Relaunching Europe – 2007-2008
The Finnish presidency is over and the burden of the Council of the European Union goes to Germany. If it is really a burden –burden that the member states have the possibility and the responsibility to get lighter by backing a presidency which appears self-motivated-, Germany is wilful to solve the numerous huge stakes of the European Union.
We entered recently in a new EU: the EU 27. The fifteen members present before the enlargement of 2004 are sitting with twelve new members with the entrance of Romania and Bulgaria. This event has been celebrated in Bucharest and Sofia when West-European medias maintained the piece of information quite discreet. Following their public opinions which seem not to believe anymore that “l’union fait la force” (does isolation make it better?), the head of old member states agreed to stop for a while the enlargement.
The process of European construction is at a dead point since the two “no” at the Constitutional Treaty, even if sixteen countries have already ratified it. This pause follows actually a period of lethargy and will have as many benefits as we will inflow some energy in it. The pause of the enlargement can mean a beneficial deepening of the current policies: making the European Neighbourhood Policy effective and efficient, welcoming Italy and Spain in the head of the European Security and Defence Policy and continue to edify it, expanding Schengen, going toward a more dynamic cooperation between the economical governments in the Eurozone, introducing Euro in the new member states, building a political basis for the European research after the Communitarian reform of Universities, etc. But we should not believe that it is the kind of pause that we enjoy after the effort. Because, precisely, efforts are terribly missing if not since 2001, at least since 2004.
Berlin is thus determined to go ahead with the different issues, to dust them, and to restart the European engine. The EU can therefore count with the deep will of Chancellor Angela Merkel, whatever the difficulty of the topic, and with the political asset presented by its government of coalition, but also with the geopolitical position of Germany, in the centre of Europe, what shows knowledge and implication in the different affairs of the continent.
Moreover, this presidency is written in a new strategic movement: 2007-2008. Germany begins this cycle with its presidency and France closes it with its own. In between, the presidencies of Portugal (South European state, turned toward Latin America) and of Slovenia (the good Balkan’s pupil, from ex-Yugoslavia, which has just adopted Euro) are the perfect link between the two historical actors of Europe. The EU could have chosen two other states (a founding member and a new one, one from the West and another from the East, etc.) but the choice to relaunch the Union by its two historical members is good if this new launch is efficient, tonic, and orientates the continent in a constructive direction. This is urgent.
But the cycles can only be useful with the French application to its execution. The presidential and legislative elections of 2007 will perhaps show a new dynamism in echo to Germany. If it is not yet the case (the political issues developed exclude largely concrete propositions concerning Europe benefiting the image of an independent and powerful France, i.e. a Gaullist France), Europe will maybe emerge during the presidential debate. The side of “no” is shattered, the extremes turned back to their own ideologies (anti-globalization, communism, sovereignism, nationalism) and the few others re-joined the ranks of their parties which have called to vote “yes”. The huge divergences between the defenders of the “no” vote appeared clearly when evaporated the idealism of an extreme-left which wished to unite the peoples of the whole Europe behind its own ideas, and which has shown finally its incapacity to present a unique candidate, in a restrained because traditionally anti-establishment political segment, to a simple five-years national poll. After a disinformation campaign towards electors about an inexistent “plan B”, the side of “no” extinguished itself, after having demonstrated itself the invalidity of its theories of gathering.
In France, the space of fantastic opportunities that is Europe remains empty for the moment, but the campaign is intense, and it is probable that such an important topic for France will not be omitted from the debate, and even less with the need of political change expressed everywhere in the country. If the candidates at the so-called “supreme magistracy” are aware of it, therefore France will be able to say that it has, together with Germany, picked up Europe, and that it choose construction rather than negation.