No matter which way you look at it, there is no denying that, at least since June 2005, Europe has run into a deep crisis. This crisis is not only about the EU constitution or the budget negotiations, but it runs deep into the core of Europe. As our continent's leaders, we have to admit that it is also of our own making. It is only if we recognise this and correct our mistakes that we will be able to overcome this crisis.
One can always argue that Europe has not ground to a halt and that decisions continue to be taken. Yes, we have successfully revised the Stability and Growth Pact and refocused the Lisbon Strategy for economic reform.
But the negative outcomes of the referenda in France and the Netherlands have undeniably plunged the whole of the European project into a crisis. The French and Dutch "No" votes, however, are not the sole reason – they are simply the most visible symptoms. Even if the constitution had scraped through and the budget had been adopted in June, it would still only have been a matter of time before we would have had to face up to the real state of the Union. Because the crisis is not some kind of natural disaster that struck the European continent out of the blue – it has, on the contrary, been building up over the years, slowly but surely. And, just as it didn't arrive as the result of a single event, it will not go away with one or two isolated European successes.
Our leaders have failed to recognise that a crisis was in the making. Rather, we have contributed to it through our own mistakes. I would like to list four of them.
First, it now seems to be the rule for leaders to dwell publicly on Europe's failures and under-achievements. There no longer seems to be such a thing as a truly European success. If a decision is popular, it will be presented to our constituencies as the triumph of our national geniuses. In case it doesn't reflect our views 100% or, even worse, in case it's actually unpopular, national governments will blame the decision on their obviously "unreasonable" fellow European leaders as well as on Brussels. So, it came to pass that some of the most efficient arguments used against Europe during the referenda campaigns had actually been developed first by the very governments that favoured a "Yes" vote.
A second mistake we made was related to enlargement. When the Berlin Wall finally came down in 1989, there was a general euphoria, a feeling that, at last, European history and geography would be reconciled. But, as enlargement came closer, the excitement increasingly gave way to anxiety.
As European leaders, we failed to recognise this change in the popular mood and most of all we failed to invest the necessary energy into explaining the reasons for and the consequences of enlargement. At the same time, we omitted to remind people of the dangers and pitfalls of postponing enlargement.
A third mistake that we made was to mix up the European project with a terminology traditionally linked to the institutions of the nation state. We were right to merge the different treaties into one coherent text. We were right to reform the institutions of the European Union and to define more explicitly the areas of competence of the EU. We were also right to give the EU a charter of fundamental rights. But, perhaps, we should have refrained from referring to the new European treaty as a constitution.
People tend to associate this word with the fundamental laws of the state. Even though there is no such intent in the treaty, we implicitly gave the impression that the European constitution would somehow put the existence of the member states into question. But nations are no provisional invention of history. As we yielded to the temptation to clad our laudable ideas in grand words, we failed to recognise that, rather than inspiring the Europeans, we actually scared them.
A final mistake that I would like to discuss is our propensity to reduce Europe to a question of money and little else. Time and again, we fail to look at the European dimension of the challenges we are facing and are content with proclaiming winners and losers, net-payers and net-beneficiaries. In the end, the achieved compromise leaves everybody unhappy – hardly an ideal starting point for convincing our fellow citizens that Europe is first and for all about a greater, common good.
To leave the crisis that Europe is caught up in firmly behind us, we first need to admit to our shortcomings and second to correct them. If we succeed in avoiding these and similar mistakes over the coming months and years, we will overcome this crisis.
If not, we will only dig ourselves in deeper.
(by Jean-Claude Juncker)