The European leaders meet in Malta today in what is being called an informal summit. They will be discussing migration, focusing on the central Mediterranean route and Libya, hoping to find solutions to migratory pressures, and the upcoming 60th anniversary of the Treaties of Rome on March 25, which is to include a political reflection on the future of the European Union.
Being an informal summit, no binding decisions are expected but agree on a way forward the leaders must because the European Union is facing a serious threat: the very existence of the European project. Internal strife, deep divisions and all sorts of ills are afflicting the European Union. The citizens of the European Union have a lot to answer for but leaders have a lot to answer for too.
Maltese prime ministers welcoming foreign dignitaries at their office in Castille have a habit of taking a short walk with them to the nearby Upper Barrakka gardens with its commanding view of the majestic Grand Harbour.
While doing that, the European leaders should look as far north as possible and, if they are long-sighted – pun intended – they might catch a glimpse of Italy where they will shortly be meeting again to mark the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Treaties of Rome. The two treaties gave birth to the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community, forerunners of the present European Union.
In the preamble, the treaty establishing the European Economic Community declared that signatory states – France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy and Germany – were “determined to lay the foundations of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe”.
Their political objective was a progressive political integration. What we are witnessing is far from the “ever closer union among the people of Europe” and the “political integration” the European forefathers wanted to secure.
And that is not only because of Brexit, a situation forced on the European project by David Cameron who took what he must have thought was a calculated risk by calling a referendum on EU membership, a move that was more intended to boost his chances of re-election than to given the British people a stronger voice. Indeed, often what leaders do is not what the people need but what they want. Populism at its best.
European Council president Donald Tusk was right when he told leaders in a letter a few days ago that Europeans should rally against Eurosceptic nationalists at home and take “spectacular steps” to deepen the continent’s integration.
Saying the European Union faced the biggest challenges in its 60-year history, Mr Tusk listed an “assertive China”, “Russia’s aggressive policy” toward its neighbours and “radical Islam” fuelling anarchy in the Middle East and Africa as key external threats. These, he candidly admitted, “as well as worrying declarations by the new American administration, all make our future highly unpredictable”.
We can only hope his appeal “to avoid another historic catastrophe” will be heeded by his colleagues.
They must walk the talk.
“The disintegration of the European Union will not lead to the restoration of some mythical, full sovereignty of its member states but to their real and factual dependence on the great superpowers: the United States, Russia and China… Only together can we be fully independent,” Mr Tusk said. Wise words indeed.
George Bush Snr and Mikhail Gorbachev had buried the Cold War in the deep Mediterranean Sea during their Malta summit in December 1989. May the leaders meeting here tomorrow make history too by charting a safe route for the preservation of the European project.