What's Next for Europe?
DEVELOPMENTS
Voters in Ireland rejected the Lisbon Treaty on June 12th, leaving a question mark hanging over the European Union’s latest attempt to reform its increasingly unwieldy bureaucracy. In recent years, the European Union (EU) has grown from fifteen to twenty-seven members, and efforts have been underway for some time to streamline its institutions and decision-making processes. The Lisbon Treaty is a compromise treaty that was drawn up after the draft EU constitution was defeated by referendums in France and the Netherlands in 2005. Among the key changes are several proposals designed to make the EU a stronger and more coherent actor in international affairs.
Like all EU treaties, the Lisbon Treaty can only enter into force (become effective) if all twenty-seven member states ratify it. Ireland was the only EU country required by its constitution to hold a national referendum on the treaty; in the other member states, the national legislature or executive (president or prime minister) can ratify it without consulting the voters directly. EU leaders have agreed to push ahead with the ratification process and to address the setback of the Irish ‘no’ vote at the next meeting of EU heads of state in October 2008.
BACKGROUND
With a population of 495 million and a combined gross domestic product of $14.4 trillion (PPP), the European Union is a major economic and political actor. The EU coordinates the legislative framework that supports a single market across all its member states. However, it is much more than a free trade area: fundamental to the EU is the idea that policies affecting many areas – from reducing trade barriers to maintaining environmental standards to fighting international crime – will be more effective if adopted at a multi-national level. This level of cooperation requires a strong political framework, and the institutions and decision-making processes of the European Union provide this.
The European Union traces its origins to steps taken to secure peace on the continent after the devastation of two world wars. With the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, France and Germany were joined by Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg in establishing an interdependent economic order that, as the French foreign minister put it at the time, aimed to make war between France and Germany “not merely unthinkable but materially impossible.” The countries pooled basic production of coal and steel and established a set of political institutions to coordinate and oversee it. The successful integration of the coal and steel industries led the six countries to extend their cooperation to other areas of the economy. In 1957, the Treaty of Rome laid the foundation for the modern European Union by establishing a full customs union and introducing the goal of a common market based on the free movement of persons, services, goods, and capital.
Notably, the aim of economic and political integration in Europe was not to counterbalance or compete with the United States. In fact, the United States was an early proponent of European integration, viewing cooperation as a means of ensuring peace and prosperity on the continent. In addition, U.S. economic assistance under the Marshall Plan is credited with having positively influenced these early steps toward integration.
European economic and political cooperation evolved over several decades, and by the mid-1980s the European Community (as it was called at the time) had expanded to twelve members, including Denmark, Ireland, UK, Greece, Portugal, and Spain. The present-day EU was founded by the Treaty on European Union in 1992, which consolidated various areas of economic cooperation under the European Community and introduced two new policy areas – Justice and Home Affairs and a Common Foreign and Security Policy – into the EU’s remit. It also set out to formalize an economic and monetary union, including a common currency, the euro. Three subsequent waves of expansion brought the EU to its present twenty-seven members.
The political role of European Union is greater than that of an international organization but less than that of a state. In creating the European Union, the member states agreed to pool their sovereignty in pursuit of common objectives in three major policy areas, which form the “pillars” of the European Union: European Community, Common Foreign and Security Policy, and Justice and Home Affairs. Still, the EU’s legislative process allows individual member states to retain a great deal of influence over how these objectives are achieved. While the exact decision-making procedure depends on the type of policy concerned, the Council of the European Union – an intergovernmental body made up of ministers representing the specific interests of their respective states, not the EU as a whole – is ultimately responsible for determining which legislation is adopted. Legislation relating to the common market and most other economic and social issues (the first pillar) is subject to only qualified majority voting in the Council, where a total of 345 votes are allocated according roughly to each member state’s population. In the more sensitive areas of foreign policy and policing (the second and third pillars), decisions currently require unanimity in the Council, effectively allowing any member state a veto.
Over time, the member states have moved incrementally to deepen integration by bringing additional policies under the decision-making procedure of the first pillar. More recently, the enlargement of the EU to twenty-seven members has necessitated a broader rethinking of its structure. These factors contributed to the drafting of the Lisbon Treaty, which would introduce a number of institutional and procedural changes. The Lisbon Treaty would redistribute voting weights among member states in the Council and continue the trend of bringing more policy decisions under the qualified majority voting procedure. At the same time, it would introduce a new role for the national parliaments in certain policy areas. It would also create two new positions, a President of the Council of the European Union (to replace the current rotating presidency) and a High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (combining the responsibilities of two existing posts). Former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, once famously lamented that he did not know Europe’s phone number. The proposed changes may finally give him an answer.
ANALYSIS
To many Americans, and indeed to many Europeans themselves, the role and powers of the European Union are unclear. This is believed to have been a significant contributing factor in the Irish ‘no’ vote, just as it was when the French and the Dutch rejected the EU constitution in 2005. As summarized in the International Herald Tribune, “For all its benefits, many people feel the Union is remote, undemocratic and ever more inclined to strip its smaller members of the right to make their own laws and decide their own futures.” However the EU decides to move forward, it will need to counter these sentiments by nurturing a more direct relationship between Brussels and its citizens.
Since Ireland rejected the treaty, a few options have been circulated regarding the way forward. These include rewriting the treaty, asking the Irish to vote again after some concerns have been clarified, creating a ‘two-tier’ Europe with varying levels of integration, or scrapping the treaty entirely and continuing to operate under existing rules and procedures. None of these options appear particularly palatable to an EU that has been preoccupied for years with questions of internal reform. From a U.S. perspective, what matters most is that the EU be able to move beyond its introspective phase and focus its attention more effectively on areas where its considerable economic and political power can make a serious difference in world affairs. Three EU members (UK, France and Germany) have already taken the lead on non-proliferation in Iran. On a host of others issues – including climate change, the food crisis, and terrorism, to name only a few – Europe is a capable and credible partner. The U.S. stands only to benefit from working closely with a strengthened EU to achieve our shared foreign policy goals.
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Annie Verderosa is the Regional Editor for Europe/Russia.