Blairite Europe

Yesterday former British PM Tony Blair made his big speech on Britain and the EU at the Business for New Europe event. You can read the speech in full here. So after writing at length about Labour and the EU on Monday, is there anything in the Blairite vision of the EU?


Eurocrisis

On the Eurocrisis, I partly agree with him.

"...the flagship policy of Europe is listing dangerously. As I have said before, to save it, I believe, requires a kind of ‘Grand Bargain’ approach rather than incremental steps, in which Germany agrees, effectively, to some form of mutualisation of debt; the debtor countries carry out profound structural reform; and the ECB stands fully behind the bargain. There are some signs this may happen. But even if it does, Europe will suffer for some time to come."

There have been calls for some form of debt mutualisation for a while now (and some Parliamentary amendments pushing for it), and it's hard to see how the current bailouts - which in Greece's case have led to the country's debt ballooning to 190% GDP rather than falling - actually help solve the fundamental problems of the Eurozone rather than  helping the balance sheets of creditors.


Narrative

Blair pushed for a change in the narrative away from peace towards power:

"...the truth is the rationale for Europe today is stronger not weaker than it was back 66 years ago when the project began. But it is different. Then the rationale was peace. Today it is power. Then it was about a continent ravaged by war in which Germany had been the aggressor and Britain the victor. Today it is about a world in which global geo-politics is undergoing its biggest change for centuries. Power is shifting West to East. China has emerged, with its economy opening up, one which will grow eventually to be the world’s largest. Its population is three times that of the whole of the EU. India has over a billion people. Brazil is two times the size of the largest European country, Indonesia three times and there are a host of countries including Russia, Turkey, Mexico, Vietnam, the Philippines and Egypt larger today than any single EU nation.

What is more, as technology and capital become globally mobile, in time there will be a re-alignment of GDP and population i.e. the larger your population, the bigger your economy. The USA remains extraordinarily strong, its military easily the largest and best equipped but the time when it has been the world’s only superpower, is passing."

The speech was clearly intended as an argument for Britain's membership of the EU, and as an attack on Euroscepticism in the UK, so the speech doesn't offer much in terms of the direction that Britain should go within the EU. He restated the case for membership based on economic advantage and global power. In a sense I agree - on Monday I was arguing that collective European decision-making should give the people and the Member States more opportunity to decide their economic and social future - but Blair's vision is almost completely dominated by the terms of international power relations.

It's a vision with some truth to it, but little appeal. Most Britons aren't as concerned with Britain's global position as Blair is - indeed, Blair's premiership isn't exactly an encouragement for British global involvement. The message, without much on sharing the economic and social power democratically among citizens, and the messenger, who comes across as being more concerned with the power of great office-holders than anything else, does not make a convincing narrative and is not really one that the left should or could adopt.


Euroscepticism

If it doesn't quite live up to being a bankable European narrative, it is good to have a public figure talk publicly about the advantages of EU membership, although many pro-Europeans on the left, myself included, will not enthusiastically welcome a Blairite vision of Europe. When it comes to the EU, there needs to be a place for political families of the right, left and centre. The pro-European voices from these families will inevitably conflict, but the Eurosceptic voices from the same families will have their own arguments and will need to be engaged with on their own terms. Yesterday Blair couched his argument in terms of the national interest, and the basic pro-European argument may need to be made there, but it's limited in providing a narrative that goes beyond the balance sheet approach.


Tony Blair for president?

There's been some speculation about whether Blair still wants to get a position in the EU, and he launched a Twitter account yesterday dedicated to his views and work on Europe. (There was also an unconnected website (mockingly) advocating him for the European Council presidency). I wasn't a fan of the idea the first time 'round...

Barroso's State of the European Union Speech 2012

Today was the third State of the Union speech by Barroso this parliament, and it fits the description better than the previous speeches, which focused more on the legislative programme for the upcoming year. This makes it harder to mark in comparison to past years because what works for a good legislative programme speech (good rhetoric + great substance) is different to what is needed for a good state of the union speech (great rhetoric + a few key aspirations/details to meet).

First I'd like to quote the President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, who made a short defence of European parliamentary democracy before Barroso took the floor:

"Today the world is looking at Europe not least the Karlsruhe Constitutional Court, we have reached a decisive moment. Recent developments in the European Union have been of great concern. We have seen a deparliamentarisation of Europe. Those who think that parliamentary democracy is too slow or raises too many obstacles are arguing in the wrong direction. No decisions in Europe can be reached without the involvement of the European Parliament. The European Parliament is the Parliament for the whole of the European Union. More Europe with less parliamentary democracy is impossible."

 I agree. So I'll also look at the responses of the leaders of the political groups.


Barroso's Speech

(Picture from the Commission's Facebook page).

The speech turned out to be a strange hybrid: while the focus was on the future of the EU economically and politically, the structure and style of the traditional legislative programme speech was painfully evident in places. The economic leg of the speech had more policy and was quite legislative, while the political leg was more rhetorical.

On the Eurozone crisis, Barroso complained that the disunity of the Member States after European Council summits, with leaders calling for further measures afterwards, fed doubt into the markets and public and is undermining the efforts made so far to overcome the crisis (as if people aren't capable of making that judgment for themselves). He called for the strong Member States to commit to helping the weaker ones and for the weaker ones to make the necessary reforms.

On the economy, Barroso announced that the Commission would introduce a Single Market Act II to help open up the single market and improve competitiveness (in fact I think "competitiveness" was mentioned much more than democracy in this speech). The first Single Market Act hasn't been fully passed or implemented yet, so I don't know what the second one will do (or if it's simply a repackaging of the first one). There was also talk of a new industrial policy, with Barroso calling for coordination on an attractive tax environment for industry. That there was no mention of common taxes or tax bases indicates that Barroso's thinking of softer cooperation between Member States. Barroso also said that the Commission would pursue a more active trade policy and that the Commission wanted a mandate to negotiate saving tax agreements with third countries to reduce the impact of tax havens.

Banking and fiscal union was a big issue. Barroso made the case for European and coordinated supervision (with national regulators) for all banks, and committed the Commission to pursuing a financial transaction tax through enhanced cooperation (so that it will only apply to willing Member States). Fiscal union will mean greater coordination of national fiscal policies, but Barroso did not spell out any vision for how this might work or how far it would need to go for the Eurozone to work. He also strongly rejected the creation of new institutions alongside the Commission, Council and Parliament or separating out parts of these institutions for Eurozone purposes.

The Commission will present a blueprint for deepening economic union - including treaty changes - this autumn. Barroso also urged MEPs and Member States to back the next EU budget, which he called a growth budget.

On political union and reform, Barroso said that Europe cannot "use the political tools of the past to tackle the problems of the future". The European Parliament should have a strong role, and the Commission will introduce a new statute for the Europarties to strengthen them so they can better offer alternatives in the elections. Barroso also called for Europarties to present candidates for the President of the European Commission at the European elections in 2014. Greater cooperation between the European and national parliaments was also called for, but what this would mean wasn't elaborated on. Barroso defended the independence of the ECB and urged others to respect and defend it.

Barroso called for an intergovernmental conference to decide on treaty change, and a "federation of nation states". This choice of words was picked up on by some MEPs as a way of saying "federation" but meaning continuing on with more of the same.

Foreign policy got some time as well - mostly that Europe needs to act more together in order for the Member States to be heard in a world with the US and China at the helm.

It was a much better state of the union speech than last year for vision, but it had a lot of problems as a speech. Barroso's stronger points where when he could reference legislation because he could tie ideas closer to a sense of direction. That's not to say that vision speeches have to be dotted with legislative proposals, but the speech needed to do a better job of making the case for a certain type of union rather than the more generalised pro-European rhetoric that we got. The debate over what a "federation of nation states" and what that means will probably dominate any comment on the speech because it's so qualified and vague in practice, and in fact that there is little else to grasp on to. Barroso was far more passionate and convincing in his reply to the MEPs' questions and debate - he should have brought that Barroso to the speech.


Political Group Leaders

Daul (European People's Party):

Daul gave a rambling speech, which he admitted wasn't prepared but it would have been better if he had. It was generally supportive of Barroso (who was the EPP candidate for the Commission presidency in 2009), but was the worst speech from a group leader. One thing I got from this was that the EPP supports the ECB buying of bonds (this may contrast with the ECR if you're on the right and distrust central banks taking that kind of action).

In the end I did much better with my Buzzword Bingo for Daul's speech than Barroso's - not a good sign!

Swoboda (Socialists and Democrats Group):

Swoboda said that his group would only support the next EU budget if it was serious about delivering growth, and heavily criticised the EU Troika for their policies in the bailed-out countries for contributing to the recession. He signalled that the S&D Group would be willing to support the saving tax agreements, but there needed to be much more focus on investment. Swoboda pointed out that the US, China and Japan are all putting more into investment at a time when Europe is following austerity.

Swoboda called for a social compact to combat the erosion of solidarity in Europe. Hopefully we'll get to hear more on what this means - Swoboda said his group was agreed on it, so we should get to see the S&D (or the Europarty PES that sits as part of the group) proposing some detail. Maybe something for the PES Congress at the end of the month?

Verhofstadt (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe):

Verhofstadt focused on Barroso's "federation of nation states" remark, and said it represents the same approach rather than something new. He criticised Barroso for not taking more initiative without Council approval, particularly since the Commission tends to act more on Council ideas than those from the Parliament. Verhofstadt called for a federation of the citizens, and said that federal solutions are necessary - and that the ECB's bond-buying policy will only buy 5-6 months. He said that there needs to be resolution for the banks, a debt redemption fund and a European treasury.

Interestingly, Verhofstadt said that the independence of the ECB meant less democracy and seemed to argue for greater parliamentary control (if I understood his argument correctly).

Cohn-Bendit (European Greens/European Free Alliance):

Cohn-Bendit pointed out that the environment wasn't mentioned in Barroso's speech, but focused on social welfare. Cohn-Bendit said that the US federal budget had expanded to protect social welfare, and that the EU budget would need to expand to at least 5% of GDP in order for it to have the fiscal firepower to do anything to support social welfare across Europe. He argued that there should be more own resources rather than Member State contributions to the budget in order to achieve this, and that there would be financial support for Greece and its social system in the form of a social fund, with more time given to it to reform and pay back the debt.

Callanan (European Conservatives and Reformists):

Callanan opened by borrowing a line from Mitt Romney, saying that he wished that Barroso succeeded (as the ECR supported his election as Commission President), but that he had gone too far down the road of knee-jerk calls for more Europe, instead of focusing on reducing regulation (which he said Barroso had had some success in, but not enough). (He seems to be a big fan of Romney). For the Eurozone, Callanan said that the only way for it to work was for there to be transfers from the stronger countries, which was impossible, or for some countries to leave the Euro, and he advocated Greece leaving the Euro. (I wonder if Cameron supports this line).

He criticised the ECB's bond-buying policy, and said that there needed to be an economic solution to the crisis through less regulation. In response to a question he said that he didn't support quotas to bring about more gender equality in the boardroom.

Callanan also referred to our Buzzword Bingo and the chat on Twitter in his second speech, making him the first MEP to reference it in the chamber!

Farage (Europe of Freedom and Democracy):

Farage started by remarking it is the 20th anniversary of Britain leaving the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. He said that he was wrong in his speech last year that Greece would leave the Euro within a year, but that was because he underestimated how fanatical Barroso and European leaders would be to save it.

Zimmer (United Left Alliance/Nordic Green-Left):

Zimmer attacked the crisis policies for not solving the problem and for weakening European democracy.


Verhofstadt, Cohn-Bendit and Callanan were the strongest performers, taking the opportunity to get their visions and ideological points across. Swoboda was good too, and it's interesting that he kept referring to things that his group had agreed on, but without any detail it lost impact - hopefully there are a few interesting ideas being saved for the PES Congress at the end of the month. Daul, Farage and Zimmer were the dullest. Farage normally manages to inject some personality into his speeches, but it just fell a bit flat, whereas Daul was unfocused and rambling and Zimmer was, well, just dull and didn't make any impact.

Last Chance to Listen: "The F-Word: Federalism"

BBC Radio 4 has produced a programme on federalism, its history and how it relates to the Eurozone crisis (with a good comment on how it might relate to the UK internally as well). It's only up online for a few more hours (5 at the time of writing), and can be found here.

As it's radio, the programme is available to those outside the UK too.

Making the pro-European argument

Listening to The EU Debate on the BBC last week, I was struck again by how often the pro-European argument re-treads old arguments, and I have to admit I roll my eyes every time the peace argument is brought up.

This is not to say that there's anything wrong in the peace argument itself (or to take away from the debate on the BBC, which had a very limited time to establish the argument). The EU does contribute to peace in Europe because it promotes continuous cooperation between the Member States. NATO has contributed massively to peace in Europe, but it's not as deep as the EU or as good at generating connections and cooperation between its Member States - despite Greece and Turkey being members since 1952, the fifty years since joining have not been the most cordial (indeed the deterioration of relations between the two countries after joining was a case study in how multilateral military alliances can destabilise relations between countries at my university). Likewise the Council of Europe and its Court of Human Rights have not prevent war between its members, with the Russia-Georgia war being a recent example.

However the European Union is much, much more than just a peace project and requires a more complex argument to justify it. By launching the pro-European argument with the "peace in Europe" rationale, by the time NATO has been addressed there is less time to set out a deeper context or basis to the EU to build on when the debate moves on to the economy or justice and home affairs. Not only does the opening argument on peace sound distant from today's concerns (it's inevitably admitted that war wouldn't suddenly occur if the Euro collapsed tomorrow, etc), but it also means that there is little underlying rationale or idea that holds together the cooperation covered by the EU. Not a good way to start off the pro-European argument.


Explaining takes practise.

A common thread to discussions in pro-European circles seems to be that the pro-European case would find more supporters if it was explained. This irritates me for two reasons: it's a boring discussion that doesn't solve or further anything, and pro-Europeans are terrible at explaining things. Probably because they constantly talk about explaining things rather than actually explaining them.

Or, more seriously, there is usually less need to defend and think about defending the status quo than if you want to change something. It reminds me of the position of unionists in Northern Ireland or the unionist argument in Scotland, where the status quo came or is coming under pressure (in greatly differing circumstances), and those who supported the union lagged behind in creating an articulate narrative in its favour. While supporters of the British union have adapted, pro-Europeans still lag behind - with the pro-European position more precarious if it also wants to argue for the future changes that are a key part of the pro-European position in the Eurocrisis.

The structure of the EU and the reliance of the pro-European movement on European leaders and European summit meetings meant that it struggles to create a convincing narrative and has lost time. It also means that there's been a shrinking support base - a generation of believers in the European ideal as a way of maintaining peace have passed, and the European statesmen and women who pushed the project along in the past are less likely to be generated in the future by a generation for whom the need for peace is less visceral and the narrative for the European Union less clear.


Participation needs to be at the core of pro-Europeanism.

Protesilaos Stavrou has pointed out that there are two types of pro-European: the intergovernmental and the federalist. If the focus on European statesmen and stateswomen and all the related summitry has left us with a withered pro-European base and an out-of-date narrative, then I don't see much future for that strand of pro-Europeanism - how can it bring the EU closer to citizens and build a convincing narrative? The summitry that has dominated the Eurocrisis has not only failed to deliver a solution, damaging the credibility of the intergovernmental model, but is also corrosive to the political confidence and support necessary for the outcomes of summits to be delivered on. The intergovernmentalist pro-European seems to assume that necessity will overcome objections in the end and that the EU will find a way to muddle through. But integration has progressed further than in the past with an outdated narrative in the present: there isn't the same reserve of goodwill to run on, and it is hardly desirable to run a game of chicken between economy necessity (or any other necessity) and European voters and hope that we'll muddle through each time.

The second element of the pro-European argument is generally that cooperation between Member States means that we can achieve more together than we could apart. This needs to be developed further with the idea of participation and a more democratic EU: that if cooperating means that Member States can do more and achieve more than on their own, then a democratic EU would empower citizens to a degree that they wouldn't be without the EU.

This also means that the pro-European side needs to drop the idea that everyone benefits equally and nobody looses out from this process: that the internal market, justice and home affairs cooperation, etc, make sense, but they have downsides that need to be debated and avoided or mitigated. This is why there is social elements to the internal market - ensuring that there are certain common standards on employment (such as maternity) mean that the social protection that is part of our common values is not undermined. However we need to build a substantive European public sphere so that we can debate these issues better and so we can use the European Parliament better.

It is a complicated argument to make and needs to take on the failings of the EU as it stands as much as it builds a robust narrative to defend the idea of European Union versus ad hoc argeements or free riding on the rest of the EU while withdrawing. (And of course it would need to be more flesh out than I've written here). But there must be a coherent narrative to support the cooperation that pro-Europeans are advocating, and one that underlines the alternative argument of Euroscepticism in the public mind. If the EU is to survive, it needs to be responsive to citizens, so participation needs to be at the heart of the pro-European argument.

Depressing Proportionality?

Julien Frisch's recent article on Scottish Representation in the EP (in English; auf Deutsch) shows that, while the proportion of citizens to MEPs is the same in Scotland as elsewhere in the UK (except perhaps NI?), Scotland is underrepresented in comparison to small states of a similar population size such as Finland, which has 14 MEPs - more than double Scotland's share with 6 MEPs.

An independent Scotland within the EU would have more representation in both the Council and the EP, though I doubt that Scotland would get 14 MEPs in this scenario - most likely that the number of seats for other states would go down to fit in with the current cap of EP seats (736 is it?). Under Lisbon a similar system applies with the seat cap at 751 MEPs.

Grahnlaw responded with a post about the representation of citizens in the EP, which are based on degressive proportionality - small states are over-represented to the extent that the weight of your vote varies wildly depending on which country you are in. So if you live in Malta or Luxembourg, your vote counts more than that of a citizen in Germany.

Grahnlaw is right that this is all about representing the states rather than about finding a way of representing the citizens on the one citizen, one vote model. It is probably also true that with the system set up this way it will be almost impossible to reform it into line with this model. However, since the EU is primarily an Union of states rather than of peoples, I can't see much of an alternative to the way it started except a radical straight-to-federation Union, which still isn't politically possible.

That representation is tied up with representation in the Council makes the whole thing more complicated, but I don't think the fact that the two are linked is in itself bad or irrational. It's part of the debate in any federal or quasi-federal structure: what should be the representational balance between big and small states, and how should citizens be represented? My personal feeling is that there should be a minimum representation for states in the EP: national and state identity matter very much, and, though the Council is the proper place for national representation, there should not be the sense that small countries are being pushed out of the EP, which is one of, if not the, most legitimate institutions of the Union.

It would not be good if the people of small states became less trusting of the EP, and felt that it didn't represent them.

That said, "the one citizen one vote" argument is powerful, and needs to be addressed - here, I would say that as states become more equal in the Council (of course, veto thresholds would need to be raised), seats in the EP should be distributed more fairly, with the minimum allowance for MEPs per state cut down - e.g. to 2 per state. After all, if states' votes in the Council were less weighted according to population, then it would be more logical to make EP seat distribution more fair.

I should note that an important question here is one of identity, and of national representation versus individual representation - which is linked to ideas of national versus individual sovereignty, which I've mused about here and here. Since I come down so much on the side of individual sovereignty in my mini series so far, it might be surprising that I've stressed the need for some recognition of national identity in the EP. While I wanted to show with my first two posts that it is a mistake to nationalise notions of sovereignty and legitimacy (and that there can be adverse effects to concentrating these concepts into one identity), I still think that national identity is of great value - just that it shouldn't be of paramount value. Identities do matter in representation, and this should be allowed for in the EP and the overall EU structure (just not in the overpowering way it is now - I agree that citizens should be the most important group, rather than states).

And then, of course, representation in the Commission is another queston...



Edit: I've posted a few more follow up comments here. Sorry to divide things up like this.