Can energy re-ignite the EU?

Date: 08/06/06

One year has elapsed since the French and Dutch voted 'No' to the EU constitution. Answers must be found to the key questions of what kind of Europe is needed and how to achieve it: these are unlikely to emerge from next week's EU summit.

Reflecting on the origins of the EU might help to crystallise a view of the future. Although there is an increasing tendency to believe that the old Union has achieved its achievable goals, the original objectives of the Schuman Plan and the Treaties of Paris and Rome remain as valid today as they were half a century ago.

In March the European Council called for an 'Energy policy for Europe'.

Consider the following: "Excessive dependence of our highly industrialised countries on an unstable region might...lead to serious political trouble throughout the world. It is essential that oil should be a commodity and not a political weapon...the European economy must be protected against an interruption of oil supplies, by finding alternative sources of energy to limit the further rise in oil imports." The Union "will represent our nations as a single unit vis-�is other states, and will be far better placed to obtain full co-operation from them than our countries separately".

These extracts will not be found in the summit conclusions of March 2006 but in the 'Report by the Three Wise Men on Euratom' of 4 May 1957. Forty-nine years later, Europe faces increasing energy import dependency, high and volatile prices, mounting global demand, security risks affecting producing and transit countries, growing threats of climate change and slow progress in energy efficiency and the use of renewables. In the 1950s, the leaders of the 'Six' understood that pooling of sovereignty was essential for effective, long-term co-operation.

Long-term co-operation remains essential today because of the other major challenges we face: jobs and growth in the face of globalisation, fighting terrorism and international crime and protecting the environment. No individual country can succeed alone. Even Donald Rumsfeld, the US defense secretary, stated in February 2006 that: "There is nothing important in the world that we [the US] can do alone".

National independence is an emotional myth.

Today's world is potentially no less dangerous than the world of the 1950s and working together in the EU is still the only feasible way forward.

Europeans fear the depth and speed of current change. They feel insecure in the face of unemployment and mounting crime and terrorism. Much is blamed on globalisation, the EU wrongly being seen as one of its causes, rather than the most effective vehicle through which to manage it. National leaders do not disabuse them of such views. Paradoxically, citizens turn to their own countries in such circumstances, even though the problems cannot be solved nationally. But they seek security in that with which they are familiar. The largest polity to which they have a sense of belonging is their member state: they still do not usually have a sense of belonging to the European Union or to Europe.

The risk of our returning to pre-1914 'beggar-thy-neighbour' policies remains. Growing nationalism is a warning. Europe is our only security. We need to combine both vision and pragmatism and replace with hope the fear that increasingly pervades our society. A bold, visionary and imaginative idea, with both emotional and practical appeal, launched European integration in 1950 and it is fundamentally the same bold, visionary and imaginative idea that can today re-launch European integration. Natural resources can again be the clarion call.

The EU needs a common, comprehensive, interdependent energy policy to improve its energy security, to reduce dependency on imported energy, to combat climate change and to influence other countries to pursue complementary policies.

The March summit agreed only a modest package of actions, without the means for them to be effective. Energy continues to be treated essentially as a matter of national competence, with the member states showing no desire to give more power to the Commission. So much for the lessons learned from the failing Lisbon Agenda process.

The three objectives of the 'Energy policy for Europe' are security of supply, competitiveness and environmental sustainability. But, once again, long-term vision and political will were demonstrably absent at the summit. Energy security is an urgent problem, strategically almost as important as defence. What has changed in the last half-century? Europe is still over-dependent on oil and gas imports from unstable countries. It competes for its energy supplies, not only with the US and Japan, but with the fast-growing, thirsty economies of China and India.

European citizens would easily understand this situation if their leaders explained it. But it does not suit the leaders to tell the truth - that the major challenges facing society can only be met by working together. The sovereignty that such leaders seek to maintain is based on the myth that alone they can deliver the necessary policies for their electorates.

Our citizens - and the citizens of many other countries around the world - want to see Europe with a more influential voice. Energy policy goes to the root of Europe's role in the world and is a priority for all sectors of society.

As it is unlikely that all 25 member states will recognise this, those who do should consider using the Nice Treaty mechanism of enhanced co-operation.

Energy is the apposite beacon that can once again set European integration alight and, at the same time, enhance transatlantic co-operation and take us a step towards some global governance. Is it too much to hope that one leader will say this at next week's EU summit or the subsequent EU-US or G8 summits?

Major commentary feature in which the author compares the EU's present situation to that at its outset in the 1950s. He suggests that energy policy now just as back then could be a key to successful integration.