Today is Europe Day. The Treaty of Rome, the EU’s founding treaty was signed 55 years ago; post war Europe sought a new strategy to end old enmities and forge shared prosperity through economic growth. However one measures the achievements of those goals, the conclusion has to be the European Union has delivered on both counts.
For those of us who believe in the EU’s objectives and feel that Britain should be leading in Europe, these are turbulent times.
Restoring faith in a political structure which may appear removed from the citizen, and rebuilding an economic framework which has been proven inadequate is a challenge for Europe’s political leaders.
The rise of fringe anti-EU political parties is also testament to deep-seated dissatisfaction, largely aimed at politicians at the national level, although the EU institutions have become a protest lightning rod.
The first round ballot of the French presidential elections tells the story; Le Pen’s Front National and Melenchon’s Communists – both populist parties playing the anti-European card – scooped almost 30 per cent of the popular vote. We’ve seen similar trends in a number of other countries. Conservative grandee, Tim Yeo, has warned the Tory faithful that UKIP presents a similar challenge to his party’s fortunes; a strong showing in the 2014 European elections will, he fears, dent Conservative prospects at the General Election.
Against this backdrop, the temptation is to pick up the eurosceptic rugby ball and run with it. Less Europe, not more; sovereignity not shared solutions.
Liberal Democrats tend to default to a more enlightened, progressive mindset. Our values are anchored in being engaged in the international community, sufficiently self aware to recognise the UK no longer has the clout to go it alone. Internationalists by instinct, we recognise the challenges of our age are rarely managed at the national level alone. Tackling global issues can only be achieved in concert with other countries and within an agreed framework of action that has political and legal bite.
Take the issue of crime. Drug smuggling, trafficking of people (including children) and the market in illegal weapons and firearms are transboundary. It defies logic, then, that UKIP and some Conservatives call for our withdrawal from European justice and home affairs initiatives such as the European Arrest Warrant, EuroJust and Europol. It’s easy to bang that particular drum, but the consequences would lead quite simply to more crime on our streets.
However, the temptation remains on the doorstep to deliver a populist line. While we should keep the EU in check, we should not sleepwalk down the slippery slope of euroscepticism.
Let UKIP spew nonsense, and Conservatives spin half-truths, but it is our responsibility as Liberal Democrats to defend the reality of living in a globalised world; that if we want less crime on our streets, if we want a cleaner environment, if want to guarantee affordable energy solutions, if want to safeguard economic growth and prosperity, that can not only be achieved realistically by means of the European Union. There isn’t an alternative. The logic then follows, we should make the best of our membership; leading beats being led.
The climate is tough, and sentiment on the doorstep can be chilly. However, landing the message that vetoes and other futile posturing ends in the UK shooting itself in the foot is an opportunity that, as Liberal Democrats, we should not shy away from.
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10 Comments
I happen to think we should be in the Eurozone. I am sure some economists will disagree, but is it just an economic issue alone? I also equation the ide of anti-Europe being “populist” – sure it;s what manynmedia owners seem to prefer, but would it really be what the electroate say if they were properly informed?
I am reading a book. It is one way fo finding out more. According to the book, the pound lost about 25% in value against the euro between 1980 to 1997, It then picked up a 15% but then dropped 20% over 2008/9. This sems to suggest that Europe has done a lot better than us, at least up to recently. If we had been in since 1980 we might have changed some of the events leading to the present crisis, and if we were in now we might be able to change some of the decisions that affect is and are being led by France and Germany. We would also have better information about Euproe and the Eurozone.
All institutions need to develop, and the faults of Europe argue for development, not breakup.
Agreed, but we also need to highlight or plans to reform and improve the EU. An honest assessment in its flaws and the improvements we wish to implement would help make our defence of it more credible.
It is very hard going to defend the EU these days, given that its most prominent project, i.e., the Euro, has some severe structural flaws. We are not going to win the argument unless we acknowledge these flaws and lead the efforts to remedy them.
The EU has much to be proud of in terms of securing peace and co-operation among its members, as well as encouraging trade and cultural exchange. However, enthusiasm cannot supplant honesty if we want to be taken seriously.
If we are going to defend the European Arrest Warrant, we must also make clear that it urgently needs reform. The EAW has been used to bring many serious criminals to justice, but has been used far more often to send people to Poland over minor allegations like possession of a few grammes of cannabis many years ago — matters over which our own courts would not prosecute due to passage of time. [I know Poland isn’t the only offender, but it is by far the worst, due to having no formal statute of limitations and no prosecutorial discretion.] The gross abuses are simply not acceptable. Even in the US, with a properly federal system of government, a person cannot be sent from one state to trial in another state just on the say-so of this state. I do not advocate withdrawal from EAW, but I do think that reform should be made a top prority.
“post war Europe sought a new strategy to end old enmities and forge shared prosperity through economic growth”
A fine ambition, and yet those who complain about the rise of anti-EUropean sentiment are the first to support the federalising agenda that breeds such ill-feeling.
There’s some irony right there for you!
Liberals should be omnisceptics. We need to stop defining our position on Europe against the views adopted by others. We need to be clear about what the European Union is *for* and support only the parts of it that actually further that agenda.
We cannot make a liberal case for European cooperation and integration whilst also supporting a currency whose structure and rules precipitate usurpation of national sovereignty (like in Greece or Italy). We cannot make a liberal case for greater market integration while making piecemeal reforms to the perverse incentives created by the Common Agricultural Policy. We cannot make the case for greater harmonisation of employment law and workers’ rights while tediously inflexible directives hinder the training of the next generation of doctors and surgeons. We cannot make the case for more integrated justice while doing little to protect individual liberties routinely trodden upon by the EAW.
The EU is not an elaborate conspiracy for a super-state but it must be open to exactly the same level of scrutiny and criticism as our national governments. This isn’t Euroscepticism. This is Euro-realism.
If you want to proactively defend the EU then you have to take a balanced approach. Both point out the benefits of the EU and pan european co-operation but balance that out by being actively critical when the EU does get things wrong. Whether in terms of the EU parliaments ludicrous double sitting, or deep seated problems like the CAP or the Euro. That way you appear to be critical friends, not brainwashed cheerleaders. Only then will people be far more receptive to your message and you will be able to mount a coherent defence of the EU in Britain.
“Europe sought a new strategy to end old enmities and forge shared prosperity through economic growth. …. the conclusion has to be the European Union has delivered on both counts.
I take it the authors exclude from consideration the 50% of young people in Greece and Spain who have no job or reasonable prospect of a job, and the tens of millions more who are about to be economically devastated by the impending collapse of much of the European banking system. I take it they ignore the seething tensions being stoked between creditor and debtor countries (Greece and Germany most obviously) and within countries leading to the emergence of fringe politicians selling snake oil remedies.
For the avoidance of doubt let me be absolutely clear; medium to smallish nations like those of western Europe need to work together in a shrinking world and that working together needs to be supported by strong supranational institutional arrangements. So we definitely need some sort of European Union, but unfortunately not the sort we have.
We could perhaps evolve from what we have to the very different EU we should have but we would first need a vision of that alternative and there has been a quite remarkable lack of leadership about this or even willingness to open a debate. Instead, the liberal leadership has preferred to blame problems on UKIP, the Murdoch press and other convenient scapegoats while carrying on business as usual and, far as one can tell, mostly supporting the status quo, albeit with tweaks here and there. Specifically, it has colluded with bullying smaller nations who voted the ‘wrong’ way in referenda to vote again to get the ‘right’ result. How Liberal is that?
“The rise of fringe anti-EU political parties is also testament to deep-seated dissatisfaction, largely aimed at politicians at the national level, although the EU institutions have become a protest lightning rod.”
So, rising anti-EU sentiment is nothing (or at least very little) to do with the EU and is mainly spill over from domestic problems in member countries. The Brussels ivory tower is clearly even more insulated from reality than I thought. Has it occurred to anyone there that voters should be listened to and not just patronised?
To be fair, our party’s MEPs do campaign for CAP reform, EAW reform, single-seat parliament and a lot of other reforms. Unfortunately, there is a media conspiracy of silence surrounding the European Parliament, and as a party we do not campaign properly for it, so no-one ever gets to hear about it. As a party we need to set out our stall as a Euro-reformist party (pro-EU, pro-reform of EU). We should also move towards having full (Westminster) parliamentary scrutiny of national government positions on EU laws in the Council.
[And I don’t think anyone supports the current two-seat parliament except the French, who are blocking any reform of it in the Council.]
The EU as currently constituted is a centralised, top down, bureaucrat-led organisation more or less reflecting the way France was in the 1950s and adopted as the model by Jean Monet and the other founding fathers.
The trouble is that ‘centralised’, ‘top down’ and ‘bureaucrat-led’ are all the exact opposite of what liberals stand for. So it is hardly surprising that this misguided approach fails to win public support – we should welcome the opposition and lead it in a positive direction. Instead we have naively swallowed the ‘international=good’ line leaving us as only the 4th party in Euro elections and utterly out of touch with the public instinct. Worse still, by failing to offer positive leadership we leave the field open to those like UKIP that offer negative leadership.
So, yes, we need to campaign on the CAP and the rest but if we accept the basic structure of the EU as it is now we have already lost the more substantial debate. We may win a few battles but we will loose the war because we are fighting for the wrong cause.