EU The Academic view: A vision for Europe is desperately needed – by Maria Graczyk

 Liberals are better at pointing out others’ faults than at doing self-reflection. They spend more time explaining away the popularity of populism than explaining the fall of liberalism, says Jan Zielonka, adding that the EU has become a caricature of a neo-liberal project and needs a new vision.

For now, we are treading water. We are faking reforms, re-heating old ideas we did not accomplish at a time when there was a better economic situation. Real changes will therefore probably have to be forced by external shocks and therefore will be chaotic and painful.

Nevertheless, nothing happens, politicians dig into the wells. And they return to their discredited policy in previous years. Example? Refugees. For many years we have dealt with warlords and we know how it ended. Today, we are returning to the same model. We have become hostages of Erdogan’s policy with his refugee camps. First of all, I would not like to be hostage to his policy, and secondly – it is a denial of all the values on which liberal Europe was built.

It takes two to tango. Not only is Erdogan responsible for what is happening in Brussels-Ankara relations. When he came to power, he was very pro-European. Nevertheless, none of his efforts to get closer to Europe were successful. He was always told “tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.” In this way, we have deprived ourselves of credibility and instruments of influence on Turkey.

Most EU countries were reluctant towards this enlargement. Just as the Turks were stuck in the EU’s waiting room for years.

Turkey must either be accepted or it needs to be said openly that “we do not accept, but we want to expand our relations in specific areas”. Instead, Turkey has been a candidate for years while we have set its terms.

 It was unbelievable. We left our cosmopolitan, pro-European friends in Turkey on the ice. It was similar with Ukraine. I’m not saying that all these problems were solvable, but I know that if we had followed what we declared, it would have not been as bad as it is. We did everything to destroy these good relations.

Read more: Academic: A vision for Europe is desperately needed – EURACTIV.com

EU: Overview - What is the Europe 2020 strategy about?

The Europe 2020 strategy is the EU's agenda for growth and jobs for the current decade. It emphasises smart, sustainable and inclusive growth in order to improve Europe's competitiveness and productivity and underpin a sustainable social market economy.

To reach this objective, the EU has adopted targets to be reached by 2020 in five areas:

• Employment
• Research & Development
• Climate change & energy
• Education
• Poverty and social exclusion

 What are the key targets to be reached by 2020?

The headline targets related to the strategy's key objectives at the EU level cover:

• Employment:
  > 75% of the population aged 20 to 64 years to be employed;

• Research & Development:
  > 3% of GDP to be invested in the R&D sector;

• Climate change & energy: 
  > Greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced by 20% compared to 1990
  > Share of renewable energy sources in final energy consumption to be increased to 20%
  > Energy efficiency to be improved by 20%

• Education: 
  > Share of early school leavers to be reduced under 10%
  > At least 40% of 30 to 34 years old to have completed tertiary or equivalent education

• Poverty and social exclusion: 
  > At least 20 million people fewer at risk of poverty or social exclusion.

The EU-level targets have been translated into  national targets in each EU country, reflecting different situations and circumstances.

Davos: Vision versus Economic Capacity and Power - by RM

Economic Power (USA) Versus Vision (EU)

At the end of the Davos economic gathering, it was interesting to note how much the speeches given by European leaders differed from that of the American President.

When the US President spoke, it was clear that he spoke, knowing that he could say just about anything he wanted, given the economic strength of the US. The fact that he added to his now famous slogan , "America first", the words, "but not alone*, just meant that he will support trade agreements and other multi-lateral deals only if they are based on US terms and conditions, certainly not on a multi-lateral basis.

The Europeans,  including their present champion, Emmanuel Macron, spoke with no exception, not only about the positive values of global trade, but also about major issues confronting the world, such as global warming.

The obvious conclusion one could make from these speeches in Davos, listening to these two different trains of of thought, is that unless the one submits to the others way of thinking - there is no harmony possible - and this, regardless of all the enormous challenges the world is facing today.

Unfortunately for the EU, is the fact that the Union is not unified enough to speak with one voice and put their "money where their mouth is", and consequently can not only offer a carrot as an alternative, but also when needed not use a stick against "Bougie Man" Trump.

The result of all this will be, as the saying goes, "when two dogs fight over a bone, another dog will take it",

That dog, if it has not already taken the bone, will be China.

Bottom line : Europe urgently needs to put its house in order, and those member states which like the status quo, better get out, or get thrown out of the EU.

EU-Digest
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EU: Macron’s vision for Europe is progressive

Earlier this week, the French President Emmanuel Macron laid out his vision for the next stage of European Union (EU) integration, offering up a model that is indeed utopian and is a natural progression of the experiment that has been under way since the days France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium came together to create the nascent European Economic Community in more than five decades ago.

But the reality now is that the EU is struggling to achieve the lofty goals envisioned by those who created the body. Now, the EU is strained by Britain’s decision to leave, and by the pressures brought to bear by eastern and central European nations who struggle with the full democratic and social requirements of membership of the bloc. The euro too is in need of reform, and some of the 19 nations who use the common currency include both the strongest economically and the most heavily indebted.

But Macron has a vision. It includes a European Central Bank able to issue its own bonds, a finance minister responsible for the bloc’s budget, and a joint defence strategy. Yes, Macron’s visions is a bold one — and one that one day the EU will adapt — just not right now. Germany and its newly re-elected Chancellor Angela Merkel will like the sentiment of greater political and social integration, resetting the natural balance of the EU back under a Paris-Berlin axis. But it will be a hard sell to Merkel who must force a coalition at home to appease the forces and voters of the right. Neutrality too is enshrined in the constitution of Ireland, so a common defence strategy or European army would run counter to its principles.

And for the next year, Brussels and its eurocrats will be consumed by the mechanisms and effects of Brexit.So unfortunately Macron's vision will be put on hold, but hopefully not forgotten.

Read more: Macron’s vision for Europe is progressive | GulfNews.com

EU State of the Union: Juncker says EU to 'move on' from Brexit and calls for "One speed. One currency. One president"

President Juncker gives State of the 
Union address to the EU Parliament

Preesident Jean-Claude Juncker declared : "the “wind is back in Europe’s sails” in an an often very personal State of the Union speech, in which he gave his vision for the future of the European Union after the UK makes its “tragic” departure in 2019.

President Jean-Claude Juncker in his speech (often interrupted by applause) argued for a more unified and politically-accountable European Union after Brexit, which would combine the presidencies of the Commission and the Council into one (universally elected?), complete the euro currency zone, and generally push the bloc to take “a democratic leap forward” in unison and at a single speed.

The European commission president said he would always be sorrowed by the UK’s decision to leave the EU. “This will be a very sad and tragic moment in our history, we will always regret this”, he said before responding to heckling from Nigel Farage, President Trump's "soul mate", by retorting: “I think you will regret this soon, I might say.”

Calling for a special summit in Romania on the 30 March 2019, the first day of an EU of 27 member states rather than 28, Juncker said he hoped the continent would “wake up” that day to a new more unified bloc.

Juncker’s annual address to the European parliament in Strasbourg was notably more upbeat about the future than his speech a year ago, with economic growth outstripping the US and unemployment at a nine-year low. The commission president and former prime minister of Luxembourg  insisted the bloc should seize the moment to make widespread reforms. “As Mark Twain wrote, years from now we will be more disappointed by the things we did not do, than by the ones we did,” he said.

"On the 30 March 2019, we will be a union of 27 and I suggest we prepare very well for that date.”

Juncker added that the council should adopt qualified majority voting, rather than unanimity, on foreign policy issues and drive forward in European defence. “By 2025 we need a fully-fledged European defense union,” he said.

He also added the EU would establish a European cybersecurity agency. “Cyber-attacks know no borders and no one is immune,” he said.

Juncker told MEPs he intended to start trade talks with Australia and New Zealand, and promised to legislate to protect strategic interests from foreign purchases through industrial screening.

A joint statement from the French, German and Italian governments following the speech endorsed the move. The German minister for economic affairs, Brigitte Zypries, said: “We must avoid other states benefiting from our opening to advance their own industrial policy interests.”

Juncker added that the EU would respond to the “collapse of the ambitions in the US” on climate change by stepping into the vacuum and ensuring that Europe protected the world. “Let’s catch the wind in our sails”, he told MEPs.

However, he ruled out Turkey’s accession to the EU in the “foreseeable future”, and, in his strongest comments to date on the issue, he condemned the country’s slide into authoritarianism under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

“Turkey has been moving away from the European Union in leaps and bounds,” Juncker told MEPs. “Journalists belong in editorial offices amid a heated debate, and not in prison. I appeal today to the powers that be in Turkey: let our journalists go, and not just our journalists.”

The EU President also proposed combining the Commission and Council presidencies — a move that would transform the EU leadership and consolidate authority in a single figure who would campaign for the post.

“Europe would function better if we were to merge the presidents of the European Commission and the European Council,” Juncker told the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
“Europe would be easier to understand if one captain was steering the ship.”

Mr. Juncker. who is originally from Luxembourg spoke at times in German, French and English. His speech was simultaneously and individually translated for members of the EU Parliament in their own local language 

For the video with the complete speech of President Juncker click here. 

 EU-Digest

The future of Europe - Navel Staring European Politicians - Mrs Merkel the only exception with vision

Mrs. Merkel - a true European visionary with political skills

An Observer editorial notes: "Seventy years after the founders of modern Europe set out to bring stability, unity and prosperity to a war-ravaged continent, Europe and its principal political manifestation, the European Union, face a renewed, potentially defining struggle against the re-energised forces of internal division and fragmentation and external hostility and encroachment.

The scale of this challenge has yet to be fully appreciated. Its outcome is wholly uncertain. In consequence, 2015 may prove a fateful year for all the peoples of Europe.

The challenge comprises many elements, chief of which is whether the politics of austerity will be replaced by a more flexible, people-friendly economic regimen. Austerity, mainly in the form of public spending cuts and attempted deficit reduction, has wrought huge human and social damage. One key measure of pain is unemployment. In Spain, joblessness stands at around 23%. In Greece, the figure is 25%. In some areas of France and Italy, youth unemployment topped 40% at its highest point. Across the EU in 2013, 26 million people were unemployed, or one in eight of all workers. Many millions more are underemployed.

Austerity has caused tremendous political as well as social strain. The tough line dictated by chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who will arrive in London this week, is increasingly resented and there are clear signs of push-back. France’s new prime minister, Manuel Valls, introduced a €30bn reform package designed to boost business and jobs. His boss, President François Hollande, an old-school socialist, openly reviles Merkel’s “neoliberal” policy and its main underpinning, the European stability pact governing national budgets.

“To reform is to affirm our priorities, while refusing austerity,” Valls declared. Another newcomer, Italian premier Matteo Renzi, described as “Merkel’s most dangerous rival”, also links structural reform to a loosening of EU rules, notably Merkel’s holy grail, the 2012 fiscal pact. In November, both countries won budget reprieves from the European commission.

Still the only European leader who can credibly claim international statesman stature, Merkel, who is coming to London on Wednesday for talks with David Cameron on a range of issues, including the European economy, faces increasing criticism at home, not least from her centre-left vice-chancellor and coalition partner, Sigmar Gabriel. He argues the rise of right- and leftwing populism across Europe can only be checked by rapid economic improvements.


Nor can Merkel count on useful support from the new European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, or, more surprisingly, from Britain’s government, fellow champion of austerity and no friend to Hollande. In more skilful hands, David Cameron’s calls for EU reform might have meshed well with German priorities for sound money and stability, but Cameron has recklessly squandered European alliances and opportunities. In any case, he may soon be out of office.

While recent indicators suggest the worst of the recession is over, the full extent of the political fallout at grassroots level across Europe is only now becoming apparent. Elections this year in Greece, Spain, the UK, Denmark, Finland, Poland, Portugal and Estonia will provide further proof of the fragmentation of postwar consensus politics as erstwhile minority parties come to the fore.

In Britain, Ukip, the Greens and the Scottish Nationalists are aiming to usurp the traditional centre-left and centre-right parties. Likewise in Greece and Spain, it seems the centre cannot hold against a surge in support for the populist, anti-austerity leftwing insurgents of Syriza and Podemos respectively. In Sweden, the two mainstream parties, desperate to keep the far-right Sweden Democrats out of government, conspired to form a Merkel-style grand coalition, thereby effectively denying voters real choice. Finland faces a similar dilemma over its hard-right, anti-immigrant party.

Last year’s European parliament elections revealed unprecedented, pan-European dissatisfaction with politics as usual, but Brussels took scant notice, installing Juncker, a quintessential establishment figure, and creating a centrist coalition in parliament. Out of touch hardly describes such complacent behaviour. The significance of the rise of Europe’s new parties can no longer be denied, nor can they be dismissed as mere, temporary protest movements.

Yet Europe’s new politics, organic in nature and fast evolving, cannot be easily quantified or defined. Some, such as the Pegida demonstrators in Germany, are motivated by racist and anti-Muslim views. Merkel was entirely right last week to condemn them. But a new poll showed one in eight Germans sympathises with Pegida. Such views have a more pernicious, formal presence on Germany’s political stage in the shape of the anti-euro, anti-foreigner Alternative für Deutschland, which is eclipsing the old Free Democrats in the way Ukip may eclipse Britain’s Liberal Democrats.

In each country, new parties produce new imponderables. In Greece, for example, the growth of leftwing radicalism is in part a response to the advancing neo-Nazis of Golden Dawn. In the case of some of Europe’s secessionists, meanwhile, self-determination and economic justice have sometimes been confused with an unattractive, exclusionary nationalism. There is one constant: everywhere, it seems, immigration is an issue of concern.

The overall effect of these powerful and often conflicting currents is plain: in prospect is an unstable landscape of weak and fragile national governments, escalating friction over EU policies, intensifying north-south eurozone strains and a growing inability to present a united European front to the world.

A united front is required more than ever, as Europe faces the triple challenge of mass movements of people, Russian aggression and Islamist extremism. Almost alone among Europe’s leaders, Merkel continues bravely to make the case for accepting refugees from conflict in Syria, Libya, Iraq, Somalia and elsewhere. But as the plight of asylum-seekers trapped on the Ezadeen, which arrived in Italy yesterday, again demonstrated, this is an enormous international problem.

Most European states, including Britain, have not begun to face up to their responsibilities in dealing with mass migration and tackling the roots of the religious extremism that often causes displacement.
After Vladimir Putin dismembered a European country by annexing Crimea,

 Europe enters 2015 lacking certainty, for the first time since the cold war, that its borders are secure. It was left to Merkel, again, to point out in November that Putin’s attempt to re-establish Soviet-era spheres of influence affects not only Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, but countries much closer to Europe’s heart, such as Serbia and Bosnia, and EU members Hungary and Slovakia.

Russia’s expansionist and anti-democratic outlook recalls the worst aspects of the legacy Europe fought to overcome after 1945. The struggle for a Europe whole, prosperous and free has now returned with a vengeance."

EU-Digest