In a letter that Emmanuel Macron, the President of France, sent to newspapers in Europe, he put forward a range of proposals as part of a roadmap of European renewal. He claims that Europe has never been in so much danger and yet never has it been so necessary since World War II.

In the meantime the European Parliament has published its projections in terms of the number of seats that each political grouping is expected to obtain in the forthcoming elections for the Parliament due in May. The traditional hegemony of the two major groupings the European People’s Party and the Alliance of Socialists and Democrats will no longer be able to command a majority in the European Parliament. 

As such they will need the support of a third party (most likely the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe) to be able to approve the person nominated by the heads of government of the European Union member states as the president of the European Commission. 

This is unless the EPP takes the decision to ally itself with one or more of the Eurosceptic parties to the right of the political spectrum like the French Front National and the Italian Lega Nord.

I guess the eventual alliances that will be formed will crystallise after the full results of the elections are known. However, the odds are that following these elections the EU will certainly go through a process of reform as today there are a number of governments of member states who are described as populist. As such they are likely to nominate EU Commissioners from their country who promote populist policies and are likely to push for a populist president of the European Commission.

The ironic thing about all this is that Macron addressed this letter to European citizens in response to the lessons learnt from Brexit. Did Brexit have to happen for these lessons to be learnt? Another ironic thing is that the populist parties cannot really form one political grouping unless they are talking about something like immigration. This is because on everything else they are bound to argue. 

If the Italian government says, “The Italians come first”, and the Hungarian government says “Hungary comes first”, and the Polish government says, “Poland comes first”, they cannot really find some form of compromise on a whole range of issues. This is why I can understand Macron’s claim that Europe is in danger and it is so necessary, even if I find it ironic.

The detachment by citizens of countries which are members of the EU has long been evident with the low turnout of voters at European Parliament elections of the past. Gradually this detachment transformed itself into anger, especially after the economic austerity measures imposed in a number of countries in the wake of the last financial and economic crisis, the effects of which are still being felt.

Therefore I strongly believe that this anger has its roots in the economic rules of the EU and the economic policies of member states in response to those rules. I do not advocate a change of those rules, but we do need to make sure the dog wags the tail and not the other way round. As such we should not become slaves to those rules but we should apply them keeping in mind the principles of solidarity and the common good, which are at the foundation of the EU.

There is therefore the need to understand better the expectations of the EU citizens and develop policies and rules at an EU level that can respond to those expectations. The unfortunate aspect is that when people are angry (as they are at the moment), they are usually not coherent. 

However, this should not deter the future European Parliament, the future European Commission and the national governments from striving for a renewal of the EU. Maintaining the status quo is not option.

I would keep one principle at the forefront. We live better if we promote the common good. This has been proven to be correct time and time again. As such solidarity and the common good need to remain the guiding principles for those taking the decisions on how to achieve reform in the EU.