The founding fathers of the European Union were great visionaries. They responded to the needs of the time. This generation has to show similar courage and vision. Our task is to build on their success and create an EU that, after the end of the cold war and the victory of market economies over command economies, can respond to the challenges of globalisation.
We have to make enlargement work, and the EU’s institutions need to be leaner and smarter.
The old model has led to too much centralisation and bureaucracy. But above all we have to re-establish the support of the people of Europe. This requires things to be done differently at Brussels and at Westminster.
The commission has to put its own house in order. It has to define its core activities and pursue them. So rather than asking for an increase in its budget, it should make sure its own accounts can be signed off by auditors. Rather than asking for more powers, it must pursue the completion of the single market. And it has to curtail its own tendency to over-regulate. Commission proposals, if not accepted within a defined time period, will have to be withdrawn.
The European parliament has to accept more responsibility for its decisions and become more effective in holding the commission and individual commissioners to account. The council of ministers must have strategic and effective leadership. It needs a full-time president who, in a Union of 25, co-ordinates the heads of governments and ensures priorities are pursued. If not, informal groupings of the larger countries will gain too much power.
But by far the greatest challenge is here back in the UK.
After 30 years of membership, politicians and the public alike still pretend that the EU is primarily an economic project. It is not, and never has been. Much of the argument in Britain about whether we should have a federal Europe or not misses the point. The current threat is not a federal state, but the unique combination of the inter-governmental and the community method that make the EU bureaucratic and unaccountable.
More intergovernmentalism is no more a solution than more federalism.
Both Labour and the Conservatives have been stuck in a time warp. We on the Labour side have been too uncritical, and the Tories have overlooked the benefits. And the voters have stopped listening to us, because they know the truth is somewhere in the middle.
So let’s stop talking about Europhiles and Eurosceptics – and distinguish between those who want the EU to work and those who don’t. This will flush out that small group of extremists who want the UK to leave the EU. Let them make their case, and see if the British people support them. I doubt it very much.
The politicians can’t go on blaming the people for not understanding the EU. MPs at Westminster have to debate the commission’s annual programme, which gives rise to some 40 percent of our domestic legislation, in the same way we discuss our own government’s legislative programme contained in the Queen’s speech. We have to bring our MEPs, who have great expertise in specialist fields, into our select committees and we have to scrutinise European legislation in public session. And it really does not make sense to have the Europe minister in the Foreign Office.
Before we get too exercised about a new constitution, let’s have an open and honest debate about what the EU should do and should not do, make sure the institutions here and in Brussels are fit for purpose and anchor European decision making in our domestic institutions.
If we don’t do this, the gap between the political elite and the people will widen, fewer people will bother to vote and extremists who seem to offer certainties will gain more influence. Surely our generation can do better.