DECEMBER
2000/JANUARY 2001 - CER BULLETIN, ISSUE 15
THE UNHOLIEST
OF ALLIANCES by Charles Grant
Yes, there really
are some people who believe in a federal super-state. They want the EU to evolve
into something like the USA, with a strong central government responsible to
the European Parliament. Joschka Fischer, the German foreign minister, wants
an elected European president and a federal constitution. Romano Prodi, the
Commission president, aspires to lead European foreign policy and talks of a
European army. And the ambassador to the UK of one small member-state recently
told me that tax and social security systems should be harmonised across the
EU.
These European idealists believe that the EU is moving inexorably towards a
federal future. So, too, do the Eurosceptics, in Britain and elsewhere. The
more the pro-Europeans bang their federalist drum, the more joyfully the sceptics
dance. The latest quote from Fischer or Prodi proves that continental Europe
is still hell-bent on a super-state.
In fact the federalists and the Eurosceptics are locked into an unholy alliance,
one that is dedicated to the denial of the truth - namely that federalism is
dead, that the Commission has been sidelined, and that governments committed
to a pragmatic European Union have taken it over.
The evidence for this shift is only too obvious, for those who bother to look.
The so-called "community method" - with the Commission proposing measures,
and the Council of Ministers and the Parliament approving them - still applies
in fields such the single market and trade. But in areas where the EU is extending
its involvement, such as foreign and defence policy, or the fight against crime,
the governments are in charge. Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief,
reports to the foreign ministers. The Commission has little sway over Solana
and no involvement at all in the new Rapid Reaction Force.
Even in crucial areas such as economic reform and employment, the community
method has been cast aside. As Kirsty Hughes explains in her article overleaf,
it is the governments which agree on common targets and benchmarks, and then
exchange best practice. The Commission can facilitate peer-group pressure and
chivvy governments to meet their targets. But it has no power to force them
to do so. In economic reform, as with foreign policy, defence or police co-operation,
every government keeps its veto. No sovereignty is ceded.
The European Council, which works by unanimity, drove forward the economic reform
process at last year's Lisbon summit, and will do so again in Stockholm next
March. The European Council has emerged as the EU's strategic authority. The
heads of government, rather than the Commission, are setting the EU's agenda.
The Commission is learning to follow their lead.
The federalists
and the Eurosceptics do not like these changes. It suits both their purposes
to pretend that Europe still works the way it did in the age of Kohl, Mitterrand
and Delors (Larry Siedentop's hugely successful Democracy in Europe assumes
that Europe circa 1990 still exists; he is perhaps part-federalist, part-sceptic).
Why do the sceptics keep quoting Fischer? Because most of the other foreign
ministers sing a very different tune. Indeed, Schroder, Chirac and Jospin are
no more committed to a federal agenda than is Blair.
This shift towards a more inter-governmental Europe was predictable. The Union
has fulfilled most of its economic objectives, such as the creation of the single
market and the single currency. The new challenges are to build an effective
foreign and security policy, and to strengthen co-ordination in the fight against
organised crime. The only sort of integration that is feasible
in such sovereignty-sensitive areas is inter-governmental.
Furthermore, the EU institutions are increasingly unpopular, partly because
they are, inevitably, distant, and partly because they
have often been badly run. The Commission and the Parliament are suffering from
a serious lack of legitimacy. Public opinion, and not only in Britain,
does not wish to see these bodies becoming ever-more powerful. The European
Council, by contrast, representing elected heads of government, has at least
some legitimacy. Ten years ago, anyone who argued that the way to overcome the
democratic deficit was to enhance the role of the European Council, rather than
give more power to the Parliament, would have been regarded as mad. Yet Tony
Blair's recent proposal to strengthen the European Council has won support in
many other EU capitals.
The creation of the euro, it is true, shifted a lot of power from the Bundesbank
to a supranational institution, the European Central Bank. But it may prove
to be federalism's final fling. The balance of power within the EU is now shifting
from its institutions to the governments. The prospect of a super-state is ever
more distant. Yet the unholy alliance of federalists and sceptics prefers to
ignore this fact.
