EU: Between the project and the people
The European Union, between the federal project and citizens' expectations
Between a rock and a hard place; reconciling Europe. | AFP PHOTO / GEORGES GOBET
Tormented by the need to find solutions for the social-economic difficulties that worsen the lives of its citizens, the European Union is doomed to quickly decide on its future; otherwise EU construction will turn into an agony with a catastrophic outcome.
Because, in the jungle of the globalized economy and between major geopolitical challenges, after being member of a community experience, the EU member countries would find very hard their place again. And the price could be unexpectedly high, if we consider the most recent separatist impulses of Catalonia, Flanders or Scotland.
While a part of the European political and intellectual elite talks about the need to step forward to federalization, the nationalist, extremist and separatist movements are increasing, betraying the confidence of EU citizens in their own leaders.
Jose Manuel Barroso stated about the need to transform the Union into a federation of nation-states. The leaders of the liberal and environmentalist groups in the European Parliament have launched a book-manifesto for a post-national revolution in Europe in order to create a federal union. It is a generous idea, which has only a vulnerability: the popular test.
In the Europe of recession, the Community institutional sphere proves unable to manage the crisis, because it is trapped into Berlin's thesis in terms of austerity.
After five years of crisis, 1 of 10 Europeans do not have a job, the most affected being the Spanish and the Greeks - where 1 of 4 citizens is unemployed.
To these people affected by poverty propagated by the dissolution, since 2008, of 10 million jobs and by the salary, pension and medical rights amputations, to these Europeans, exhausted by the struggle for survival, is given now the alternative synthesized by the French philosopher, Bernard-Henri Levy: federalism or death - political union or EU destruction, dirt, exit from the history and chaos.
Until now, the major European chancellors have talked to the governors about the need to rescue banks. Absurd amounts were pumped into the financial system built for speculation, while more and more people were unemployed and more and more companies went bankrupt. The burden of the crisis has returned to simple people and not to those who caused it.
Now, the need federalization is spreading, while nationalism and populism are hitting the foundation of democracy and stability in many EU countries.
The nation-state is cornered between Brussels and the regional separatism. The European citizen is trapped between the rhetoric of federalization and the and despair of the moment. Before handing any more requests, the European citizen must receive the essential element which coagulates the human communities, the indispensable bond between voters and the elected person - the confidence.
The deficit of trust threatens to sink the EU into an identity crisis. If Europe wants to remain united, it needs a major effort to give again the trust to its own citizens in the future of the European project. And for this, the voice of the citizens must be heard and respected. Nobody ask them anything, but they are always the ones who receive the bill. This is anything else, but it is certainly not democracy.
Therefore, the Congress of European Socialists was mainly focused on the need to defend democracy in Europe and to oppose to the politicizing and banking cynicism a progressive vision that responds honestly to the expectations of the European citizens in matters of social justice and with measures for the economic recovery.
Only facts can give back to the Europeans the confidence in their common future. Before asking to citizens more Europe, they should be offered a fairer Europe. Otherwise, the prospect of deepening the European integration will be undermined by the lack of popular support. The federalism and jobs creation are not incompatible, on the contrary. But the order of priority of the EU agenda must take into account, first, the expectations of half a billion citizens. from new europe on line
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