State of the Union – the speech deciphered
Interpreting the speech given by European Commission President José Manuel Barroso to the European Parliament.
Honourable members, I am here to speak to you because I am troubled by the state of the European Union. My obligation as president of the European Commission is nothing less than to ask the people of Europe, through their Parliament, to join me in a great effort to save European integration. We are at a moment of truth. Europe must show that it is more than 27 national solutions. We either swim together or sink separately. We will only succeed if, whether acting nationally, regionally or locally, we think European.
I know that I will be accused of being unnecessarily alarmist. I am sometimes referred to as the 28th prime minister of the Union, as someone who thinks European but with limited ambitions. I do not apologise for believing in the need to create consensus between member states. But I do not want to hide from you my belief that the Lisbon treaty, for all of its benefits, does not equip the EU to deal with some of its most critical challenges. This is why I am appealing to you to join me in a great campaign to encourage all member states to think European.
Our Community solidarity is weakening. It has not yet fallen to critical levels but we know reserves have been dwindling for a long time. This year solidarity was already in short supply when we needed a swift financial rescue for Greece; there is little enough now to drive the eurozone towards an agreement on an effective system of governance; we are beginning to doubt whether the solidarity will be sufficient to give the EU the budget and spending priorities it needs for after 2013. And we see its weakness in the treatment of minorities and in the attitudes of our political leaders, many of whom seem to regard the Union as a tiresome obligation rather than as a vehicle for promoting national well-being.
In the next four years we have to take decisions that will decide whether the generations born after 1970 can look forward to the quality of life and material opportunities enjoyed by those born in the 25 years before. Europe has to modernise if it is to avoid decline. Can this be done in an effective and timely manner?
My Commission can issue guidelines and make recommendations, this Parliament can pass resolutions, but it is the member states that have to take the decisive action on fiscal reform, debt reduction, welfare modernisation, labour-market restructuring, changes in educational systems, innovation policies and many other actions that will give this continent a chance of remaining a global competitor up to 2050 and beyond. I do not need to rehearse the Commission’s policy priorities today. They are in a document I have made available – and in any case, you have heard them before.
There are sceptics among you who will ask “What is going to kill European integration?” or say “Surely Europe is having a good year”. The Union has withstood the test of financial crisis: financial assistance has been provided to member states in special need, financial regulation is being reformed and economic governance tightened up. Growth prospects are improving and we have strategies for boosting growth and creating jobs. Why all this talk, then, of saving European integration?
Because we are not thinking European. All member states must look to the European dimension for solutions to critical national problems and difficulties. That is one aspect of Community solidarity. Solidarity is not just about contributing to a bail-out for Greece – although the refusal of one member state to do so is a grievous breach of solidarity. Greece had no real alternative but to look to its partners for help. But its partners were distressingly slow to see the threat to their national interests in the Greek crisis, and even slower to come up with collective action to solve it.
We were not thinking European when we planned our defences to prevent the financial-services industry again putting our economies in peril. We will have European regulators, but with too few powers to prevent fragmentation of EU financial markets by overzealous national regulators.
Political dithering and opportunism called into question the future of the eurozone and of our single currency. Now we are urgently and somewhat desperately searching for an agreement on the sanctions needed to back up the policing of national budgetary policies because the old system has not worked. But we are close to deadlock. Too few governments are thinking European. They want to preserve room for manoeuvre to buy elections with unwise tax cuts. They want to be able to return to bribing electors with over-generous welfare policies as soon as they think the Commission and other member states are looking the other way.
Honourable members, I beg you to join me in demonstrating that we have heard those voices lamenting a lack of political leadership in Europe. If we can set an example by thinking and acting European, we shall fulfil our obligations to future generations. We either swim together or sink separately.
John Wyles is chief strategy co-ordinator at the European Policy Centre.
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