If anyone wants to understand what is wrong with the European Union, a speech that Jean-Claude Juncker delivered in The Hague on March 3 is a must-read. The president of the European Commission is not known to mince his words. Ever since taking up this executive post in 2014, Juncker has had to take a lot of flak from EU member states and from an increasingly Euroskeptic public that blames the commission for everything that is wrong with the EU.
“The Commission received an unending stream of criticism from many countries, which is understandable,” Juncker said. “They need the Commission to be a scapegoat when they are unable to do what they promised their electorate.”
Juncker wasn’t trying to exonerate the commission. Instead, what he set out to do in this blistering if sometimes bitter indictment of Europe was to imply how the member states were on the path to destroying the EU. It’s as if they have taken for granted the peace that has reigned over Europe since World War II—even though on Europe’s border, there is a proxy war taking place in eastern Ukraine, which Russia invaded in 2014.
Judy Dempsey
More from this author...But there is also something more fundamental that is having a corrosive impact on the EU. It is the growing power of the member states. Certainly, national interests have always collided with the priorities of the commission, but never to this extent. The EU’s ambitions to be a serious strategic player will come to naught unless the member states put aside their own egoistic ambitions.
In one extreme example, in November 2015, as Juncker said in his speech, the member states decided “how fast Christmas candles should burn.” Yes, how fast candles should burn, how high the flame should be, how the candle should stand straight, and where the candles should be placed. It’s as if, in the middle of the refugee crisis, governments across Europe had nothing better to discuss.
Those in Britain campaigning to pull the country out of the EU can only feel vindicated by this absurd decision, which is now a piece of EU legislation. And no doubt, the commission will be blamed again for regulation that has reached an absurd level. But as Juncker reminded his audience, it wasn’t the commission that made this decision. “In fact it was the 28 Member States, acting at the behest of the candle industry. Only the United Kingdom and the Netherlands abstained.”
Lobbies and interests are nothing new as each EU country tries to defend its turf inside the union. But what is different now, when the EU needs a real sense of unity and commitment, is the growing power of intergovernmentalism. It is the member states, not the commission, that are now wielding power—and with such vigor.
Look at how the Polish government is going its own way over curbing the judiciary and the media. Finland criticized the European Commission for speaking out against the changes in Poland, claiming that this “was not Europe’s business but purely a matter for the Poles themselves.” But as Juncker reminded his audience, “the Treaty clearly calls on the Commission to watch over this kind of thing.”
Increasingly, too, governments are resorting to referenda to distance themselves from Brussels—meaning the commission. Hungary will hold a referendum on whether the country should accept refugees under an EU quota scheme. The Netherlands will vote on whether to accept the EU’s Association Agreement with Ukraine. The British will decide in June whether to remain in the EU.
As Brussels becomes more unpopular, referenda could be the legitimating tool for Euroskeptic governments to go their own way, although this is already happening without these plebiscites. To keep refugees from entering their countries, several governments reimposed border controls within the Schengen passport-free travel zone, while making sure they can continue to reap the enormous benefits of EU membership.
This shortsighted power of the member states has already caused immense damage to Europe’s reputation. For leaders such as Russian President Vladimir Putin, a weak and divided Europe serves his interests, something that German Chancellor Angela Merkel knows all too well.
It is hard to know what will jolt the member states out of their belief that the defense of their own national interests (if you can call how long to can burn a candle a national interest) serves Europe.
The terrorist attacks in France in November 2015 and the determination of refugees and migrants to reach Europe should have been enough to convince all the member states why they need a strong common security policy and viable asylum legislation. Instead, the opposite is happening. This is not sustainable for Europe’s future.
Comments(6)
Judy Dempsey provides one example of the endless number of silly ways the EU is contributing to its own demise. In doing so, she returns again to the bitter debate about where authority should be vested: the European commission or the governments of Europe’s sovereign individual states. For her, the answer is clear. The European Commission and its concept of overarching international government should have the upper hand. She notes the “corrosive impact on the EU” of the “growing power of the member states.” (Bertolt Brecht would probably have something to say about this...) This once was not the case, Dempsey argues, but now the EU is caught in the clutches of “the growing power of intergovernmentalism,” whatever that might be. But why shouldn’t national governments put distance between themselves and Brussels if they don’t like the way Brussels does business. Who could? The EU is a consortium of nations, and all the public relations activity by a privileged elite to promote an empty notion of “European values” will not make these states any less national. Ultimately nothing “will jolt the member states out of their belief that the defense of their own national interests serve Europe,” so long as "Europe" fails to make the case that its benefits to these members states are superior to those they might attain on their own. So far, the EU has not done so; indeed, its arrogance that everyone should simply kneel before this transcendental vision suggests it doesn’t know how. Governance that favors Christmas candles of the correct length and incandescence over already irresponsibly small defense budgets has no future.
I am sure, every conscious European citizen would have stomach turning reading Juncker blaming member states on ' how fast candle should burn' . It is EU bureaucracy that prescribed to each and every single person in EU how many litres of water to use brushing teeth or taking a shower; for businesses to add ( cost) printing content on packaged fish saying 'Fish' etc. It is EU Commission, so called President, and the rest of unelected Elite - individually and collectively are c o m p l e t e l y detached from reality of day-to-day life , where people used to work and being payed for work done, where now citizenry is viewed as taxable number - precisely 500 million, that should be prepared for forced assimilation and 'integration' of majority testosterone driven young men of a different faith, attacking women on a daily basis in Germany, strangling refugee aid worker (Sweeden) , robbing supermarkets etc where media is muzzled and anyone opposing official policy is branded 'rightwing ' , 'racist' or 'not good person' , keiner 'Gutmensch'. Long peace in Europe is not due to institute of EU , but to long living memory of ordinary people of consequences of any war, due to loses of every European family. And every citizen wishes EU would not try to re write history, where Bulgaria was under Osman power, where Cyprus was not recognised by Turkey, where fascism started in Italy, and Germans burdened with guild till today , being asked to 'accommodate ' 1.4 million newcomers in just 5-6 months. Where is the end to ' blaming and shaming' of national governments for any democratic developments in their respective countries? Poland was threatened with sanctions (!) after democratically elected government took office last year. It is time to sober up in Brussels and to understand , that swing to the ' right ' or to 'nationalism' is due to enforced globalisation, depletion of sovereignty, disregard of national interests and cultural heritage , growing inequality that reaches 'third world levels', youth unemployment, ..list can go on since the introduction of single currency and EU taking dangerous route for "centralized decision for collective good', sounds familiar? We have seen it all in Politbureau style politics, exYougoslavia countries have memories of the war dissolving those politics. And European Union did nothing to prevent that war, so do not put on mantilla of a saviour , Mr. Juncker .
I was going to say something very similar, but you have already stated it so eloquently for me.
I think that the comments by Gardener & Zussmann do not reply accurately to Judy Dempsey's points. The issue here is that Europe does have common interests which are being neglected or even dismissed while local/ "national" political expediencies are promoted to the expense of the serious issues. I wonder what part of this is being orchestrated intentionally and what part is due to human failure.
And the point was...? From your point of view .
It is really Awful what Happened in Brussels Airport: We have to Pay Tribute and Say CONDOLENCES to the Families Which have Been touched and Endangered in the Attacks and thes Blasts. No more People, no More Peoples should live under the Threat of Being each day attacked Hurted and Unevenly Hurt. NONE ought to Behave the Way the Terrorsits behave. Each and Everybody Needs Peace and Social, Community Harmony. Europe Needs Peace and No Country deserves What has happened to Belgium. All the Condolenses to the Kingdom of BELGIUM, his Majesty the King of Belgium, the Prime Minsiter, Giovernment and Parliament and the Belgian People.
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