German Presidency of the EU : the express way to fiascoland ! An open letter to Angela Merkel...

Written by Franck Biancheri
Sunday, 01 April 2007
... and whoever advises her on EU affairs... Whatever aspects one takes, Angela Merkel's EU presidency is looking more and more like a gigantic fiasco (as were the previous French and British presidencies). Gigantic because it tried to position itsels as a presidency which would achieve « big things », such as an EU/US transatlantic free trade area, the relaunch of the EU constitution, the launch of EU/Russia strategic partnership. Germany’s EU presidency comes at a time of citizens interrogations about the EU's future. However, these issues in now way figur it the Presidency programme – or in the results which have been presented so far (consider for instance the emptiness of the « Berlin Declaration ». So as a European citizen, I take the liberty to write an open letter to Mrs Merkel, hoping that it may help her avoid to have presidency join the large cemitary of « failed EU presidencies ». I will go through the supposed to be « main priorities » of your presidency step by step and make a kind of « mid-term assessment »: . the EU/USA free trade area : an obvious political « no-go »! No need to elaborate much on that one as nobody with an ounce of political sense could imagine that it was a serious item on the agenda. Did somebody among your advisers seriously thought that it could work? If so, one single advice : fire him or her immediately, as this person has not noticed that we don't live in 1990s anymore. In Europe not many are still keen with the USA; and in the USA as anywhere else nobody is very fond anymore of free-trade. Just have a look at the dead-end in which the Doha round is stuck. And consider the trade conflict which is starting these between the US and China. . the 50^th anniversary of the EU : Angela, the anniversary show was just an amazing display of EU leadership vacuum. Pop concerts cannot cover up the fact that the common declaration was only signed by the three representatives of the EU political leadership, who have little power and not democratic legitimacy to act on behalf of the European citizens: the president of the EU Commission (not elected, at the top of the EU institution with the most negative image among EU public opinions), the president of the European Parliament (a person that nobody knows, whose political family does not even represent 15% of the EU electorates and who is elected by his peers under an obscure system of internal partitocracy of the European Parliament) and the acting president of the EU (yourself, who got this job because of the calendar of presidency's rotation). The German presidency was not even able to get the 27 Member state leaders to sign this small piece of non binding paper. This is the image that many European citizens will retain from the « ceremony » : three unknown or unrepresentative people sign a paper under the eyes of 26 mute participants – their elected political leaders. It definitely looked like an adaptation of Pirandello's famous book which would be called « 27 characters in search of an author ». . the Berlin Declaration : Now, looking at the declaration as such: it is definitely anything you want, but an historic one. Why? Because it misses the core issue which has derailed the « good old European decision process »: the vote of European citizens took the EU Constitutional Treaty off its track. But the reasons why this happened was not even slightly addressed in this document : giving a major role to the citizens in the EU decision process. There is not a word about the current state of democracy within the EU system, there is not mention about democratizing the EU itself, not paragraph about the need to get the citizens more actively involved within the EU decision making process. Angela, you seem to forget that in democracy nothing serious, important and sustainable can be achieved without the citizens! To this fundamental mistake, you add a second one: the intention to hold another Intergovernmental Conference in order to achieve in two years major reforms of the EU institutions. Obviously nobody told you that, in the past two decades, ICGs have proven to be less and less productive and unable to deliver any good results at all. The now infamous Nice Treaty was the result of the last one. And the Convention (on the Constitution project) was designed to try out (definitely unsuccessfully) an alternative process to the definitive obsolescence of ICGs. Thinking that such a poor instrument as an IGC can deliver a new treaty in two years, at 27, with the current bad political conditions in the EU, is like thinking that at least one of the current EU political leaders can come with a bright idea about the EU's future! Did you have a candid look at them (and don't count on the next one in France, whoever it will be)? They have no clue at all on EU main issues. . the Constitution relaunch : We all now the Constitution is a complete « flop », not even mentioned in the Berlin Declaration of the 50^th anniversary of the EU. Your way to go about the necessary EU reforms looks more and more like an attempt to kick the citizens out of the EU decision process. You and your advisers are trying to go back to the « good old times » when the « top-down » decision process was ruling the EU decision making. Are some of your advisers former Brussels eurocrats? Or is this maybe a nostalgia of Erich Honneker's old DDR methods? In any case, let's be clear : with the movie « Goodbye Lenin!», the Germans have shown that they have definitely turned a page of European history. And with « Goodbye Constitution!», the French and the Dutch have done exactly the same thing with another page of European history. The citizens are now entering the European political debates and they will not get out, or if so, it will be at the expense of the European project itself. Therefore one cannot longer move forward on EU major issues without the explicit support of the citizens. In a democracy, there needs to be trust in the leaders and strong consensus on the topic. These two conditions are definitely not present today. This is not only true for France and The Netherlands. Don't forget Angela, that your own fellow citizens did not trust you enough to give you a full majority. And most probably, German citizens are expecting too one day to be able to cast their votes on EU affairs rather than having Parliamentary ratifications reminding them of the « good old times » of DDR. . Kosovo : Then now, Angela, you bring your support to the very dangerous plan of Mr Martti Ahtisaari regarding Kosovo. As I wrote in another paper on this issue (Newropeans-Magazine, 12/03/2007), his solution on Kosovo (internationnally controlled independence) is probably the second worst one, after leaving it to Serbia,. The EU should stop defending politically correct solutions which are creating tomorrow's problems (and serving agendas which are not of European interest). As we already see, your strategy is splitting the Union with Greece, Romania, Slovaquia expressing their support to the Russian plan, and Italy and Spain expressing many reservations. The question of Kosovo is linked to the general question of what the EU will propose to the Balkans at large. Till this question is not answered, forget about pressing for a solution in Kosovo, as it definitely will be a bad one. Time is not ripe yet, but the only way to go forward in a sustainable way is to set up the agenda for the accession of the Balkan states on June 21st 2014, for the 100th anniversary of the start of the 20th century European civil wars, in the very city where it all started : Sarajevo. It would look a bit more "historic" than the Berlin celebrations, isn'it? And once that process is firmly stated, with the prospect of a trans-European referendum for its ratification, then, put all the Balkan countries into a direct talk with the EU only, propose to split Kosovo in two, with one part attached to Serbia; and one part attached to Albania. Then, you will see, Angela, how such an historic opportunity can move mountai,s and free the energy which this region requires rather than pleasing Washington, Ankara, Moscow, and the little local ex-warlords. . EU-Russia strategic partnership : And now, we come to what should have been your main and only priority since January, launching the EU/Russia strategic partnership. But instead of moving on with this crucial project, it is a complete stalemate. When I recently discussed this issue in Moscow (and the group included German representatives), I was amazed to discover that there is not a single concrete idea on the table about key questions such as: How to manage the partnership? What kind of objectives should it have? Which different components should it have? How to coordinate them? ... There is a complete lack of direction, lack of vision, lack of ideas, lack of priorities. Is this the trademark of the current EU « leadership », Merkel's way? Of course on this issue, which is THE only major topic on which the German presidency can seriously think of making the difference, it is not too late. Much can still be done in the next three months to get a successful launch of the EU-Russia partnership by June. But Mrs Merkel, in order to achieve that goal, you have to make trips to Warsaw, not to convince Polish leaders not to block your ridiculous Berlin Declaration, but rather to solve the Polish veto on the EU-Russia partnership. Obviously you should not trust your advisers when they tell you that this piece of paper was more important than achieving a long term agreement with our closest biggest neighbour, because they obviously are typical EU bureaucrats, caring more for paper than for reality. I think a candid description of the current wreckage of the German EU presidency is: stop fooling yourself, Angela, with your supposed to be « great achievement » on the environmental question, with this common EU agreement of a twenty years policy. You very well know that it is almost entirely a window dressing operation: no firm commitments, deadlines going far beyond the « political life expectancy » of any leader involved, .. . In a nutshell, it makes me think of Jacques Chirac setting up priorities for France in the past twelve months, or Tony Blair talking about future challenges for UK: much noise about nothing. Please, don't follow their path. So, Mrs Merkel (and those in Berlin who still care), if you really want to achieve something serious in the coming three months, let me give you a very simple advice: focus on the EU/Russia partnership, put the rest on hold and forget about both the EU-US free trade area and the EU Constitution (or future treaty). Doing so has a name in politics. It is called setting oneself an ambitious but realistic agenda. It is also called « understanding something about what one is supposed to do ». And bluntly said, this is your last chance to avoid the complete fiasco of your presidency. Franck Biancheri President of Newropeans Paris (France) PS: If you are searching for a truly historical event marking your presidency, I am sure that you noticed that it is already planned: it is the opening of East European High Speed Railway on June 6th, which will put Paris and the Rhineland at a mere 2 hours travel time. You don't have anything to do for that one, but just do not miss the train start. As you did with your presidency. Send your comments: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Last Updated ( Monday, 02 April 2007 )

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