The Union at 60

• Autores: Jukka Snell
• Localización: European law review, ISSN 0307-5400, Nº 2, 2017, págs. 143-144
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • The Treaty of Rome has turned 60. It is time for reflection and debate in the Union, again. The Commission has published a White Paper calling for a broad discussion of the future of Europe across the continent, including the European Parliament, national parliaments and the civil society. It is easy to feel jaded and cynical about this exercise. Yet the birth process of the Treaty of Rome itself suggests this could prove a wrong reaction: 60 years ago a sudden opening of a political window of opportunity allowed integration that had been in crisis to proceed.

    It is true that this is not the first time we have engaged in debate and reflection on the future of Europe. In fact, much of this millennium has been spent on it. Following an early recognition that the Nice Treaty of 2001 had failed to achieve ambitious breakthroughs, a declaration was annexed to it where the Member States called for a deeper and wider debate about the future of the Union. This led to the Laeken Declaration, which identified that the "Union stands at a crossroads", and convened a Convention to "consider the key issues arising for the Union's future development". After more debate and reflection the Convention produced a Draft Constitutional Treaty, the final form of which was rejected in referendums in France and the Netherlands. The European Council responded with yet another period of reflection, which ultimately resulted in the agreement on the Lisbon Treaty. Not long after its entry into force, the financial crisis hit Europe. In response important reports were produced by the presidents of the EU institutions in 2012 and 2015 on the future of Europe's EMU. Many of the short term proposals in those reports have been acted on, but their long term visions still remain the object of study, debate and reflection.

    While the theme of reflection is constant, its direction is now more open ended than before. Previous contributions from the Commission to the debates have been detailed and have pushed for further integration. The 2017 White Paper is very different. Instead of making a proposal, it sets out five possible scenarios: carrying on, nothing but the single market, those who want more do more, doing less more efficiently, and doing much more together. There is no worked out plan. Further, some of the scenarios contemplate a looser union among the peoples of the Member States. This is remarkable, given that it comes from the guardian of the Treaties which aim at an ever closer union, and an institution that has been a constant champion of deeper integration. Perhaps this is just tactical: the Commission is planning to make further contributions later on. Nevertheless, the fact that even the Commission now refrains from immediately putting forward a positive, detailed case for a deeper EU suggests that there is a new level of anxiety and uncertainty about the European project that has affected the institution.

    "Those who want more do more" has been the scenario that has attracted the most attention so far. A number of important national leaders have recently called for a multi-speed Europe. Again, there is nothing new about this. The discussion has been going on ever since the Maastricht opt-outs and the introduction of enhanced co-operation at Amsterdam. Some differentiated integration has indeed taken place: not all Member States participate in the single currency or Schengen, and there are a number of laws or initiatives adopted under enhanced co-operation. Further developments are likely for the European Public Prosecutor's Office and in the field of defence co-operation. Yet a number of questions continue to hang over this scenario. First, a natural assumption is that the euro area Member States would form the vanguard group. They have shown the greatest willingness and ability to integrate so far, and their fates are closely bound together by the single currency. Yet there is no sign of the euro countries agreeing on the direction that the further integration should take. Some call for mutualisation of obligations, for others a transfer union is unthinkable. Secondly, it is by no means certain that there would be a coherent group of countries spearheading the Union. Slovakia is a part of the Eurozone, but might have little wish to see faster integration in the field of asylum policies; Ireland might not be keen on permanent structured co-operation in the field of defence. If there is no core vanguard but instead a number of diverging groups, the coherence, complexity and accountability problems that already plague the Union would multiply. Thirdly, what would happen in those countries of the periphery that already today are unwilling to abide by the Union's common values? Might they see this as a licence to do as they please, a tacit acquiescence of others to violations of the principles the EU is supposed to be built on? In short, it is possible to dismiss the call for debate and reflection as more of the same, and view the proposals for a multi-speed Europe as a rehashing of old ideas that are unlikely to work. Yet there is another possible reaction as well. The history of European integration has been driven by economic and geopolitical imperatives for deeper co-operation among European countries. Those imperatives have not vanished, but the pressures do not result in actual integration by themselves. The political stars also need to align, as they did for the European Coal and Steel Community and for the European Economic Community, but not for the European Defence Community; for the single market and EMU, but not for the Constitutional Treaty. Keeping the debate alive, presenting scenarios and proposals, ensures that such unpredictable political windows of opportunity as may suddenly open after key national elections can be taken advantage of. The birth of the Treaty of Rome itself demonstrates this. The Treaty was a plan B, a response to the devastating rejection of the EDC in France. The main purpose of the Messina meeting of 1955 that pushed it into motion was to select a new president for the High Authority of the ECSC, not the launch of an economic community; in fact, the discussion of a common market went against the French foreign minister's instructions, which he fortunately ignored. Initially, the Spaak Committee that drafted the blueprint for the Treaty was dismissed by many as just another pointless committee of experts. In essence, there was nothing inevitable about the Treaty. It only emerged when the Member States, trying to find a way to keep the European project going, latched on to the conveniently revived and repackaged Beyen Plan for a customs union. Most importantly, it happened to come about just at a moment when the French Prime Minister Mollet, in the words of Parsons, was able to open and leap through a narrow window of opportunity, which would most likely have closed in May 1958 following de Gaulle's return to power.