debates about policy in every forum of debate, discussion or decision. It is about real intercultural dialogue. A Constitutional underpinning of this dialogue will lead to legitimacy and loyalty as to outcome.

As for the next "Union Treaty" step, I believe that the vast majority of citizens want added-value European citizenship without European state, democracy with multiple demoi, governance more than government, constitutionalism without State Constitution, and European level politics with values but without swinging 'isms' and ideology. Paradoxical nonsense? Or truth?

We should ask ourselves, then, whether we have not nearly attained the finalité politique of Europe according to this idea of Europe (and will attain it with the new Treaty), so that the essence of the Union that we already have - but to be further improved as a tool on the lines of the Constitutional Treaty - can point the way forward for us and for our fellow citizens of the world.

Conclusion

Let us in the Union give ourselves a new Treaty. Let us highlight the rule of law and 'citizenship', as the concept best expressing the idea of democratic governance, individual rights and individual and collective responsibility. Let us expressly endow the Union with legal personality. Let us embrace the substance of the 'Constitutional Treaty' on the basis of a union of states and peoples. In any debate to come, let us beware of giving up on the fruit of the Convention on the Future of Europe and of risking the creation of the ultimate obstacle to the idea of Europe being taken further both within Europe and beyond Europe. Let us have more politics, but without seeking to replicate at European level the politics of the national level.

Above all, let us take forward the model of "maximum cohesion with necessary differentiation, with the whole achieved through deep and real dialogue and co-operation manifesting true solidarity". A general 'solidarity clause' in the sense in which I have argued for one in the past would cement this mutual commitment.

If I am right, the citizens of Europe will give their full support to a new Treaty which they understand addresses real needs, and does so by putting into practice this idea of Europe, in and for Europe and the world. Then, let us and our neighbours, together, fashion a version of the Union model as a tool for ever closer integration, leading to a multilateral (framework) treaty that itself gives further impetus to the gains of the bilateral approach. Let us give the European Union to the citizen, and practice the European way with our neighbours. If this is put forward by us in the right spirit, I have faith that our neighbours will respond in kind.

Idea of Europe as Community

The following is the text of the speech delivered by Professor Peter G. Xuereb at the London launch of European Union: The Next Fifty Years.

I wish to make three connected main points in addition to those made in my written contribution to the book and as my contribution to today's debate. The first point relates to what it is that we are celebrating at this time. I would ask you to consider that it is not so much Union or Unification. Rather it is Community. The great achievement of Europeans over the last 50 years is encapsulated in the Idea of Europe as Community.

The various stages of Community have bequeathed us a legal order that exists side by side in harmony with those of the member states, a sphere of policy-making and decision-making that exists side by side with their own, an entity with a sovereignty that exists side by side with their own.

Europeans have achieved this by devising through their genius the instruments of Community: the Community legal order, the Community method spearheaded by the independent Commission, co-decision-making by the Council and the European Parliament, and a Court of Justice that dialogues with national courts, and also - wonder of wonders for the rest of the world - majority decision-making made possible by the values and instruments of solidarity and cohesion and the tools of assistance and inclusion.

It is the Community method, the Community legal order, the Community mechanisms of solidarity and respect for essential diversity and national identity, all inherent in the idea of European Community, that we celebrate and are most justified in celebrating this year.

The Constitutional Treaty

My second point at this crucial stage in our history is that much of the Constitutional Treaty that embodies and carries forward this Idea of Europe as Community is to be welcomed. It would advance our cohesion while enshrining the necessary mechanisms of solidarity, the vital respect for national identity and for the diverse cultures in an ever more diverse Community of states and peoples, and the intercultural dialogue that this absolutely requires.

However, this period of reflection has given us time to consider whether the Constitutional Treaty will keep us all fully faithful to what has bound us together for the last 50 years. More politics, more majority decision-making as needed, more solidarity yes, but ideological politics, national politics writ large - to this many would say no.

It appears, from the reactions in some member states, that if the necessary support for 'greater Community' is to be obtained, it needs to be made clear that that is precisely what is intended, and not - now or in the foreseeable future - a United States of Europe or an entity that behaves as such. In my view, the citizen of this European Community will support and defend this vision of the Union, and this vision of his or her 'second citizenship'.

Powerful message

My third point. The Idea of Europe as Community, the reality of Europe as Community, is the most powerful message of order, peace and promise that the Union can hope to give to its neighbours, to its partners and to the world. We celebrate the fact that over the last 50 years the Community (Union) has been a beacon of democracy, of human rights, and of freedom itself for millions over the globe while demonstrating a capacity for mobilising change through 'soft power' and its emphasis on the pursuit of the general good, practiced internally, and also externally.

But Article 3 (iv) of the Constitutional Treaty, that speaks of the Union "upholding and promoting its values and its interests" in its relations with the wider world, has already been misinterpreted by some - even though it then speaks of common interests such as peace, security, the sustainable development of the Earth, solidarity and mutual respect among peoples, free and fair trade, the eradication of poverty and the protection of human rights, the strict observance and development of international law and respect for the principles of the United Nations Charter.

We need to make two things clear: the first is that we in Europe consider certain universal values, especially the protection of human rights, to be just that - universal; and, secondly, we need to begin to speak more loudly of common interest, of the Common Good, and develop a new hermeneutics of dialogue that does not speak down to our neighbours and partners, but rather shows the Community spirit.

This means the political will and courage to pursue jointly with our neighbours our common good. This in turn means the full use of the 'tools of Community' - maximum cohesion but with solidarity and based on full dialogue. On this basis, the multilateralism that is so badly needed in our dealings with our neighbours in the Mediterranean and all our other partners, can come about.

Well, then: how do we go forward? How do we get over the hump, from the first 50 years to the next 50 years, even so that the next 50 years can at last begin? We do need a new Treaty but most assuredly we need it for the next workable phase of deeper and more open 'Community'. And if the word 'Constitutional' causes confusion, let the word be dropped - the constitutional issues are by now well known and will not be radically advanced by this Treaty.

Also surely by now we all know that 'Union' means no more (and no less) than a Community of states and peoples with a capital 'C', with unity in diversity and practical solidarity. The peoples of Europe will, in my view, rally around such a Constitutional Treaty for the European Community, for they will understand it. Let us at the same time make it even clearer to our partners that the next 50 years will not be about fitting a new 'superpower' into the current and rather sterile paradigm of international relations, but rather, and infinitely more gloriously and safely, be about carrying the Idea of Community, and its practice, beyond Europe itself - to them - even if membership of the Union be not open to all.

This is the Idea of Europe that, if we hold fast to it, we can share with all. It is Europe's true vocation and it remains the best hope for us all. Thank you."

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