Olaf Cramme has an article in Open Democracy on the European Union. He argues that the EU must become a more political union to avoid the rise of populism and alienation in Europe:
In particular, current EU management thwarts the idea of European citizenship, a concept which demands that individuals must feel that they understand and share ownership of the core mechanism of their society. The Canadian intellectual John Ralston Saul argues that "this sense of understanding implies that each of us has the self-confidence to wish to change our society for the better" (see The Collapse of Globalism [Penguin, 2005]). This, in turn, requires that citizens come to see political leadership as the ultimate expression of their belief in the reality of choice and change.
Technocratic dominance and management of Europe, in contrast, proclaims the inevitability of developments and their dynamics - and in doing so serves to drive individuals away from citizenship and, eventually, from the very idea of EU integration. Worse, the absence of choice magnifies the feelings of insecurity, leading to a political arena where false populism appears more and more tempting. The rise of demagogues across the European Union, and from different parts of the political spectrum, exemplifies this.
In Europe, only a few leaders seem to have recognised this dilemma. France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, is one of them. When he made his first post-election visit to Brussels in May 2007 he hinted at his thinking on the role of the European Union in response to globalisation: "Europe has to protect its citizen, not to worry them. Europe has to prepare itself for globalisation - it can't just be overtaken by it. Globalisation can't be a Trojan horse in Europe" (see "Sarkozy to champion Europe in trade talks", Financial Times, 23 May 2007). At the European council meeting a month later, Sarkozy insisted on removing the principle of "free and undistorted competition" from Article 3 of the old constitutional treaty.
His motivation and intentions are clear. Sarkozy, despite a declared intention to liberalise the French domestic labour market, does not believe in the virtues of free trade and openness to globalisation. Rather, he regards protectionism as a solution to the unskilled-worker problem, and thinks that the European central bank should make stimulating growth and jobs a priority instead of fiscal and monetary prudence. This questioning of the merits of competition has secured him electoral support in France and won popular favour in other parts of Europe. But the larger point is that in projecting this view, Sarkozy is also saying that he wants a more political Europe - self-evidently one that reflects his analysis and worldview.
Does this mean the provisional end of European harmony? It certainly requires other players to take a firm stand on the issues in question and clarify their divergent positions. If this happened, the healthy result might be that clashing interests and perspectives might come more clearly to the fore and thus allow EU decision-making on how to tackle future challenges to be put to the test.
This is where Sarkozy's line of attack also has a constructive element. Europe, if it is to regain the interest of its citizens and include its citizens centrally in its deliberations, urgently needs a proper debate as well as choices about its political direction. The changes in favour of more democracy and subsidiarity, as envisaged by the "reform treaty", may be a step in the right direction; but of themselves they will hardly generate more enthusiasm for the union. Instead, decisions about a host of issues - managing the single market, the nature of social Europe, Europe's role in a multi-polar world, competition rules, economic redistribution - ultimately need a stronger political underpinning.
For Europe to become more political it has to choose what it is and that choice is difficult given the fact that it has different members with different interests and different visions of Europe and what it can provide for them. Moreover, European political leaders have to accept not to oppose to see the interests of Europe as a whole to their own national interests. The current feud between the European Central Bank’s (ECB) president Jean-Claude Trichet, who is a Frenchman, and Sarkozy is a good example of these tensions that exist between not only between national and European interests, but also between economics and politics. Sarkozy is criticizing the strong Euro and the ECB because he knows that more likely than not, France’s economy will not be able to grow for much of his term. Trichet and Europe are for Sarkozy the perfect scapegoats because a majority of French already fears that Europe isn’t representing their interests and is infringing upon their national governments.
Blaming the ECB is an effective way to shift responsibility from the lack of economic growth or for an economic slowdown from his government to a few European technocrats have weren’t elected by the people and who therefore have not interest in protecting them. Moreover, it is difficult to have a political European Union when there is no consensus on what the European Union is and when national political leaders are able to use Brussels a scapegoat for their own failings and their lack of political courage.
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