14 March 2012

Paul N Goldschmidt: The French election - The EU emerges as a campaign issue: at last!

If there was only one reason for the citizen to be grateful to Nicolas Sarkozy, it would be his initiative to put the European question at the centre of the political debate. It was indeed quite shocking that most candidates had, so far, largely ignored the aspects of the financial and economic crisis of which EMU and the Single Market, two pillars of the EU, frame the operational landscape.

That the President chooses to initiate the debate by putting forward the key role he played in dealing with the crisis seems fair enough, all the more that his analysis of the situation and the seriousness of the risks involved are broadly shared by commentators. Selecting two specific themes concerning the need to reform the Schengen agreements and requesting a discussion on a form of “Community preferential treatment” (Buy European Act) can only be considered raising hard questions around which it is healthy to encourage a public debate (even if in parallel negotiations are already underway within the so often maligned “technocratic” bodies of the Union). 

If one scrutinises the President’s proposals on Schengen, he is suggesting dealing at European level with questions concerning the control of the Union’s external borders and a joint approach to asylum and immigration policies by reinforcing existing regulations whose efficiency has been proven highly questionable. He makes an analogy with the crisis agreements reached within EMU whose new enforceable measures – reinforced by sanctions – should serve as a template.

It is therefore perfectly useless and disingenuous to wave the red rag of a reinstatement of internal border controls, even if it was rather clumsy to mention the threat of a French withdrawal from the Schengen accords that read as an ultimatum. One should note that the free movement of citizens within the Union is guaranteed by the Lisbon Treaty but this privilege is for the benefit of European citizens only. Nothing should prohibit France – or all EU and associate Member States - from requiring foreigners to have their passport stamped when entering the space covered by the Schengen agreements (similar to entering the United States). The absence of such a stamp would be proof of an illegal entry.

As for the “Buy European Act”, what can be objectionable to a discussion aiming at ensuring reciprocity between the EU and its main commercial counterparties?

That being said, I remain very sceptical as to the seriousness of the President’s true European commitment. Indeed, when during a TV programme on TF1, after having scorned the competencies of the “Brussels bureaucratic” establishment and its lack of “political legitimacy”, he was asked by a journalist whether he was favourable to the election of the EU President by a popular vote, he discarded the question by saying: “that’s the subject of another debate”!

However, if one analyses the European performance of the President – which is far from negligible – one must conclude that it has tended to favour continuously managing problems on an “intergovernmental” level to the detriment of the more consensual “Community method”. This became apparent early in his term when dealing with the financial crisis after the Lehman bankruptcy; the Commission (and the Parliament) was severely marginalised and the powers of the European Council reinforced.

There is also a contradiction between the favoured “intergovernmental” method (which implies the refusal of any further transfers/sharing of sovereignty) and the “reinforced cooperation” that underpins the will to reform the Schengen agreements and instate a system of “community preferences”.

This “ad hoc” approach leads to a proliferation of new intergovernmental agreements (Treaties) contracted outside the European Union Treaty, creating complexities that have become totally opaque for the citizen. This mechanism has now reached the utmost limits of rationality. It is bound to lead to conflicts and the need for permanent arbitration, within which the frustrations of smaller Member States and the ambitions of larger ones will undermine the cohesion that is necessary to promote solidarity and prosperity within the EU (viz. the budgetary debates concerning Spain and Hungary).

Yes, President Sarkozy is right when he calls for a more “political” EU and therefore a more “responsible” one. It is high time to meet head on the real challenges facing the Union, for which the proposals outlined in his Villepinte speech constitute two excellent additional reasons to move forward: either we build a “Federal Europe” (EMU) which will establish a clear hierarchy of powers – with a significant devolution of responsibilities to the federated entities – or we will inexorably trend towards the implosion of the EU.

It is therefore on the question of the institutional relationship between France and the EU that the presidential debate should focus. Because of the overwhelming importance that the EU plays in the daily life of all its citizens, any candidate that would shirk this debate should be considered, ipso facto, disqualified to exercise the Presidency.

Paul N Goldschmidt, Director, European Commission (ret.); Member of the Advisory Board of the Thomas More Institute

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© Paul Goldschmidt