Wanted: brave leaders to carry the EU forwards

By Stanley Crossick

Date: 23/06/05

The recent European Council meeting exposed what is the biggest problem facing the EU and its 25 member states: lack of leadership. The spectacle of their leaders squabbling publicly confirms the perception that voters across the EU have: that the Union is incapable of meeting the challenges facing European society - jobs, security, sustainable development and Europe's place in the world. They have in no way allayed the fear that is increasingly gripping European society.

The division between the political classes and the citizens is striking. The constitutional treaty would be ratified by 24, and probably 25, national parliaments, but citizens do not back it. The widespread conclusion that it is the Union that has failed to deliver is misplaced. EU communication polices have not helped but the primary fault lies with member states' leaders. 'Brussels' may consist of a few thousand bureaucrats, but no primary legislation can be adopted without the approval of directly elected MEPs and ministers appointed by directly elected governments.

Twenty-five individual states (all in global terms small or very small) cannot separately resolve the problems of job creation, fighting terrorism and organised crime, and promoting sustainable development.

The failings are essentially at member state level. European successes, such as the single market, external trade policy or the monetary union, work largely because there is an integrated European approach. Economic growth and jobs, and common foreign, security and defence policies, on the other hand, which do not work, are mainly intergovernmental.

A public debate on the Union's objectives and policies is highly desirable, but a debate on a 70,000-word treaty cannot be informative. When news needs to entertain, good news is bad entertainment: who is interested in being told about the EU's three great achievements: peace, prosperity and progress?

Europeans have a short collective memory. One death in 1914 in Sarejevo led to millions of deaths throughout Europe and beyond. The fighting in the Balkans over the last ten years or so has not once risked the peace and stability of the Union itself. The Balkans should be a reminder of the Europe of 60 years ago. The EU is a magnet bringing democracy and stability to its neighbourhood, as it did with Greece, Spain and Portugal.

The climate of fear developing within the Union - of unemployment, crime and immigration - creates the conditions upon which extremism and nationalism feed.

The extremist parties are on the rise at both ends of the political spectrum and these parties are solidly anti-European. Excluding them, a popular majority for the ratification of the new treaty would probably exist in almost all the member states.

Arguably the most important issue - Europe's place in the world - hardly entered the French and Dutch campaigns. But only a united Europe can manage globalisation, whether economic, monetary or terrorist.

If Europe turns its back on the Balkans, it will be responsible for any subsequent hostilities. And instability in that region could again threaten a disunited, nationalistic 25 member-state EU.

The European Communities were needed after the Second World War to bring peace, prosperity and progress to Europe. The European Union is no less needed now to bring peace, prosperity and progress to its own neighbourhood and to the wider world.

Where then do we go from here? Since leaders cannot be relied upon to provide an answer to this question, a concerted effort is needed by think-tanks and academia, business, trade unions and non-governmental organisations to launch an EU-wide debate at national, regional and local levels.

A combined effort is required to bring the debate about Europe to citizens and to the younger generations in particular.

This debate has to be conducted in a language that is comprehensible to everyone, stripped of jargon or acronyms. The non-governmental sector should establish websites to facilitate a wide exchange of views across the Union.

European Voice is urged to take the initiative to launch this project.

• Stanley Crossick is a founding chairman of the European Policy Centre. He writes here in a personal capacity.

Commentary argues that the debate about Europe needs to be brought to its citizens and the younger generation in particular, and that a concerted effort is needed to conduct a debate in a language that can be understood by everyone. European Voice is urged to take the initiative to launch the project.