Charlemagne: The perils of political Europe

Date: 28/06/03

Ever closer political union could mean ever louder criticism of “Brussels”

THE drive to write a constitution for the European Union was meant to “bring Europe closer to the people”. But in strictly practical terms Europe's leaders are less and less keen on close proximity to the general public. When the EU's leaders met in Greece on June 19th-21st - to receive the constitution's first draft, launch a new security doctrine and hobnob with an array of Balkan leaders - they gathered in Porto Carras, a remote resort some 150km (94 miles) up the coast from Salonika. Police were dotted every 500 metres along the road from the city to the summit. Nobody without security clearance was allowed within three kilometres of the conference venue. From a cavernous press room, journalists and officials could watch television pictures, broadcast live on a big screen, of a handful of demonstrators being tear-gassed outside the perimeter fence. Back in Salonika, rioters staged the now almost ritualistic arson attack on a local branch of McDonald's.

The EU is hardly unique in regularly attracting thousands of peaceful anti-globalisation demonstrators and hundreds of violent hoodlums to its summits. Similar problems surround other international meetings: think of the mayhem that attended the G8 rich countries' meeting in Genoa or the WTO's in Seattle. But the violence that now follows European summits around is a reminder of the potential perils of the EU's efforts to engage the attention of European citizens and build a “political Europe”.

It is a longstanding lament of Eurocrats that the European Union, though undeniably powerful, is still too often seen as a bloodless and technocratic exercise. The most ambitious “builders of Europe” have long maintained that, after economic and monetary union, the next step must be political union. But for that to be achieved some recognisable politics needs to be injected into the European system. The EU has long excelled at high politics - cutting deals in smoke-filled rooms - but has always failed at popular politics. There is very little pan-European political debate. And Europe's media barely cover the European Parliament, though it is directly elected and increasingly important.

So the demonstrators who now follow European leaders around are, in some respects, a sign of success. Some people out there care enough about the EU to chuck stones at its leaders. What is more, the demonstrators, for all the violence that surrounds them and the inchoate nature of their complaints, are promoting a recognisable agenda. As their banners proclaim, they oppose a “Europe of capital” and support a “social Europe”.

To the average anti-globaliser, the EU is now typecast as the bearer of faceless capitalist values. The Union's most attention-catching projects in the last decade have been the creation of an internal market, a single currency and an independent European central bank. British Conservatives may complain that the single-market project has turned into a nightmare of re-regulation. But for countries that have not been through Thatcherism, the EU has often been a genuinely liberalising force, compelling countries to open their markets and abandon state subsidies.

As a result, it has become a bogeyman for Europe's radical left. And while many dismiss the demonstrators as a motley collection of dope-smokers and anarchists, pollsters suggest that their demand for a “more social Europe” enjoys widespread support. In a recent Eurobarometer poll, 90% of the EU's citizens said that “fighting poverty and social exclusion” should be a top priority for the Union, against 63% who mentioned “making a success of the single currency” and 31% who stressed “welcoming new countries”, ten of which will be joining the EU next year.

This poses a dilemma for EU leaders, many of whom have found the Union's liberalising agenda a useful aid in tough domestic battles to impose economic reform. Many governments used the drive to prepare for the European single currency as a cover for reducing their budget deficits in the 1990s. Cuts in subsidies have also often been justified by a need to obey European competition laws. Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has proposed repeating the strategy over pension reform. Stumbling in his efforts to press on with reforms at home, he is suggesting that the EU should adopt a new Europe-wide pact to force its members to get their pensions systems into financial shape.

Brussels-bashing may be irresistible

There was always quite a risk attached to this “blame the EU” strategy. What if voters stopped accepting that EU-driven reforms are technocratic exercises for the general European good, and began to see them as highly political decisions over which they have little democratic control? What if politicians started to pander to such feeling by attacking unpopular EU decisions rather than endorsing them with a wink and a shrug? There are signs that this is beginning to happen. At the beginning of the 1990s, 72% of EU citizens regarded their countries' membership of the Union as a “good thing”; this is now down to 54%.

This tendency is only likely to be strengthened by the fact that Brussels-bashing is an increasingly popular sport, even for mainstream European politicians who would once have disdained such rhetoric as irresponsibly populist. This week, Gerhard Schröder, the German chancellor, made the latest of a series of recent attacks on “Brussels bureaucrats”, arguing that a mixture of financial liberalisation and environmental regulation was threatening to destroy large sections of German industry.

Supporters of a “political Europe” should, at least in theory, be encouraged by such developments. A pan-European democracy must necessarily involve argument and debate, even if some of it is crude and ill-informed. But there will be a price to be paid. It is already hard enough to achieve EU agreement, when it is just a question of 15 (soon to be 25) political leaders striking a deal in a conference room. Add in a stone-throwing mob outside and dipping support for the Union back home, and things will get even harder. Welcome to “political Europe”.

Commentary feature. Ever closer union could mean ever louder criticism of 'Brussels'.

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