Geoffroy Dolphin
Etudiant en 2ième master d'économie, faculté d'Economie - Université Catholique de Louvain

A short-sighted vision of Europe’s future impeded the development of a coherent European political project: the European ideal was sacrificed for national political objectives. Idealists such as Jean Monet and Robert Schuman, who were ready to sacrifice everything for the most ambitious and valuable pacification project that has ever been launched in this part of the world are nowadays cruelly missing. About half a century of economic prosperity and peace is now put at stake. Nevertheless, however deep this confidence crisis might be, the European Union could emerge stronger from it if it starts communicating correctly on what it is providing to 501 million people. It could emerge stronger from this crisis if it could convince its citizens that its umbrella and all related achievements provide the best protection against future downturns and the best tool to face coming challenges.

1 The European Paradox

Rome was not built in a day. . . neither was the European Union. More than fifty years ago, a few political leaders gathered in Paris and laid down the milestone of the European integration process. They had foreseen that the future of the European continent lay in the unification of its people. True, they were probably what we would call dreamers; their dream was nonetheless built on a robust rationale: the European sovereign states should unify under a single European banner if the welfare of 50%+1 of the voters in each of the sovereign states is higher under unity than under separation. In 1951, European leaders agreed that peace provided a sufficiently significant increase in welfare to justify European integration. However, needless to say, this process has been everything but easy. There have been moments of acute doubt. One only needs to remember the Empty Chair crisis: by withdrawing all France’s representatives from the European Community in 1965, de Gaulle left the organisation unable to run its affairs until 1966, when the Luxembourg compromise was reached. As far as the present crisis is concerned, some might say that, as before, Europe will emerge stronger from it. But this relies on us finding a way out and, this time, the crisis has opened a breach in the European solidarity that neither the Judges of Luxembourg, nor some broad interpretation of the treaty by the European Commission will be able to close.

Although the current sovereign debt crisis is a financial matter, it asks for a political response: markets are awaiting a renewed commitment to the foundations of the Union, “making war not only unthinkable but materially impossible”(R. Schuman, in his Declaration of the 9th of May 1950). However, it is not the first time that the existence of the Union is threatened by the market. In 1992, it already put the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) under high pressure. Speculative attacks against the British Pound by George Soros eventually pushed the United Kingdom out of the mechanism. Then, when everybody thought that the crisis was over, the markets started to speculate against the French Franc after the Bundesbank raised its interest rate. The whole ERM was clearly threatened and, indirectly, the political union of Europe. This crisis only came to an end when, in 1993, leaders of countries participating in the ERM agreed, nearly overnight, to allow currencies to vary between plus and minus 15% around the target exchange rate. Nowadays, markets have found another way to speculate against the monetary union: selling sovereign bonds of the weakest countries of the Eurozone. The solution to this crisis is different from the one in 1993, but at least we have one. This time, the commitment to the European project and the solution to this crisis will more than likely translate into fiscal federalism. Some political leaders know this only too well but are simply afraid of not being able to secure their national political position if they agree on something that would not immediately be understood by their population. The European citizens are nonetheless waiting for a solution and if we manage to communicate adequately on the one that is required, there might be a chance that they will support it. However, so far, the leaders of Europe do not seem to be willing to move in that direction and play the wrong strategy. Indeed, if the Euro does not survive, if the European project fails, it is not ten years of wage moderation or public sector austerity that we will have to overcome but rather 15 years of economic depression. Not to mention the political consequences: strengthened nationalisms and protectionism are all behind the door and are only waiting for us to open it . . . Still, one might wonder what the European Union is today and, consequently, what exactly would be lost if the Union were to break up.

Precisely identifying the public good provided by the European Union might, at first sight, seem arduous. Nonetheless, the European Union clearly achieved the objectives contained in its primary mandate: economic prosperity and peace. Despite some shortcomings, the economic integration fostered the prosperity of the European continent. In this respect, two facts could be noted. Firstly, in terms of economic prosperity the intra-European trade today accounts for 65,43% of the European Union’s total trade. Secondly, over the period 1970-2010 the GDP of the European Union-15 grew by 244%. When it comes to peace, no further comment than the following is needed: for hundreds of years prior to 1945, the European continent was regularly at war. However, since then Europe has enjoyed peace. Just as the Euro area delivered price stability to 332 million people, the European Union delivered peace to now 501 million individuals. But at present, the Union is not only concerned with economic prosperity and peace. The European Union is active in fields ranging from transport to culture and education, science and research and development. Not only is the Union actively involved in these fields, but it also funds projects in those areas. Here are but a few examples. In the field of science and technologies, the European Commission is funding Europe’s navigation system, Galileo. In the infrastructures, the Commission has recently moved forward in the funding of the Lyon-Turin high-speed rail. Lastly and perhaps most importantly, the Commission provides financial support to projects aiming at improving education and easing access to culture.

And yet, when there are possibly more reasons to unify than there were in 1951, the European Union has lost the support of its citizens despite all its achievements. In some countries, the popular enthusiasm that used to move the people of Europe in 1951 has disappeared. They take the achievements of the Union for granted and do not perceive the dangers of letting it fade away. The origin of this phenomenon is quite straightforward: we failed to properly inform the citizens of Europe about the European good. We failed to stand high enough up and say that without the European Union we would probably not have enjoyed such economic prosperity. We failed to take responsibility for saying that being “United in Diversity” is far more valuable than being “Divided in unity”. Moreover, we did not shout loud enough about the consequences of letting the European project go now: the Old Continent will jump 50 years backward. Yes thus, at a time when there are more reasons to unify than ever before, we are about to let the European treasure sink. This paradox needs to be overcome.

2 Overcoming the paradox

In a nutshell, the European project has slowly lost its fuel, the commitment of the citizens of Europe. Today, European citizens are imperfectly informed about the European project, which impedes the decision-making process and leads to an ever-shrinking share of convinced Europeans. This is largely due to the fact that nearly all information about the European Union that reaches European citizens goes through the “national prism” and might therefore be truncated. The extensive use of the “Brussels excuse” in justifying unpopular measures at the national level by some political leaders is a striking evidence of this state of affairs. How can we palliate these shortcomings? Do not place hopes on national leaders who are “sitting on the fence”, trying to give substance to the European project whilst securing their national position. Instead of this, if the European authorities spread directly information across Europe to their citizens, they would be able to gain their support whilst also relieving the pressure on national political leaders. Only structured dialogue and constant debate between the European Union and its citizens will help raise their European consciousness. It is the key to (re)building the European Identity and, consequently, the key to convincing European citizens of the merits of European integration. Indeed, they will only renew their commitment to the European integration process if they understand it and clearly see that their welfare is significantly greater under the unified European banner than under the isolated national one. Only when European citizens will be back on the European train will it move forward again.

As the European project is not limited to the European elite and was never meant to be, every single citizen of the Union must understand it. Yet, so far, European issues seem to be discussed only in restricted areas. This has to be changed through the creation of a comprehensive and comprehensible dialogue between the European authorities and its citizens. The Union has to go to meet its citizens; simply making the information available is not sufficient. This would require a two-step approach. First, the European Union needs to find individuals convinced by the European ideal and willing to make their voice heard to gain the support of European people, i.e. the transmitting source of the message. Second, it must establish a framework of communication channels.

Regarding the first step there are still, fortunately, tremendous amounts of enthusiast young people who would be ready to communicate their ideas to those who did not have the opportunity to be informed about the European project. One only needs to turn to the young people who participate in the European Youth Parliament or who are affiliated to the Board of European Students in Technology. They are only waiting for the Union to encourage them and provide a structured message. Therefore, the European agencies and, more specifically, the Commission need to define the content of the message they want to spread among European citizens and communicate it in an intelligible way. They need an icon that will personify the institution and act as its spokesman, i.e. the transmitting source of the message. This proposal will probably encounter opposition from national leaders as such a move might overshadow their political and moral authority. However, they should be reassured by the fact that, while implying a partial transfer of sovereignty to the European bodies, the identification to the European political community does not imply the waiver of its membership to the national one. The adherence to the European community comes after the adherence to the national one. There will always be room for national cultural and political diversity as it is one of the greatest riches of Europe and as such should be protected against all odds. Once this is fixed, one needs to define the channels through which the message will be transmitted.

Private companies and national political parties are being highly imaginative when it comes to communication, be it on a new product or on their general philosophy. While some of those methods might not suit the objectives of the European institutions, some others might prove really helpful to them. Here are but a few examples. First of all, just as private companies try to favour communication between subsidiaries by the publication of internal newspapers, the European Commission could propose to set up both a European newspaper and TV channel that would be published and broadcast respectively in English as well as in every language of the Union. These two means of communication would at the same time enable the European institutions to communicate their activities through another channel than the national media and keep the people of Europe aware of what is happening in other parts of the continent. Nonetheless, this proposal would clearly miss its target if the newspaper and the TV channel were to be considered as boring by the readers and viewers, respectively. In such a case, however clear and intelligible the communication might be, we would lack a receiver. This is why they should contain a subtle mix of entertainment and information. For example, entertainment programmes such as “Games Without Frontiers”, initially proposed by the General de Gaulle, could be restarted and adapted to the current environment. Of course, setting up pan-European media and creating a European Public Space will not be done overnight. Why not then, in the meantime, appear on national media through the broadcast of TV spots or the publication of open letters to European citizens? Secondly, the European institutions should further promote initiatives aiming at favouring cross-cultural understanding and exchanges. Simulations as the European Youth Parliament are a fairly good start. However, these events put the stress on the intellectual reasoning of individuals and reach only a limited part of the European audience. Therefore, the institutions could organise ‘caucus’ in various places of the Union to make them known to the public and draw their attention to what they are actually delivering to them. Eventually, the European Union could organise on a yearly basis and every year in a different European city, European Youth Days in order to federate young Europeans around the European project. These are but a few ideas, there are obviously many others. . .

3 Warnings

Without any further move forward, Europe will remain “stuck in the middle” and so too will the European integration. Leaving Europe there is placing it in a dangerous and unstable position where it could be easily blown away. Sacrificing the European Ideal for short-term economic and political objectives is, as in 1951, placing a bet on the future. But what a different one. This time we bet on not entering a period of war and depression. Last time we bet on achieving peace. Fortunately, we are not there yet. Today, we can still choose whether we want to fight for Europe or whether we want to let it go and place that bet on the future. As this choice lies partly in the hands of our leaders, let me only ask them a single question: do they think they have the right to mortgage the chances for future European citizens to know the same economic and political prosperity they have enjoyed for years? If their answer is “yes”, they should be fully transparent about it. 

In conclusion, given the troubled times we are facing and the challenges ahead, the European Union has much to gain by proposing a protecting and resilient umbrella under which all European nations can gather. European citizens would definitely give more support to the European project if they were confident in the capacity of its Institutions to provide them with stability. European integration and solidarity is undoubtedly the most secure and valuable path to take. As Polish president Bronislaw Komorowski reminded us, “Europe’s history is a story of conflict, division and war, but it is also witness to the unbreakable desire for unification”.

You may say I am a dreamer, I hope I am not the only one. I hope someday you will join us and Europe will be as one.