The United States of Europe will not happen

[...] We followed with interest the proposal for Euroland reform announced by the French President, Emmanuel Macron, based on three simple concepts – a stronger budget, a Finance Minister for the eurozone and democratic control[1].

This project was waiting for the election and then for the end of the post-election political crisis in Germany to begin to take shape. But this ‘transition’ has dragged on far too long, sending Euroland reform into the arms of a European Commission exclusively interested in securing its position in a process of reform based on a Europe of 19 states and not that of Commission – of 28 (or 27). On 6th December, the European Commission imposed on us the publication of a white paper of a purely technocratic reform, whose most ‘daring’ development was to propose the creation of a new position, that of a European ‘minister’ of economy and finance, with no other democratic mechanism than a reference to an unchanged European Parliament (thus representing the 27-28 instead of the 19) [2].

A few weeks later, the aforementioned European Parliament voted against the idea of trans-European lists in an inevitable reaction to protect its corporate interests[3]. One had to be naive to imagine that the national representatives populating the European hemicycle would have agreed to make room for European representatives whose obvious European added value would question their own relevance. This vote was not a surprise (nor is it a reason to stop the trans-European political parties from working towards their emergence in the context of the next European elections). They do not need the consent of the current masters of the European Parliament to impose themselves. That said, the signal sent by these two demonstrations of corporatist survival rather than transformative vision has considerably discredited the Brussels system.

Meanwhile, Germany was running out of steam to set up a government able to work with France, especially on the reform of the eurozone. This is a difficult subject, given the increasingly strong resistance within the German population to continue funding intra-Euroland economic disparities. A political blaze, therefore, which partly explains the delay and the fact that the key posts have ended up being assumed by the SPD members of the Grosse Koalition.[4] Apparently, the CDU members preferred to leave the dirty work of foreign affairs and finance to their opponents… poisoned chalice!

The Franco-German engine seemed ready to support a theoretically desirable eurozone reform – but not at the cost of a loss of sovereignty over monetary affairs. It is not, therefore, by chance that, at the very moment when the Franco-German couple were ready to start, eight northern Europe countries (Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Sweden), some of which are not even eurozone members, have blocked any hope of reforming the euro on the basis of a supranational mechanism by publishing a joint declaration in which is clearly written, ‘Decision-making must sit firmly in the hands of the Member States’.[5] ...

This is only an excerpt. Read the whole report in the confidential bulletin GEAB 123 / March 2018 (registration required)

[1]   Source: Le Monde, 26/09/2017

[2]   Source: European Commission, 06/12/2017

[3]   Source: EuroNews, 07/02/2018

[4]   Source: Deutsche Welle, 09/03/2018

[5]   Source: EUObserver, 06/03/2018