Charlemagne. A few more smiles wouldn’t hurt

The EU's leaders needn't always look so gloomy

MOST governments hype success and hide failure. A few even try to celebrate their failures, in the hope they will look like successes. But these days, Europeans are pioneering the opposite approach: sexing down their achievements.

The expansion of the European Union has been a triumph, bringing stability, modernisation and prosperity to new members and old. If Turkey were to join the club, both sides could get those benefits and more - the geopolitical advantage that comes from treating a moderate Islamic country as one of your own. Considering Turkey has waited decades for this moment, and considering there have been several embarrassing setbacks for the Union this year, it might have been reasonable to expect a little celebration on the day those Turkish talks started.

Yet reactions were muted. The British foreign secretary's speech, opening the first session, mixed brief words of welcome with hectoring Turkey for its problems and agonising about how difficult the negotiations will be (and they will). The talks before the talks were not exactly a lap of honour, either. The next day, the presidents of the EU and France went out of their way to point out, helpfully, that accession talks might fail. People seemed determined to accentuate the negative.

It is fair to point out that there were no fireworks over the Bosporus, either: after all the bad-tempered haggling, Turks were not in a mood to rejoice. But for European leaders, this downbeat reaction is part of a pattern: they often react morosely to success.

Exhibit A is the whole process of economic reform. True, European economies are in trouble and unemployment is high. But with the big exception of Germany, joblessness is considerably lower than it was in the late 1990s. In the past decade, the EU, admittedly with a larger population, has created as many jobs as more dynamic America. But you would never know this from politicians, who seem to believe endlessly high unemployment is the cost Europeans have to pay for a civilised way of life.

And the main reason why unemployment has come down is that, in fact, many countries have adopted labour-market, pension and other liberalising reforms in the past few years, and are now reaping the benefits. But you would never know this either, because leaders, at least in public, swear blind they will never allow “hyper-liberal” reforms in their country, or that, if they must, they will swallow the medicine only because someone else - usually the hard-hearted European Commission - insists.

There is one understandable reason why politicians are taking this approach: many voters seem adamantly opposed to what they are doing. Three-quarters of Austrians, for example, object to Turkish accession. And it is right that elected politicians reflect public opinion. But, as Edmund Burke said, leaders have another duty - to give voters the benefit of their best judgement. And you can hardly expect the public to muster enthusiasm for a project when their leaders are ambivalent or pessimistic.

The same applies to recent trends in eastern Europe, where there is lots of good news for anyone who cares to notice. The fact that many ex-communist economies are now showing flexibility and rapid growth is of huge benefit to the whole of Europe; but few leaders in old Europe point this out. As a result, populist grumbles prevail; Polish plumbers turn into bogeymen, posing a supposedly fearful threat to western Europeans.

European leaders are often equally oblivious to the benefits of things the public likes, or at least doesn't oppose. One of the few areas where the EU can match America in global influence is world trade. Europeans have benefited greatly from the trade openings that the EU has (more or less consistently) encouraged.

Most people, when asked, say they oppose protectionism and therefore like it when the EU uses its influence to boost freer trade flows. But that didn't stop Jacques Chirac attacking the EU's trade liberals this week, by claiming they had failed to protect European jobs during the Doha round of talks.

Time to count some blessings

Given their track record, politicians can't shift the responsibility for not celebrating success onto a risk-averse public. On this matter, the fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves: that's what they would admit if they were more honest.

Of course, one can appreciate some reasons why Euro-politicians hesitate to look on the bright side. They have been traumatised by recent setbacks: first, the stunning blow of the constitution's rejection by French and Dutch voters; second, the less momentous, but still frustrating, failure to agree on an EU budget for the years 2007 to 2013. European leaders have rarely been as pessimistic about the Union as they are now. They have suffered a crisis of confidence. And this crisis affects not only projects that are rightly controversial, like the constitution, but also success stories like enlargement.

But if the crisis of confidence is understandable, it is still damaging. It risks reinforcing one of the biggest failures of European policy, that of economic reform. The problem is not that countries have failed to reform at all; it is that changes have been partial and piecemeal. France, for example, reformed its pension system - a step forward. It imposed a 35-hour week - a step back. Belgium tried to increase companies' demand for labour through corporate tax cuts; the benefits were promptly captured by existing workers through pay rises. Germany's reform plans have been stop-start affairs. This incoherence is directly related to politicians' failure to have the courage of their convictions. Reform works wherever it is tried, but because nobody dares say so, it has not been tried much. Europeans are in danger of talking themselves into a state of inertia.

The moral of the story is not “don't worry, be happy.” But politicians should at least take credit where it is due. Things are difficult enough in Europe without making a crisis out of the opportunities and successes that do come along.

Commentary feature says that despite difficulties many Member States are making some reforms in the right direction.