E3G

The EU in search of a story

By Chris Littlecott

Back on January 4th, Timothy Garton Ash’s regular Guardian column made some very pertinent points about the political challenge facing Europe as we enter 2007.

Noting the New Year expansion of the EU from 25 to 27 member states as Bulgaria and Romania joined, he rightly poses the question:

There is so much to celebrate - but why do we see so little celebration?”

The tremendous paradox of modern Europe is that while we as individuals are now more prosperous and free than at any time in our history, our collective mood is sour and our political dividing-lines point us away from the successes of EU cooperation. As Garton Ash says:

Rarely has such a successful enterprise been so plagued with self-doubt.”

Garton Ash then moves on to present a brief overview of Europe’s current practical policy challenges. I think that in this he is broadly right, although I would reframe how he makes both his main points:

Rather than simply creating problems for our welfare states and personal prosperity, the combination of ageing populations and increased competition are forcing us to reconsider how we define success. Rather than constantly deflecting attention away from Europe’s successes we should focus on them.

Similarly, the twin challenges of energy security and climate security must be met together if we are to successfully ensure Europe’s security and prosperity past the end of this decade. This is a challenge which demands cooperation and interconnected policy responses yet is still riven by narrow national preoccupations and sectoral interests. It is therefore a political litmus test of whether the EU can operate at a new level of political seriousness in the face of a new kind of external challenge.

Progress on both these issues is currently typically slow, despite the recent raft of strategic reviews led by the European Commission, so Garton Ash is on safe ground in his belief that:

all we can realistically hope from the six-month German presidency is that it begins to generate a new sense that Europe is capable of finding practical solutions to them.”