In the space of a couple of weeks, there have been a number of events that will significantly contribute to redefine the future of Europe in the coming decades. I refer to three major speeches delivered in the past fortnight, starting with European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker’s ‘State of the Union’ speech on September 13, followed by a speech by British Prime Minister Theresa May in Florence on September 22 and, finally, the address to students at the Sorbonne last Tuesday by French President Emmanuel Macron.
In addition to these speeches, on Sunday, the Germans elected a new Bundestag that while confirming Angela Merkel’s CDU/CSU as the largest party, resulted in a significant drop in popular support for her as well as for her Social Democrat coalition partners. On the other side of the spectrum, a strong performance by the populist and extreme right wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), which elected members to the Bundestag for the first time and became Germany’s third largest party with 12.6 per cent of the vote as compared to 20.5 per cent for the SPD and 32.9 per cent for the CDU/CSU.
Indeed, the AfD immediately found itself in crisis with one of its co-leaders, Frauke Petry, walking out of a press conference called by the party to mark its success and, announcing soon after, that she had left the party and would serve as an independent MP, apparently because of her fundamental disagreement with the radical right-wing nationalistic line adopted by the party.
However, although Merkel will remain Germany’s chancellor for at least the next four years, she is in a weaker position domestically and, hence, even on a European level, possibly strengthening Macron’s attempts to be the chief architect of the European Union, post-Brexit.
The State of the Union speech by Juncker was widely anticipated in terms of the agenda the Commission would be pushing forward in the last two years of its mandate. Sounding positive, with many references to, for example, this being the fifth year of economic recovery that has now finally reached every single member state, economic growth that is higher than that in the United States and unemployment being at a nine-year low, Juncker set out his own vision for the future of the EU, one the UK leaves.
Describing the current moment as “a window of opportunity” that will not stay open forever, Juncker expressed his belief that “the wind is back in Europe’s sails” and that it is necessary to “make the most of the momentum, catch the wind in our sails”, by staying the course set out in Bratislava last year and charting the course for the future.
“Now is the time to build a more united, stronger and more democratic Europe for 2025,” he said in Strasbourg before the elected representatives of the Union’s citizens.
In this context, he presented his own additional scenario to the five that had been proposed in March by the Commission in its White Paper on the Future of Europe. Going against the trend that Macron seems to be pushing forward – that of a multi-speed Europe – Juncker called for all member states to adopt the euro currency by 2019 and for Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia to join the Schengen area as soon as possible. The EU must be a union of equals: “Equality between its members, big and small, east and west, north and south.”
It is important to abide by the principle of equality between member states meaning that if some member states have legitimate concerns on certain matters, these are to be respected
Some of the concrete measures proposed by him will, undoubtedly, raise a lot of discussion and controversy in the member states and in the institutions themselves. Will all member states accept his suggestion to merge the posts of president of the Commission and president of the European Council, or for the creation of the post of a European minister of economy and finance? Are all member states on board to extend qualified majority voting to matters such as the common consolidated corporate tax base, VAT, taxation for the digital industry and the financial transaction tax, where unanimity is still required?
While it is true that, as stated by Juncker, “Europe has to be able to act quicker and more decisively”, it is also important to abide by the principle of equality between member states he himself rightly emphasised, meaning that if some member states have legitimate concerns on certain matters, these are to be respected.
Quoting from Theresa May’s speech in Florence, although the “profound pooling of sovereignty that is a crucial feature of the European Union permits unprecedentedly deep cooperation, which brings benefits… it also means that when countries are in the minority they must sometimes accept decisions they do not want, even affecting domestic matters with no market implications beyond their borders. And when such decisions are taken, they can be very hard to change.”
To me, and I can understand what May was trying to say, this is not right when designing and moulding the future of this union of equals. The project presented by Macron on Tuesday should, therefore, not constitute a blueprint for the future of the EU, but a proposal that can serve to further stimulate the debate on the future of Europe.
In pushing forward his views, the French president obviously had French interests in mind. I find no fault in that. However, France is one out of 27 and there are 26 other equally legitimate views on the future of Europe that need to be outlined and discussed for the “right compromise” referred to by Juncker in Strasbourg to emerge.
As the Commission president stated so eloquently: “A more united Union should see compromise, not as something negative, but as the art of bridging differences. Democracy cannot function without compromise. Europe cannot function without compromise.”
Compromise cannot simply mean that the smaller or newer member states ‘give in’ to what is proposed by the larger member states. The larger states need to be more humble in this respect and reject any temptation to somehow consider themselves the privileged standard bearers of European integration. European union is a goal but also a process to “be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity”, as stated by Robert Schuman in 1950.
While I agree with Juncker that the wind is back in our sails, it remains vital that, after losing one of our crew in 2019, all of us remain on board to chart the course together towards a common destination.