The European Union Studies Center the Graduate Center, CUNY
and the European Union Center of New York.

Lecture by Jon Benjamin, Deputy Consul General, British Consulate, New York

“The State of the European Union”

EU issues have been a constant theme during my 20 year career in the diplomatic service including as Chief of Staff to Britain’s EU Minster from 1993-95, as head of the political section in Turkey from 1996-99 – when we were essentially grappling with whether Turkey could or should be a candidate for EU membership - and as head of the Foreign Office’s human rights division between 2002-05 when I represented the UK at monthly co-ordination meetings in Brussels with my 24 opposite numbers.  I wasn’t expecting EU affairs to figure largely in a posting to New York, but I’m glad to say that through meeting such experts as Hugo Kaufman my involvement continues. 

That said, it is important for Europeans like me who live here to remember that what the EU is and what it is trying to achieve is often met with mystification in the US: our obsession with the internal architecture and institutions of the EU often get in the way of portraying a coherent picture both to the outside world and to our own citizens.  So, it is important firstly to recall the big picture.  

The European Union's historic success is centred on three major achievements.  It has cemented peace on a continent whose history has been one of rivalry and bloody conflict.  60 years ago Europe lay largely in ruins, exhausted, hungry, grieving for tens of millions killed in yet another European war.  60 years is the blink of an eye in historical terms.  And WWII was the worst of scores of wars between the major European powers over several hundred years.  In those 60 years, the principles behind the EU have made future such wars unthinkable.  They have more recently helped to heal the divisions of the Cold War, and to entrench liberal democratic institutions in countries emerging from dictatorship.  In a year’s time Romania and Bulgaria, two of the most closed former socialist dictatorships join the club almost completing that transformation to a Europe whole and free.  And those same founding principles have evolved to create the world's largest international single market, of 450 million consumers.   All this has brought greater prosperity to citizens across Europe, while safeguarding the strong attachment to social justice, which is common to all Europe's different economic models.   Today the EU stands as a monument to political achievement.  Over half a century of peace, half a century of prosperity, half a century of progress.

So, why do we Europeans, including the UK, have so much angst about what the EU is for?  And how can the EU adapt to survive and prosper in a world wholly transformed from when it was founded some 50 years ago?  Our British answer to those two questions is, as you might expect, pragmatic and straightforward.  The EU, first and foremost, needs to better respond to the sense among European citizens that the EU is remote from the concerns of their daily lives.
 

Let me illustrate this.  With regard to the future of the EU, there has been much debate over an alleged British vision versus a supposed Franco-German model for the future of Europe, or – put another way – a free market versus a social Europe.  I do not believe that there is such a choice.  It is not as if voters all over the EU’s current and potential members are being confronted with two clear alternatives, let alone ones with these labels on them.  The truth is much more nuanced and as last year’s referendum in France showed there is no such thing as an agreed vision or model for the EU within any single member state, let alone between them. 

Rather, I would say that all the countries of the EU have a single set of shared values on which their co-operation is based: democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law, open market economies and free movement of people and a host of common endeavours for the social and economic good of the European continent.   

The real issue now is not, in our view, somehow between a free market Europe and a ‘social’ Europe - whatever ‘social’ Europe means.  Nor is the EU debate between, on the one hand, those who want to retreat to an economic common market and, on the other, those who believe in the EU as a longer term political project, designed to build a single political unit out of many nation states.  To make such a contrast is a misrepresentation.  To pretend that this is the stark choice Europe faces is to intimidate those who want change in Europe by misrepresenting that desire for change as a betrayal of the European ideal.  From there it is a short jump to claiming – again quite wrongly - that debate about the EU’s future is somehow anti-European itself.  No, the real issue now is about reconnecting the EU with its increasingly alienated citizens.  Many of our citizens are unclear about what Europe does and how it works.  They want us to tell them how the EU makes a difference to their lives.  They want to have the right to question what the EU is doing in their name.  Indeed, they already have that right: it is for Europe’s politicians to give them a positive answer.  

During the United Kingdom’s Presidency of the European Union in the second half of 2005, we recognised the need to conduct a wide debate on the future of Europe.   We started this debate but it is far from finished and the process of actually constructing a modern, confident Europe will be an even longer one.

The UK’s aim in all of this to bring the debate home to the ordinary citizens of Europe.  It is they who must be supportive of the EU project and feel less remote from it if it is to succeed.  In his call for a new debate on the future of Europe in a speech to the European Parliament in June last year, Tony Blair stressed his belief in Europe as a political project with a strong social as well as economic dimension.   He could not have made clearer that this is not a zero sum game – not a choice between strong social policy or liberal economics.

But, in the light of the rejection of the proposed new EU constitution in two founder members – France and the Netherlands – he expressed his disquiet at the way the EU, as run and defined by its political elites, had become disconnected from the ordinary people and their concerns about globalisation, about job security, pensions and living standards.  He made the case that the French and Dutch did not regret the Constitution because they disagreed with the precise articles - let’s be frank: very few people read them - but rather in order to register a deeper disquiet with the general state of the EU. 

Tony Blair called for a new policy agenda for Europe, based on a more competitive economy, investment in knowledge, skills, higher education, flexible labour markets and in help for small businesses.  He called for reform of the EU budget, so that in 10 years Europe will not still be spending over 40% of its money on agricultural subsidies.  He also called for better co-operation on the questions of crime, security, and counter-terrorism and managing immigration.  Finally, he stressed the need for a coherent European foreign policy as a good partner to the US; and for Europe to remain open to further enlargements.   Does all this add up to a ‘British model or vision’?  We think its just common sense.  The EU has no future if it can’t reflect the aspirations and concerns of its citizens and do real things that affect real lives. 
 

Much of what I’ve said so far is about the EU’s response to globalisation.  I am of course well aware that globalisation is not always a popular theme, particularly in academic circles.   There are many in Europe who decry globalisation as if it were a conspiracy in most people’s worst interests. 

They’re wrong.  Globalisation is a fact of life, a natural step change in human history and international political and economic relations.  Being against globalisation is like being against the sun coming up in the morning.  It would be particularly perverse if the UK were against globalisation; with less than 1% of the world’s population, we are the world’s fourth largest economy, the fourth largest trading nation – foreign trade accounts for 40% of our GDP – and the world’s second largest foreign investor.  Our citizens make nearly 70 million separate overseas trips a year; 13 million of our citizens live overseas.  It could scarcely be less in our interests not to be an active player in a globalising world economy and in the politics of the international community. 

We recognise, however, that globalisation can accentuate the feeling of there being an increasing gap between politics and the people.  As much as a shrinking world presents huge opportunities, it can also be unsettling to those who see change as a threat to their lives; as the interplay of forces over which they have too little control.  It also means that the way in which the European Union itself is viewed is changing.  

There was a time when Europe was much more self-contained and it was taken much more for granted that policy decisions would be taken at a European level.  But now the citizens of Europe see us as actors in a global political and economic community; so we have to show our citizens that the Union can make a difference not only to their own daily lives but also on the international stage.  

By this I mean – the EU acting to make poverty history, for example through its historic commitment to double its assistance to Africa; to combat climate change by developing a post 2012 international strategy which includes China and India; to deal with terrorism; to manage migration; to contribute to bringing peace to the Middle East and stability to the Balkans.    In short, the EU must be seen to be relevant in all the areas that the people of Europe have consistently said matter to them at home and abroad.

If we want our citizens to understand and support Europe more then we need to get them more involved.  That can only happen if those same citizens see Europe as relevant.  What is the point of some abstract notion of an idealistic social model if Europe’s largest country has 5 million people unemployed?  What is the point of a grandiose European project, if so few people can see any point in voting in elections to the European parliament that it can’t be said accurately to reflect the opinions of the people of Europe?

So how do we get people more involved in Europe and how do we make European politics more local?  Well, let me propose three ways.  The first is better regulation.  The second is more transparency.  The third is implementing the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality; that is making decisions at the lowest possible level while still achieving effective action.

I'll deal briefly with each of these.  The Commission has now made a commitment to modernise European Union legislation and to cut unnecessary red-tape and over-regulation.  This is the right move and one which the European Parliament and Member States should put their weight behind.  There is nothing, which turns the people of Europe off European politics more than the idea – however unfair – of a dirigiste regime churning out regulations which seem unconnected to the real world and for which there is no clear purpose. 

Regulation should be focused on outcome – how, for example, it will improve the health and safety of workers – and not on process.   And connected to this, is better enforcement of regulation.  We won't be able to convince people to put their trust in Europe if they see for themselves that double standards are common across the Union.  If for example, there are rules on state subsidies and budget deficits, shouldn’t all EU countries abide by them?

Then there is making European politics – and the Council of the European Union in particular – more transparent.  It is, frankly, a nonsense that public deliberations of the Council are notionally available to be seen by the media and the public but in practice are only ever watched by a small group of journalists in the Brussels press centre.  We need to be looking at practical measures to broaden access to the Council's public deliberations.  At the same time, we should also consider whether a greater proportion of the Council's deliberations should be made public. 

And lastly we need to find a way to use the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality to make sure that the European Union only gets involved when there is added value in joint action – otherwise action should be taken at a national or local level.  If we get this right, we will benefit twice-over.  We will have a policy that is more efficient, avoiding duplication and only regulating centrally when the need for joint action or economies of scale demands it.  And we will have a policy, which is more legitimate, where decisions are taken as close to the citizen as possible and by institutions which they can hold directly to account.

For those of you still unconvinced with this British vision of a future EU, consider this as evidence that the British government is not somehow advocating a pure free market and anti social model agenda for the EU.  In the last 8 years, the UK has signed the Social Chapter, and been at the forefront of negotiating the treaties of Amsterdam, Nice and Rome.  At home the British government has in the same period introduced a minimum wage, a new deal for the unemployed, increased its investment in public services more than any other European country and lifted almost 1 million children out of poverty.  We are not a country without a social policy, promoting a rampant free market Anglo Saxon capitalism.   We are the second largest net contributor to the EU and will remain so.  We have been a net contributor since we joined.  We are committed to the EU.  But we know that if it does not reconnect to its citizens, if it does not compete in a global economy, if it is to insist on the ideological purity of a so called social model which has resulted in 20 million unemployed in Europe and 18% youth unemployment, if it uses its time to look inwards and obsess about process rather than results then the EU will become irrelevant and fail. 

Do we in Britain believe in a strong EU social policy?  Yes, but modern social policy is to us about active flexible labour markets, investment in R&D, in science parks, in the knowledge economy and innovation, higher education and urban regeneration; about helping small businesses not regulating them out of business; about addressing demographic changes in an ageing population; about regulating legal migration and addressing the soaring demand for energy.  These are the real issues facing the EU, not obscure ideological arguments.  Dealing with them effectively is the only model and vision, which will work for the EU.

That is what the UK Presidency was about – trying to achieve real results.  We delivered the historic launch of accession negotiations with Turkey and Croatia, a long-standing British objective. We granted candidate status to Macedonia and agreed association agreement talks with Bosnia and Serbia.  We delivered a number of important pieces of legislation, including the REACH regulation on chemicals and the Data Retention Directive, an important measure against terrorism.  At the same time, in the name of subsiduarity 68 pieces of draft law were withdrawn during our presidency and the Commission committed to simplifying 220 more.   What else have we delivered during our presidency?  Reform of the EU sugar regime, which should save EU consumers up to €4 bn a year.   We have made progress towards a single market in services which now amount for two thirds of the EU’s GDP: we believe that a free market for services will generate hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of euros for the EU economy.   And we delivered an EU budget deal, which is €160 billion cheaper than the original Commission proposals and provides for a huge transfer of spending from the original 15 to the new member states of eastern Europe.  And we've pursued an active Common Foreign and Security Policy with EU teams deployed to monitor the Rafah crossing in the Gaza and the peace agreement in Aceh.  At the G8 and Millennium Review Summits, we set targets to double European Union aid to $80 billion per year by 2010 and to achieve the UN target for 0.7 per cent by 2015.  You won’t expect me to be entirely objective  - but that is a considerable record of success for the British Presidency. 

Allow me to conclude on a positive note.  The Europe we have now is the heir of many centuries of intellectual, cultural, and political history. At no time has Europe been so prosperous and open a place in which to live.  At no time have the life chances of individual Europeans been better. Nor have the identities of individuals ever been more complex and diverse - or, potentially, stronger.  At no time have European nation states, or the regions, which make them up, been more prosperous, more powerful, or more respected.  Ours is a rich inheritance.   The EU is where European governments come together to ensure that future European generations continue to enjoy the position we in Europe have now.  It is our hope and intention that the EU’s elites demonstrate to the EU’s peoples why our union is the best and most relevant way of ensuring that the 21^st Century is one in which Europe remains at the forefront of global political and economic development.

Thank you.