Social Europethe journal of theeuropean left

Issue 1May 2005

Suggested Donation 5€

The EuropeanConstitution in Focus

http://www.social-europe.com

Contributions byMartin SchulzFrançois HollandeHenri Emmanuelliand others

Dear friends,I have the pleasure of pre-senting our new E-journal‘Social Europe: the journal ofthe European Left’. It formspart of a broad project ofthe Party of EuropeanSocialists to stimulate fresh

ideas and debate about the present state and futuredirection of social democracy in Europe. Politicalrenewal is essential to the durability and relevance ofany political project, and particularly for social democ-racy which has fundamental responsibility for the polit-ical direction of the future Europe in the twenty firstcentury.

We live in challenging times of constant change in soci-ety and the economy, within nations and across bor-ders. The pace and unpredictability of this changeleaves many citizens uncertain about the future and ofour capacity as politicians to provide for it. It is essen-tial for European social democracy that the centre-leftis capable of delivering real answers to the need to cre-ate new social security under conditions of permanentchange.

Globalisation has brought a new pace of change, butalso a new public space, that presents new threats andopportunities. This places new demands on politics andpoliticians. How do we build European social democra-cy as a supplement and partner to social democracywithin the nation state? Do we have the appropriateinstitutions and policies to manage the powerful forcesof globalisation?

The European Union has given us an indispensablenew layer of action and new cause for reflection.Europe’s social democrats support the new Europeanconstitutional treaty and are campaigning all overEurope for its ratification. But at a time of deep ques-tioning about the European Union, what do we, associal democrats, expect from the future EU? It is clearthat we want Europe to be more than just an econom-ic space. It is clear that we want Europe to serve theinterests – social, environmental, economic – of all itscitizens. How can we best achieve this Europe of socialcohesion, security, prosperity and environmental sus-tainability?

Social democrats are already taking positive actionswithin the Party of European Socialists and itsParliamentary group to shape the European Union. InDecember of last year, the leaders of the Party ofEuropean Socialists presented a common declarationon the EU policy agenda 2004-2009, outlining our prin-ciples and objectives for this new political term. We arenow actively engaged in ensuring that EU policies cor-respond with our values and goals. Our latest effort tomake the Lisbon Strategy, the EU’s only developmentplan, meet social and environmental, as well as eco-nomic, goals, was broadly successful in March of thisyear.

But action must be continuously informed by forward-looking reflection. I hope that the reflection that takesplace in this new E-Journal, which should be free andindependent, will help inform our actions and inspireour important process of long-term renewal within ourpolitical family.

I want to express my gratitude to Detlev Albers andStephen Haseler, who have initiated the project. I see itas a strong new dimension of PES work. Detlev Alberswill be one of this project’s driving forces and HenningMeyer will be its Managing Editor. A final EditorialBoard and a group of ‘Friends of Social Europe’ willbe set up in the coming weeks and will be communicat-ed in the next edition of the E-journal.

I look forward to your many contributions that willhelp us together to build the future of European socialdemocracy

Enjoy your reading!

Poul Nyrup Rasmussen President of the Party of European Socialists

Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

Detlev Albers (Bremen University, SPD Federal Executive Committee)Jean-Marc Ayrault (Leader French PS Group in the Assemblée Nationale)Giuliano Amato (Senator, Former Italian Prime Minister)Stefan Berger (Manchester University)Anthony Beumer (European Parliament Socialist Group)Matt Browne (Director of Policy Network)Harlem Désir (French MEP, National Europe Secretary PS) Guglielmo Epifani (Leader of CGIL) Patrick Diamond (10 Downing Street Policy Directorate)Elisabeth Guigou (French MP, Former French Europe and Justice Minister) Antonio Guterres (President Socialist International) Stephen Haseler (London Metropolitan University)David Held (London School of Economics)Jacques Reland (London Metropolitan University)Donald Sassoon (Queen Mary College, University of London)Angelica Schwall-Düren (German MP, Vice-Chair SPD group)Dominique Strauss-Kahn (MP, Former French Minister for Economic Affairs)Livia Turco (Former Italian Social Minister)Giuseppe Vacca (President Gramsci Foundation) Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul (Vice Chairwoman SPD, German Development Minister) Jan Marinus Wiersma (MEP, Vice Chairman Socialist Group)Christoph Zöpel (German MP)

Henning Meyer (Managing Editor)

Editorial Team

Ian Gardiner (Design & Layout)Chris Cooper (Illustrations – www.coopsey.com)

Please make sure that there will be more issues of ‘Social Europe. the journal ofthe european left’ by paying the suggested 5€ donation for this issue. Visit ourwebsite www.social-europe.com for payment options. Thank you very much!

‘Social Europe. the journal of the european left’ is published by the European ResearchForum at London Metropolitan University.

Journal Supporters

‘Social Europe’ is the title of thisnew journal, but it is muchmore than that. The name is

adopted from the political vision of aunited Europe with shared values ofdemocratic participation, social justice,solidarity, and friendship. Europeansocial democracy in particular needs tobe the driving force of this vision,fleshing out what politics, polity, andpolicies are needed to bring about thesociety these values describe. WillyBrandt’s words, in a book preface pub-lished 18 years ago, are still relevanttoday: ‘Whether this world becomes apeaceful one, whether our grandchil-dren will still be able to breathe its airand drink its water, whether there is aplace on it for humankind or for mean-ingful work that is productive of indi-viduality and history, this will dependnot least on the degree of progresswhich international social democracycan and does make…’.

The prerequisite for the progress WillyBrandt referred to is mutual under-standing and debate. This is exactlywhat this journal is about. ‘SocialEurope’ addresses European topics butalso national issues that are relevant forthe broader context. We aim at publish-ing our articles in as many languages aspossible to widen the accessibility tothe arguments of our authors.

Additionally, our website www.social-europe.com provides animportant discussion interface based onthe contributions in the journal. Withthis open system, we aim at providingessential opportunities and means for awider debate about the Europeandimension of social democracy.

In this first issue of ‘Social Europe’ thefocal point is maybe the most ambitiousinternational political project ever: theEuropean Constitution. Only a few daysbefore the crucial French referendum, itis a pivotal time for the EU and itsfuture. A ‘non’ in this plebiscite wouldcertainly paralyse the Union’s develop-ment and be a major setback.Nonetheless, French critics of theConstitution have been offered their sayin this journal too.

Beyond all controversy, it is vital thatEurope’s social democrats realise theirinternational responsibility to be a pro-gressive power for Europe. The newClause IV of the British Labour Partyconstitution codifies that ‘by thestrength of our common endeavour weachieve more than we achieve alone’.This belief must also apply to the socialdemocratic family across Europe if itreally wants to be a driving force for anew Europe – a ‘Social Europe’. Youare all invited to participate.

i Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

Social Europe – theMission Ahead

Henning Meyer Managing Editor

Edi

toria

l

An Interview with Martin Schulz 1

François Hollande ‘My Ten Reasons To Say Yes’(Link to French version)

Henri Emmanuelli ‘For the Sake of Europe, Vote No’(Link to French version)

Detlev Albers ‘The Great Adventure of Europe’ 7(Link to Italian version)(Link to German version)

Peter Brandt / Dimitris Tsatsos ‘From the Constitutionalisation of 13Europe to a European Constitution’

Andrea Manzella ‘Constitution and Unification’ 21(Link to Italian version)

Stephen Haseler ‘The British General Election 2005 - AnInterpretation’

Giuliano Amato ‘The Balkans - A Call for Courage’ 27

Enrique Baron Crespo ‘One Year of Spanish Foreign Policy:Socialist Government returns to Europe’

Angelica Schwall-Düren ‘The End of Stability?’(Link to German version)

Andrievs Janis Folkmanis ‘The Changing Economy and Social Fabric – Challenges Faced by the New Member States of the European Union’

ii Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

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Contents

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Social Europe:Why is it so important that the Constitution is adopted?

Martin Schulz:The EU has become bigger and many new candidatesare knocking on its door. The EU is a great successstory guaranteeing hitherto unknown prosperity, stabil-ity and peace in an area that has been riveted with dis-astrous wars for centuries. Now we need to consolidatethis success and make the enlarged EU more workableand prepare it for the challenges of the future. Theconstitution offers a unique chance to end a long peri-od of confusion about reforms and aims of the EU. Itwill make it more transparent, efficient, and democrat-ic and will have a greater senseof solidarity. It offers thechance to do away withunnecessary red tape andstreamline unnecessarily cum-bersome procedures resultingin better legislation. It canhelp to enhance Europe’s roleas a global player tacklingissues such as globalisationand the economy, climatechange, the fight againstpoverty and international ter-rorism and crime, social jus-tice to name just a few. Apartfrom that it enshrines for thefirst time individual rights forevery European citizen on European level such as theCharter of Fundamental Rights which will stand up inany European court. There are many good reasons whythe constitution should be adopted even if it does notcontain everything that we were striving for. It is thebest possible result and a good and well balanced textwhich has been arrived at after long and intensive dis-cussions and negotiations between members of nation-al governments, national and European members ofparliament. Members of civil society, trades unions,religious communities and NGOs from all walks of lifewere heard extensively. Nobody can criticise the out-come as being one-sided or elitist or out of touch.

Social Europe:Are you surprised to see such strong opposition to theconstitution in some countries?

Martin Schulz:What worries me is the fact that we are seeing somedangerous tendencies of re-nationalisation by somepolitical movements in some countries. These politi-cians are mostly playing with different concerns, uncer-tainties and fears of the population and are trying tocapitalise on them in a rapidly changing world.

Unfortunately it is not the first time that a referendumon European matters will be used by some as a scape-goat to vent general anger and frustration. I do notthink that the European Union is an irreversible proj-ect. If the constitution is rejected in some countries forwhatever particular (national) reasons, this will play intothe hands of those who wish to destroy the Union.There is a serious danger that this might lead not just toa weakening of the EU but to its gradual disintegration.The constitution is the culmination of decades ofEuropean integration and of continuous updating andimproving of how it works. A rejection would be a seri-ous setback with unforeseeable consequences. I amafraid the enlarged EU might cease to function effec-tively if the Constitution is not adopted.

Social Europe:As Leader of the PESGroup in the EuropeanParliament, what do youconsider to be the strongestarguments in this debate?

Martin Schulz:Apart from the abovemen-tioned points in favour ofthe constitution, for me, as asocial democrat, one of themain positive elements isthe enshrinement of consti-tutional rights (the Charterof Fundamental Rights).

For the first time these rights are guaranteed and pro-tected on European level. They will give additional pro-tection with regard to action taken by the Europeaninstitutions on top of those fundamental rights whichremain valid at national level.Secondly, we will secure the enhancing of social rights.The constitution offers the opportunity to create asocial Europe, thereby counterbalancing the comple-tion of the internal market and monetary union. Toname only a few: the right to education, protectionagainst unjustified redundancies, the right to collectiveindustrial action including the right to strike, the rightto decent working conditions, the banning of childlabour, the right to social security and welfare aid, theright to services of general interest. That is why I donot understand the arguments of the ‘No’-camp, claim-ing that the constitution is a purely neo-liberal projectwhich will give the EU a one-sided bias.No, the opposite is the case. The principle of a socialmarket economy and the preservation of the uniqueEuropean social model will be enshrined as a goal ofthe EU. We can be very proud of this achievementdespite a conservative liberal majority in theConvention and a certain Zeitgeist which made boldersteps for European integration very difficult. Of

1 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

An Interview with Martin Schulz

course one could always imagine even stronger provi-sions but a NO(N) to the constitution would mean noprogress at all in the field of social policy.Thirdly, the constitution will enhance democracy, trans-parency and accountability regarding EU decisions.Parliament’s co-legislation rights will be greatlystrengthened thereby increasing scrutiny of Europeanlegislative acts by elected representatives of theEuropean people.And yes the constitution will strengthen Europe’s rolevis à vis our global competitors. Only a strong Europecan counterbalance the predominance of the UnitedStates both in the economic field and in terms of glob-al security issues and foreign affairs. The Iraq debaclehas shown what happens if we do not act together anddo not create the means to be able to act together effec-tively. The constitution will help to create the condi-tions for Europe to speak with one voice and act col-lectively with a maximum of impact and weight, whileat the same time respecting national sensitivities andparticularities. A ‘No’ to the constitution will leaveEurope divided, weak and hesitant. That is exactly whatsome of our global competitors and the enemies of aunited Europe want to see.

Social Europe:Are you optimistic that the downward trend hasstopped in France and do you expect problems in othercountries?

Martin Schulz:I was and I remain optimistic about a positive outcome.The more people learn about the constitution, themore it is the subject of public debate, the higher theapproval rates will be. I have experienced this myselfduring several visits to France in the course of the ref-erendum campaign. As more and more myths anddownright lies are uncovered it will be increasingly dif-ficult for demagogues and cheap populism to prevail.Regarding the second part of your question, of coursethere could be an adverse knock-on effect in othermore euro-sceptical countries if one of the big found-ing members, which has always been a very pro-European country, says no. But every country is differ-ent and reasons for saying yes or no vary greatly fromone country to the other.France always has been and still is the ‘stem cell’ forEuropean integration and progress, it has always beenin the driving seat. I am sure that the French people,who can be proud of their country’s positive role inbringing peace and stability to our continent, realise theresponsibility they carry not just for France but also forthe whole of Europe. That is another reason whichmakes me optimistic for the vote on 29 May.

Social Europe:Was it not inappropriate to interfere in the Frenchdebate like the PES Group did on 3rd May with a bigmeeting in the Assemblé Nationale?

Martin Schulz:No I don’t think so. Ok, the decision to vote yes or nois a national matter for the French only, but the conse-quences of the vote will be Europe-wide. Therefore, Ido not think we are interfering at all, I think on the con-trary that we are entitled to speak out on what we, asEuropean social democrats, have decided unanimously.Again we have always admired France and its pro-European stance it has always taken as a role model forand engine of the EU. France has always acted respon-sibly and generously as a kind of ‘guardian angel’ ofEurope. We appeal to this spirit, we appeal to theFrench people to continue to play this leading role. Weneed France. Its own prestige and European vocationare in the hands of the electorate on 29 May. I do notthink it is untoward interference in national issues if wedemonstrate our concern and highlight the Europeanimportance of the debate, particularly when this debateis predominantly about unrelated national issues, aboutinfighting and personal campaigns and ambitions ofsome individuals including, unfortunately, some fromour own French socialist sister party. We are all awarethat there are some serious and genuine concerns, thatthere are uncertainties about the future where Europeis going and at what pace. We must address these con-cerns honestly and frankly and not shy away from somehard truths. But I think we have a right to remind the‘No’ camp that they are endangering my kind ofEurope and that of the overwhelming majority ofEuropean social democrats and indeed other pro-Europeans. This is not about lecturing or patronising,this is a real concern over the survival of fundamentalideals. We cannot build Europe without France.

Social Europe:What were the reactions of the French Socialists whothemselves are split over the issue?

Martin Schulz:When I examine the reactions of the overwhelmingmajority of our French comrades and when I look atthe media reactions after our meeting in Paris of 3 May,I feel encouraged by what I see and hear and this willfurther encourage me to do all that is required to helpthe adoption of the constitution in France and else-where. You have mentioned the split within the Frenchparty, which is a fact also reflected within our ownFrench delegation in the PES Group in the EuropeanParliament. I must say that the French comrades whoare against the constitution abstained during the Groupvote, and have accepted the near-unanimous ‘Yes’ voteand are not campaigning against the constitution insidethe Group or indeed the Parliament. While I disagreewith them on the issue, I do respect and honour theirfair and disciplined attitude very much and it furtherencourages me in my Group’s future endeavours.

Martin Schulzis the leader of the Socialist Group in the EuropeanParliament

2 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

My ‘yes’ is in keeping with the longstanding pro-European Socialist tradition. It is a sincere anddetermined ‘yes’, as other steps in European

construction await us. It is a ‘yes’ of solidarity with theEuropean left and progressives around the world, forwhom Europe is an example. It is a coherent ‘yes’ in theface of a ‘no’, which would open a serious crisis. Inshort, a victorious ‘yes’ for all socialists.Europe was first built around a common market andthen a single currency. It is undeniably an economicpower; it is not a political power. The enlargement totwenty-five member states requires a clearer and sim-pler decision-making process, at a time when Bush’s re-election confirms the wish of the United States todecide alone on the fate of the world. Saying ‘no’ todaywould mean paralysing the European constructionprocess on a long-term basis and breaking our bondwith the European left. I want to speak the truth onthis issue and remain credible and faithful to what wehave done since 1981 regarding the European project.

1 There is no step backwards The European Constitution only includes improve-ments and does not introduce any step backwards. Onthe institutional level, Europe comes out strengthenedwith a President of the European Council elected fortwo and a half years, a European Commission whichwill originate entirely from the European Parliament,therefore from the citizens’ vote, the appointment of a

European Minister for Foreign Affairs, who will, final-ly be able to give Europe a face and authority in theworld. On the economic and social level, the valuesestablished by the Constitutional Treaty are those offull employment, sustainable development, genderequality; public services are finally confirmed and pro-tected.

2 A Parliament with enlarged powers The Constitutional Treaty increases the powers of theEuropean Parliament: it is free to pass European legis-lation. It has extended powers to prepare the budget. Ittakes into account petitions from European citizens.Many national parliaments – including the Frenchnational assembly – do not hold such prerogatives. Onecannot complain about the European technocracy andat the same time refuse to boost the place and role ofthe European Parliament, and therefore of theEuropean citizens, who vote for it at European elec-tions.

3 Recognising secularity The treaty includes the European Charter ofFundamental Rights, which provides 450 million peo-ple with the best protection in the world for their rightsand freedoms (protection against unfair dismissal,

workers’ right to information, gender equality, right tostrike…). This charter will give citizens means to sub-mit their case to courts to ensure that these rights arerespected. The treaty recognises Europe’s secular char-acter. It allows each state to apply its own laws. TheFrench bill on religious signs in schools is therefore val-idated. The way the European Parliament dealt withMr. Buttiglione illustrates Europe’s vigilance.

3 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

My Ten Reasons ToSay ‘Yes’

by François HollandeLeader of the French Parti Socialiste.

The Constitutional Treatyincreases the Powers of

the European Parliament

4 Finally a social baseEurope used to be rightly accused of only caring forthe economy, markets and currency; the treaty finallygives it a social basis: - New objectives are imparted toEurope: social market economy, fight against exclusionand discriminations, social justice, territorial cohesion,cultural diversity, sustainable development… - It pro-vides trade unions and employees with new tools tomove forward on social issues: annual social summit foremployment, social clause, recognition of social part-ners… - It enables the creation of an avant-garde forthose who want to move faster and further in social andfiscal areas. It is on the basis of these improvementsthat the European confederation of trade unionsapproved almost unanimously the ConstitutionalTreaty! Let’s take the same approach.

5 Priority to employ-ment For the first time, full-employment is a clearand announced objec-tive. The EuropeanConstitution creates aneconomic govern-ment, facing theEuropean CentralBank (ECB); the firstto complain about thisevolution was Jean-Claude Trichet, theECB governor. This isa good sign. Countriesoutside the Euro, willnot be able to blockinitiatives from the 12members of theEurozone.

6 Reinforced publicservices For the first time, a legal basis is recognised for publicservices. Member states will be able to finance theirpublic services in derogation of competition rules.Defending public services is a state policy in the firstplace, a choice of territorial solidarity and a budgetcommitment to ensure their existence.

7 Nothing is setThe new treaty introduces more flexibility to decide onpartial revisions without having to discuss everythingagain. It gives a right of initiative to the EuropeanParliament. Nothing is engraved in stone. From theTreaty of Rome to the Treaty of Nice, the rule of una-nimity has always applied. It never prevented Europefrom moving forward. If the constitutional treaty wereto be rejected, the Nice Treaty would apply and itwould have to be renegotiated on the basis of unanim-ity!

8 The left will be able to actEurope never prevented the Jospin government frompassing the 35 hour work week bill, the youth jobschemes or the universal medical provision just as itdoes not prevent Mr. Zapatero today from implement-ing his social policy in Spain. It is not Europe whichforces Mr. Raffarin to conduct an unfair and ineffectivepolicy. He bares sole responsibility. A constitution or aconstitutional treaty does not set any policy.

9 Progressives approve it This treaty has the support of all European socialistparties. For European trade unions, ‘the only pragmat-ic and realistic approach is to support it’. It would the

last straw if French social-ists had all European pro-gressives turned againstthem.

10 Saying ‘no’ wouldspark off a crisisBy choosing to vote ‘yes’,I am following themomentum of theEuropean constructionproject, as French social-ists have done each stepof the way. None of thesesteps is sufficient for us.But if Europe workstoday, it is because each ofus took responsibility inhis time. A ‘no’ would cre-ate a European crisis andits supporters are not ableto say how they wouldresolve it. Neither inFrance nor in Europethere is any alternative to

the present text. The ‘sovereignists’ and ‘eurosceptics’would capture a victory of the ‘no’ and influence a pos-sible renegotiation. To negotiate a better treaty, social-ists cannot leave it up to a rightwing EuropeanParliament, a European Council dominated by eighteenconservative governments, and a Commission led bythe very liberal and atlantist Mr. Barroso. In short,Europe would be stopped in its tracks and it would takea long time before it is able to have a Constitution.

My conclusion My ‘yes’ is faithful to the longstanding fight of social-ists for Europe. It is a sincere and determined ‘yes’, asother steps in the European construction project awaitus. It is a ‘yes’ of solidarity with the European left andprogressives around the world, for whom Europe is anexample. It is a coherent ‘yes’ in the face of a ‘no’,which would open a serious crisis. In short, it is a vic-torious ‘yes’ for all socialists.

4 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

For a socialist, Europe isnot an end in itself, but ameans of moving towards

our ideal of peace, progress andsocial justice. We are all passion-ately pro-Europe, yet unlike theeurosceptics and those who fearfor national sovereignty, wethink that it is necessary to pur-sue the political development ofthe EU. We have argued tireless-ly for a federal and social

Europe.The current European project, however, is clearlyinspired by liberal ideology. Directive after directivepoints to the desire to undermine the achievements ofsocial legislation, to dismantle public services, and togive priority to the market over the common good. The

proposed constitutional treaty is very much in line withthis ideology. The positions described, particularly inPart III, allow of no ambiguity. You will be hard put tofind in this text the values and principles which under-pin our socialist ‘identity’.

Socialists are in favour of a powerful Europe. Willthe proposed treaty enable it to come about?

Although we are all convinced that the EuropeanUnion can and indeed must form a counterweight to(neo-)liberal globalisation and American domination inworld affairs, we must introduce appropriate measuresto achieve this. The treaty simply does not do so.The treaty does not propose the right economic meas-ures, but prohibits the raising of any extra revenuethereby preventing any large-scale policy initiative. Forinstance, the European Council must come to a unani-mous agreement on an EU law setting up the financialframework over several years. It is hard to imagine howthe 25 member states might set up a policy of publicinvestment on a voluntary basis.Nor does the treaty put forward appropriate diplomat-ic and defence policies (art. 1-41). NATO commit-ments take priority over the political objectives of the

European Union. More seriously still, the treaty restatesthat NATO ‘for those states which are members of it,remains the foundation of their collective defence andthe forum for its implementation.’ (art. 1-41.7).

Is the treaty compatible with a socialist perspec-tive?

The principle of ‘free and undistorted competition’,which is a stated objective of the EU (Art. 1-3.2),makes safeguarding public services difficult.The primary objective of the European Central Bank,being independent of any political influence, is alwaysto keep prices stable even at the expense of jobs andeconomic growth.More seriously still, the proposed treaty opens up thedoor to social and fiscal dumping, and thus to moreand more relocations (of businesses). Fiscal mattersrequire unanimous agreement. Even the prevention oftax fraud is subject to the agreement of the 25 memberstates!In matters of social policy, the harmonisation ofnational legislation is explicitly forbidden (art III-210).Those who wish to campaign for a ‘Europe-wide min-imum salary’ can go on dreaming. Article III-210-6stipulates that EU action in social matters ‘shall notapply to pay’.Finally, the Charter of Fundamental Rights is devoid ofany real meaning. It only applies to European law andthus does not in any way constrain national policy (artII-111)! As regards laws which are the subject of pro-visions in other parts of the Constitution, it is these lat-ter provisions which take precedence. (Art. II-112).In short, what this treaty proposes is a free-trade zonewith no political framework.

What will happen in the case of a ‘no’ vote?

Those who forecast a ‘disaster’ if there is a ‘no’ vote,are playing on their own fears. Admittedly, a negativeresult in the French referendum would send out astrong signal which expresses the necessity of a changeof approach to the project of European construction.Yet it would not call into question either France’s com-mitment to the EU or the day-to-day workings of itsinstitutions. Existing treaties would apply, pending therenegotiation of a new constitution. In any event, theTreaty of Nice will continue to be implemented until1st November 2009. If there is no constitutionallybased assembly, member states will gather round thenegotiating table to reach a new compromise.There are two possible scenarios:

complete renegotiation, if possible by a constituentassembly;

minimal renegotiation, retaining only the institution-al parts of the project, which are consensual.

5 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

For the Sake of Europe, Vote ‘No’by Henri Emmanuelli

French Member of Parliament and former President of theAssemblée Nationale.

The Proposed Treaty opensup the Door to Social and

Fiscal Dumping

Would a ‘no’ from the French Socialist Party iso-late it from other social democratic parties inEurope in the long term?

The majority of leaders of social democratic parties inEurope are in favour of a ‘yes’ vote. We cannot be socertain about the members of our sister parties sinceup to now they have not been consulted. We are con-vinced that the debate that we have had amongst our-selves cuts across all social democratic parties inEurope. The French Socialist Party was the first toreact negatively when the Blair-Schröder manifesto,proposing a so-called third way, was published. At thetime the issue of ideological isolation did not evenoccur to us. Within the European socialist parties wehave argued for a certain form of secularism (overwhich the proposed treaty rides roughshod). Should wecease to do so simply because many of our Europeancolleagues do not share our vision of the separation ofthe churches and the state? We have consistently stoodour ground on public services within the EU. Shouldwe give up simply we are in a minority on this issue?Social-liberal governments are suffering defeat afterdefeat. More than ever, they appear isolated ... fromtheir own peoples! That is the isolation we should fear.

6 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

‘United in diversity’

Whenever constitu-tions set out toestablish their prin-

ciples, there is usually no lackof grand ambitions involvedin this process. Accordingly,the preamble of theEuropean constitutional

treaty calls on the continent’s citizens to continue thegreat adventure’ of their unification ‘with due regardfor the rights of each individual and in awareness oftheir responsibilities towards future generations and theEarth’. Over eighty years ago, the German SocialDemocrats, in their Heidelberg programme, haddemanded, no less ambitiously, ‘the formation of theUnited States of Europe’. This was supposed to be notmerely in the interests of the European nations, but

also ‘to achieve the common interest of all peoples inall continents’.

Both claims, the principle of sustainability with regardto future generations and the future of the Earth ingeneral, and the common interest of citizens every-where are indeed no small objectives for Europe’s inte-gration process. In any case, one is completely justifiedin labelling these goals as social democratic. Againstthis backdrop, it should be all the more worthwhile tocritically evaluate the results of this process sixty yearslater.

‘United in diversity’- there has rarely been a slogan asapplicable and crisp at the same time. If these wordswere describing the present, the ‘great adventure ofEurope’ would have already been accomplished. As itis, however, it seems to remain our job to take it on asan imperative of the constitution and try to assess itspopular appeal. The statement could firstly be con-firmed by the fact that there has rarely been a period inEuropean history where two generations experiencedless times of war. It would be overestimating theimpact of the European integration process though, ifwe claimed it was the sole reason for this. Such a ver-sion of events would also too easily play down the

often terrifying effects of the ‘cold war’ - four decadesthat accounted for two thirds of this period. There ismore substance to the view that the predominantlypeaceful nature of the radical changes that were trig-gered by the fall of communism in Eastern Europefrom Berlin to Kyiv, was due in no small part to theattraction of the ‘Project Europe’.

However, one should be quick to point out that ourEuropean Maxim is only just beginning to prove itsworth. After all, who could seriously claim to know thewhole extent of the variety within today’s Europe, anentity of 25 member states, faced with the task of uni-fication? And who could be so presumptuous as tomake predictions about the diversity in what will possi-bly become an even further enlarged European Unionin the next decade, with 28, 30 or even 35 memberstates? One thing, however, is certain: drawing atten-tion to such questions does not mean to challenge thevalidity of the maxim; on the contrary, it is merely tohighlight how much adventure, courage and incentiveare equally involved in this.

The ‘Monnet method’

When asking about the heart of European integration,its internal motor, there is no way around the ‘principalof communitisation’. It means the conscious anddesired transfer of sovereignty from the national to thesupranational, European level which has initiallyinvolved only sections of legislation and has focusedon economic matters. The systematic parcelling out ofthe seemingly indivisible nation-statehood and the sys-tematic use of this practice in favour of further trans-fer of competencies towards the ‘upper level’; the socalled ‘spill-over effect’, is aptly described in Brussels asthe ‘Monnet method’, after its political inventor.

The history of the Schuman Plan, the coal and steelunion, the EEC and Euratom has been cited oftenenough. It remains an idly academic question to askwhether the Marshall Plan, as an initial trigger, or theKorean War, as a warning example, had more influenceon the willingness to initiate the process of integrationin the heart of (western) Europe. Without a doubt itdecisively shortened Germany’s path back to sovereign-ty, albeit Germany now has to share this sovereigntywith its partners. In any case, both recent and previousGerman history, from the old Reich, via the DeutscherBund (German confederation) and the Zollverein (cus-toms union) to the Bismarck-Reich, can serve as pointsof reference about how to deal with the completelynew federal division of responsibilities within theEuropean communities. For the other players, especial-ly France, after all a victorious former allied power intwo world wars, this step marked a turning point whose

7 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

The ‘Great Adventure of Europe’by Detlev Albers

‘United in Diversity’- there hasRarely been a Slogan asApplicable and Crisp.

consequences cannot be overestimated (Wilfried Loth).

The advantages of the ‘Monnet Method’ were obviousto those in a devastated post-war Europe. It has provedits dynamism time and again since then, culminating inthe establishment of a common currency somedecades later. Countries which pool their energy sectorand arms industry (at the time in question coal andsteel) under a European ‘high authority’, effectively ruleout the possibility of wars among them. If the scope ofthe method is then widened to the extent that it com-prises the member states’ whole economic systems, thiscreates a vastly enlarged market. Naturally, such aprocess includes transitional periods and occasionalsetbacks. The advantages of the ‘economies of scale’for domestic producers, however, will grow even fur-ther, when the newly created internal market is protect-ed with collective external tariffs. Then again, the resultis a high grade of attraction between the domestic mar-ket and the other European neighbours and evenbeyond that. It is because of this dichotomy that thecommunity becomes over and over again confrontedwith the risky parallelism ofenlargement and integra-tion.

In the face of the greatadvantages of economicintegration, some of themore negative sides areoverlooked all too easily.However, it is because of these downsides that theabove mentioned aims of the constitutional treaty haveoften become diluted to little more than empty rheto-ric. Those whose predominant concern is the expan-sion of markets and unfettered competition should notbe surprised when the European ‘market economy’ alsospawns a ‘market society’. Whoever constantly comesup with new ways of removing (internal) national bor-ders will suddenly come to the conclusion that ‘dereg-ulation’ might be the easiest - if not the only possibleform - of sovereignty transfer. Neither democracy norpublic participation is automatically included in it. The‘Monnet Method’ has no any inherent obligation to bein the public interest. The EU-commission’s latestplans for the ‘services directive’ and its persistentadherence to the principle of the country of origin,leading to dumping-effects on the site of the supplier,have once again made this point clear.Communitisation in itself retains as small a guaranteeof internal diversity as it does an outward commitmentto international solidarity, without even mentioning theprinciple of sustainability. On the other hand, all thisdoes not contradict the method of integration. Itdemonstrates, however, the sheer amount of politicalaction that is needed to endow this method with asocial dimension.

Union, association of states, the Europe of theregions and local authorities

‘If it is the case that tariffs for international trade areonly the result of the political division of differentstates, then in turn it must also be the case that unifica-tion of these states to a free trade area will also lead toone and the same political system’ – we do not owe thisinsight to a dedicated follower of Jean Monnet in thenineteen fifties, however. The phrase was in fact alreadyused back in 1829, in the run-up to the German cus-toms union (‘Zollverein’), by the then liberal Prussianfinance minister Friedrich von Motz (quoted fromThomas Nipperdey, page 359). It was expressed thenwith laconic words which would become, one and ahalf centuries later, the decisive theme of the‘European adventure’: which is the most adequate formof statehood, of democracy and of a society based onsocial justice that, in the truest sense of the word, willhave to be invented, if one wants to continue to ridethe ‘tiger of integration’?

In the era of globalisation,old arguments from theearly stages of the EECsuch as the debate betweenthe advocates of a ‘confed-eration of states’ and thoseof one ‘federal state’, werealready confined to historya long time ago. Who would

nowadays seriously advocate Charles de Gaulle’s con-cept of the ‘Europe of the fatherlands’ or give morethan a brief nostalgic thought to Margaret Thatcher’sideas about confederation? The German constitutionalcourt’s interpretation of the Maastricht Treaty, regard-ing it as an ‘association of states’ in the sense of a notyet defined blend somewhere between confederationand federation, was quite rightly perceived as a mereway of appeasing the group of Eurosceptics. In con-trast to this view, particularly Anglo-American authorssuch as Stephen Haseler and Jeremy Rifkin, who havebeen able to preserve their outside perspective on theEU, have been debating the question as to whetherEurope has already developed into a superstate, ormore precisely, a second superstate along with theUSA.

What, then, is the state of play regarding the EU’s pathto ‘one and the same political system’? The economicsphere has been ahead of developments, this can hard-ly come as a surprise. As a consequence, the monetaryunion has legitimately been criticised for the Eurobeing a ‘currency without a state’ and therefore notrobust (Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa). Nevertheless, itmust be admitted that the development of the politicalsystem has almost caught up with the development ofthe economic system. This certainly applies to the addi-tional and altered chapters of the Rome Treaty, fromthe Single European Act, up to Nice, the ConstitutionalTreaty and of course the Brussels ‘acquis communautaire’collection of secondary European law. In the wake of

8 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

The Development of the PoliticalSystem has almost caught up with the

Development of the Economic System

the recent accession negotiations, experts have attestedthe aquis a volume of more than 90,000 printed pages.

The European institutional structure, with its specificbalance of powers along with the growing influence ofthe parliament, as well as the principal of united dem-ocratic and social basic rights have been widelyacknowledged. In addition to this, however, genuinelynew concepts are needed in all those areas where thecontinental design of the union demands new andinnovative solutions. As is demonstrated by the exam-ples of multi-level democracy structures and the for-mulation of the subsidiary principle, such newapproaches regularly feature among the most contro-versial elements of the new European state.

The development of an effective and participatorydemocracy that works on multiple levels is withoutdoubt one of the most important institutional compo-nents of the European experiment. Its successfulimplementation has become more important with eachexpansion of the union, necessary for the EU to coun-terbalance the centrifugalforces in today’s communi-ty which already comprisesmore than 450 millionEuropeans. For the numer-ous smaller member states,it is about emancipatingthemselves from the domi-nating influence of theirlarger neighbours by using their over-proportionalshare in the Brussels decision making process. The larg-er nations also need a balancing mechanism in order torespond to their citizens’ increasing feeling of power-lessness or even separatist tendencies which are trig-gered by an ever more complex union. The results canbe observed in the increased importance of theregions, autonomous area, woiwodships or Länder suchas in Germany and Austria. Simultaneously to thegrowth of the EU itself, this development is takingplace in all of the larger member states.

Only when the Brussels model of Europe is able topresent itself as the Europe of citizens – via theEurope of the regions and that of the self-assured localcommunities - when it, moreover, manages to achieve atransparent and conclusive system of power sharingthat devises an adequate and independent scope foraction to every level, only then will the quantitativegrowth of the union go hand in hand with an increasedinternal cohesion. The principle of subsidiarity, i.e. toallocate as much power as possible to the lower institu-tional levels, is a fundamental manifestation of thisbelief and was firstly embodied in Maastricht and laterreaffirmed by the constitutional treaty. Everyoneknows, however, that this can only be a very generalindicator of direction. And it would be dangerous tohope for more precise indicators only from the existinginstitutions such as the Committee of the Regions(COR) alone.

The greater the number of states that are united with-in the union, the more important it will become toestablish a bottom-up process of democracy whichprogresses from the bottom to the top and to riseabove a mere executive form of federalism.Indispensable condition for this process is a commonform of action on all levels - including the Europeanlevel - by all political and social stakeholders. Thisapplies to political parties, trade unions and economic,environmental and consumer groups, as well as the rap-idly rising number of other non-governmental organi-sations. It is the only way to create a vibrant Europeanpublic sphere which remains aware of the variety of allits parts. It is also the only path to create and maintaina general willingness to provide the funds necessary toreduce the massively increased regional disparities.Something that has become all the more urgent in thewake of eastern enlargement.

The European model ofsociety

Ironically, for decades,European social policy hasbeen limited to playing amere bit-part role. Thefounding fathers of theEuropean Coal and Steel

Community and the EEC explicitly deemed it second-ary to economic integration. Nowadays, in the firstdecade of the new century, the European model ofsociety is a talking point of central importance. This isthe case despite the indisputable fact that that there areconsiderable differences between the social securitysystems in northern and southern Europe and evenmore with regard to the eastern accession-countries.Nevertheless, the general congruence within Europe isstriking when compared to the respective institutions inthe USA or Japan and all the more so when comparedto newly industrialised nations or even developingcountries.

This can mainly be explained by the fact that the 15original member states of the EU experienced a ‘gold-en age’ (Eric Hobsbawm) in the decades following theSecond World War. It was an exceptionally long periodof economic prosperity marked by hitherto unprece-dented growth rates. Apart from the considerableincreases in salaries, this development led to reliableprotection against the significant risks of life such aspoverty in old age, illness, accident, unemployment andthe need for care. Although these achievements werenot the result of coordinated efforts within the differ-ent member states, they did however take place more orless simultaneously in each country (Hartmut Kaelble).Accordingly, the educational system experienced con-siderable improvements. Its strategic importance hasbecome even more relevant in the course of the transi-tion to the knowledge-based society, although one has

9 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

The European Model ofSociety is a Talking Point of

Central Importance

to note that this development has also been stronglylinked to economic interests. That said, the Europeanmodel of society had never been limited to the welfarestate. There had always been the additional goal, at leaston the part of the trade unions as well as the politicalleft, to achieve an effective taming and control of the‘wolfish nature’ of capitalism by expanding people’smaterial security and rights of democratic participation.

Some countries such as France (traditionally) and Italy(on a rudimentary level) placed an emphasis on a strongstate, dominated by the left, that was expected to pro-vide the decisive economic and social directives incooperation with the social partners. This was theessence of the French concept of the ‘Tripartisme’. Incontrast, Germany for a long time pursued a differentstrategy. Already in the times of the Weimar Republic,there was an attempt to exert an influence on the direc-tion of economic decisions ‘from within’. First with thehelp of the workers’ councils and later by applying theconcept of economic democracy(‘Wirtschafsdemokratie’). The basic idea was to controleconomic decisions in such a way as to serve the pub-lic interest. This explains the continuing strong positionof the German industry councils today and the partic-ular weight that is given to the equal representation ofworkers on the boards of large companies. Incidentally,some basic ideas had in fact much in common with theBritish concept of the ‘industrial democracy’.

In Sweden, for many years the social democratic rolemodel country, the development took yet another turn.Here, the goal of the Swedish Folke Hjem (home for all)notion was approached from two sides. On the onehand, there was the exemplary and far-reaching devel-opment of social security measures, based on a con-scious and universally accepted redistribution ofnational income. On the other hand, it depended on aparticularly pronounced social presence of the tradeunions, which actually considered themselves as the realLandsorganisationen (national organisations). For a time,it seemed that this system could also be supplementedby the establishment of a comprehensive scheme ofcapital formation in the hands of the employees, the socalled Meidner Plan. Finally, it should be noted that afterthe enlargement, at least eight of the current memberstates enrich the EU’s socio-political wealth of experi-ence with their practical knowledge about communisticstate ruled economies (and also the abandonment ofthis concept). In the same context, the former EastGermany and future accession countries also have tobe taken into account.

During the last three decades of the previous century,it became more and more obvious that even the biggerEuropean states did not dispose of sufficient weight tosteer the economic process. This was, for instance,exemplified by the German Social Democrats’ decisionunder the chancellorship of Helmut Schmidt to refrainfrom fully implementing their ‘Orientation Framework1985’ programme, although it had only been adopted in1975. The French political Left, after the first two years

of Francois Mitterand’s presidency, did not act any dif-ferently despite their promises in the ‘programme com-mun’. It was then, if not before, that all communitymembers were faced with a choice: either to find a newscope for action in a European context that wouldcompensate for the loss of national influence, or tolook on helplessly as they were gradually forced backinto doing nothing more than defending the welfarestate system and to see the European social modelbeing gradually stripped of its democratic and partici-patory elements.

In March 2002, the European Council of Barcelona,made a veiled attempt at an answer when it stated ‘TheEuropean social model is based on good economic per-formance, a high level of social security, high qualityeducation and professional training, and social dialogue’(italics added by Detlev Albers). Even in times whenthe economic situation was good, employment and thestandard of education were high, one had to wonderwhether there was already too much expected from thedialogue of the social partners or its French form, theTripartisme. That must certainly have been the case intimes of crisis, when there was scarcely any economicgrowth, but instead, immense unemployment, insuffi-cient training, intensified competition for industriallocation and demographic problems had to be dealtwith, after waiting too long to get to grips with them.The ‘social dialogue’, even in its most obligatory form,must still remain within the limits of a persuasive exer-cise. This is not to say, by all means, that the social dia-logue was not helpful in the resolution of social con-flicts. In this context, the Brussels Economic and SocialCommittee (WSA), including its ‘third bank’, which isopen to all other non-governmental organisations, hasbuilt up a solid record of beneficial activities within thelast decades. It would, however, go far beyond thecapacity of the ‘social dialogue’ to serve as the singlesteering instrument for the economy.

The ‘great adventure of Europe’ has drawn its strengthnot least from the insight that the whole is greater thanthe sum of its parts. Finally, this verdict has also to betaken seriously with regard to European social politics.An economic power, or even superpower, cannot betamed by allocating it less power than has already beengiven to the national framework. Quite the opposite istrue: only when we manage to combine the differentparticipatory elements as they had emerged within thedifferent member states and, on the basis of this, devel-op a genuinely European central idea, only then can wehope to adequately offset economic integration with ademocratic social model of equal status.

This requires a combination of the French guidelinesregarding the primacy of politics, as expressed in thedemand for a common European economic govern-ment, the German principle of workers’ participationin the industrial decision-making process and theextensive socio-political presence of workers’ organisa-tions as given by the Swedish example. Of course, theseelements cannot simply be added up. It is crucial that

10 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

the convictions that underline these concepts are goingto cross-fertilise and supplement each other.Furthermore, they will only be able to exert their influ-ence fully, if this process goes hand in hand with thecoalescence of all the different social democratic andsocialist parties, trade unions and their social partners,to real pan-European organisations.

European Globalisation

I wish for a Europe, which creates its own identitywithout feeling too much need to separate itself fromothers. Basically Europe, for me, is only tenable as amodel for a liveable future world community’ – Thiswas recently expressed by Adolf Muschg, Swiss writerand President of the Berlin Science Academy. In a nut-shell, the phrase specifies both the ambition and legiti-macy of the European project.

Whether the member states like it or not, whether theyare aware of it or not, with the Euro, the enlargementand the constitutional treaty, the EU has become one ofthe key players on the global stage, politically and eco-nomically. Whatever Europe is going to succeed in, beit further integration and the catching-up process ofthose new members who are yet lagging behind or be itimproving the quality of Europe’s leading nationaleconomies, everything will have direct repercussionsoutside Europe. It will provoke emulation, methodical-ly and as regards content, and will also promote non-hostile competition with others. However, at the sametime, the logic of the international network, the core ofall globalisation, demands that Europe cannot detachitself from the rest of the world. Whoever does out-ward business, must also accept the input from the out-side under fair conditions – or else they will get caughtin an endless downward spiral of violence and therebyruin the central pledges of their own constitution.

A simple and often uncomfortable rule of internation-al relations states that there is a direct relation betweena country’s size and its obligation towards others. Manyof the smaller European nations, for long enough alsothe Federal Republic of Germany, had tried to avoidtaking this responsibility by referring to their respectivelarger neighbours. Voices from the other side of theAtlantic claim with great vigour that, for decades,Europe had been profiting from a sort of free ridermentality (Robert Kagan). Impatiently, but by and largeaccurately, it is insisted that nowadays no member ofthe EU can claim not to want to get involved simply ongrounds of lack of influence.

In doing so, it is by the state of international affairsitself that Europe is called upon to articulate its inter-ests - and this refers to the union as a whole rather thanto the extended foreign policies of individual memberstates. Despite the national preferences that still exist,one will then quickly be able to establish a number ofshared positions on particular issues. These include thedecisive assertion of the belief in multilateral regimes,

including negotiation networks, the strengthening ofthe United Nations and its reform on the basis of thereport to Kofi Annan (‘A safer world’) and not least thedisapproval of strategies of pre-emptive strikes, asthose currently advocated by the Bush administration.Without doubt, this would also demand European con-tributions to the fight against terrorism and against theproliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

This is not enough though. The more the EU presentsitself as a unified and jointly acting power on the inter-national stage, the more it must insist on realising farreaching changes with regard to the fight against pover-ty, sustainable development and the prevention ofpotential global dangers, such as climate change. For ithas long become apparent that taming capitalism in asocially beneficial way will fail if limited to a Europeanlevel only. Without constituting intercontinentalalliances, which on their part will have to depend on thesupport of their respective citizens and governments,no breakthrough will be achieved.

Europe certainly does not have to worry about a lack ofattention or unwillingness to cooperate. The declara-tion of principles of the Socialist International (SI) decid-ed in Sao Paulo in 2003 (‘Governance in a globalworld’) can be referred to as an example in this context.However, what resonance such alliances offered byEurope will find outside and how attractive this offerwill be to others, will depend decisively on the extent towhich the EU is actually able to portray itself as ‘themodel for a liveable future world community.’

Detlev Albersis Professor of Politics at Bremen University andDirector of the ‘Bremer Forum für EuropäischeRegionalpolitik’ (BFER, http://www.bfer.uni-bremen.de). At the same time, he is Co-Director of theEuropean Research Forum at London MetropolitanUniversity (www.europeanresearchforum.com). He haspublished widely about social movements in WesternEurope. Between 1995 and 2004, Detlev Albers waschairman of the SPD Bremen and he has been a mem-ber of the SPD federal executive committee since 1999.Being a member of the SPD basic value as well as pro-gramme commission, he is responsible for theEuropean dimension in the new SPD basic value pro-gramme.

11 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

ReferencesHaseler, Stephen Super-State. The new Europe and its Challenge to America,

London 2004

Hobsbawm, Eric Das Zeitalter der Extreme. Weltgeschichte des 20. JahrhundertsMunich 1995

Kagan, Robert Macht und Ohnmacht. Amerika und Europa in derNeuen Weltordnung, New York, Munich 2003

Kaelble, Hartmut Auf dem Weg zu einer europäischen Gesellschaft.Eine Sozialgeschichte Westeuropas 1880-1980, Munich 1987

Loth, Wilfried Der Weg nach Europa, Göttingen 1996

Muschg, Adolf Ich beneide die Deutschen um ihre historische Lage.Handelsblatt vom 30/31. 12. 2004

Nipperdey, Thomas Deutsche Geschichte 1800-1866. Bürgerwelt und starker Staat,Munich 1983

Padoa-Schioppa, T Der Euro und die Politik; in: Internationale Politik, Nr. 8, 2000,Page 29

Rifkin, Jeremy Der europäische Traum. Die Vision einer leisen Supermacht,New York, Frankfurt 2004

Governance in einer globalen Gesellschaft, Sao Paulo, Berlin 2003Internationale, SI edited by Christoph Zöpel

Vereinte Nationen Eine sicherere Welt: Unsere gemeinsame Verantwortung.Bericht der Hochrangigen Gruppe für Bedrohungen, Herausforderungen und Wandel, New York 2004

12 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

From the constitutionali-sation of Europe to aEuropean constitution

The idea of a closerEuropean Union, asa kind of league of

princes and in sharp deli-neation from the IslamicOttoman Empire and, to alesser extent, also Russiaand the orthodox Easternchurch, began to findexpression from as early as

the 15th century in plans fora confederation put forward

by rulers such as Henry IV of France. Beyond that, andusually more vaguely, eminent thinkers such as JohannAmos Comenius, Jean Jacques Rousseau and ImmanuelKant articulated the idea of European unity. HenriSaint-Simon, also one of the early utopian socialists,envisaged all of Europe as a constitutional monarchywith a bicameral parliament. Conservatives likeFrançois René Chateaubriand developed their own visi-ons as well as representatives of the liberal-democraticnational movements, for example Giuseppe Mazzini -indeed the differentiation of the large cultural and soci-al space west of the Urals into modern nations is a typi-cally European phenomenon - , the bourgeois peacemovement and of course socialism in all its currents.The SPD, for instance, in its Heidelberg Programme of1925 advanced the slogan of the 'United States ofEurope'.

It was at this time, under the shadows of the FirstWorld War, that the idea of European unificationbegan to play a larger role in realpolitik terms. In 1930Aristide Briand, then France's left-liberal foreign mini-ster, first presented other governments with his planfor a European federation, inspired by the pan-European movement of Count Richard Coudenhove-Calergi. Due to the beginning world economic crisisand the protectionist measures taken by nation stateson the one hand, and the unbroken traditions of natio-nal power politics and the corresponding thought pat-terns of all involved on the other, Briand's plan did notprogress beyond initial discussions.

A decisive turning was reached with the Second WorldWar, when the larger part of the European continentwas occupied by Hitler's Germany which attempted tounite a fascist Europe under its own leadership. In allthe occupied countries, the heads of the resistance,

from the national-conservative to the social democra-tic-socialist wing but with the exception of the commu-nists, formulated the programmatic demand for aEuropean unity which appeared essential for securityand economic reasons. Only by overcoming traditionalpower politics and unrestricted national sovereignty infavour of a supranational federal authority wouldEurope and the nations contained within such aEuropean Union be able to assert themselves againstthe new world powers.

The goal of establishing Europe as a 'third force', alsoin terms of its social order, between the USA and theSoviet Union which social democrats in particular sawas part of the unification perspective lost all chances ofits realisation when the British Labour government, towhich great hopes had been attached, refused to playthe leadership role expected of it. In view of Stalin'sbrutal imposition of exploitation and conformity in theSoviet sphere of power on the one hand, and the deter-mination of the US to uphold their economic and stra-tegic interests on this side of the Atlantic on the other,a decidedly democratic-socialist policy of Europeanindependence was faced with enormous obstacles any-way. A 'Socialist Movement for the United States ofEurope', founded in June 1947, could not expand thisnarrow room for manouevre.

From as early as the late 1940s onwards, efforts atEuropean unification, inevitably confined to WesternEurope, became an element in the East-West conflictand American hegemonialism, although this began tochange in parts from the 1960s. To begin with, the USAclearly saw more advantages than risks in a closer unionof Europe, with or without Great Britain, and unambi-guously supported the early projects: from the coal andsteel community via the (failed) European DefenceCommunity with its concomitant unified politicalstructures to the European Economic Community ofthe Six agreed in 1957.

The latter's gradual expansion into a union which issoon to incorporate almost the entire non-RussianEurope, and its institutional consolidation, has fromthe beginning, and always anew, posed the kind of fun-damental questions with which the unification processis still coming to grips and which inevitably stand at thecentre of a 'European Constitution'. As a matter offact, the unification process has always contained bothintergovernmental and supranational elements, with theformer usually dominant. Even De Gaulle however,with his attempt to bring the European communitiesunder the control of a French-led confederation ofstates, could not and probably would not completelyeliminate the supranational element.

By contrast, attempts such as the one first undertaken

13 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

From the Constitutionalisation of Europe to aEuropean Constitution

by Peter Brandt and Dimitris Tsatsos

Peter Brandt

in 1962 in a draft written by an ad-hoc group for thegovernments, to give the constitution of Europe a pre-dominantly federal character, have so far failed due tothe resistance of the individual states. The constitutio-nal treaty of 29 October 2004 is therefore above allcharacterised by the equal weight given to the twostructural principles and its avoidance of any finality onthe question while simultaneously keeping open thepossibility of a further development of the Union,especially with regards to the powers of the parliamentwhich have already been significantly expanded sincethe 1980s.

Historical preconditions of the constitutional statein Europe

The gradual emergence of a 'European Constitutuion'is unthinkable without the specifically European tradi-tions of the constitutional nation statewhich in turn builds on much older histo-rical traditions. The basic principle ofEurope's historical develeopment sincethe Middle Ages is pluralism: between thevariegated and relatively small-scale, andmostly aristocratic, units as well as withinthe various communities where the emer-ging processes of politics favouredfunctionally differentiated systems overautocracies. This characteristic 'pluralism'usually expressed itself in violent terms,in sometimes very bloody wars and civilwars which permeated European historyand were only exceptionally interruptedby prolonged periods of peace. The mili-tary, war and power expansion, moreover,constituted one of the major forces behind the techno-logical-economic formation of Europe until the middleof the twentieth century. The social hegemony of thenobility on the basis of the thousand years dominanceof the feudal-agrarian mode of production, comple-mented by cooperative elements of various strengths inpeasant communities, limited the monarchies as theagents of pre-modern state formation as much as therelatively autonomous European towns and cities ascentres of trade and commerce. The social and occupa-tional differentiation in the medieval and early-moderncity required a much higher level of regulation compa-red with rural society, especially with regards to the law,administration, and finance, and the necessity to invol-ve a considerable number of people in political decisi-ons.

The traditional autonomy rights of the nobility and theurban citizenry, combined with the early codification ofproperty law, represented insuperable obstacles againstan arbitrary and violent appropriation of the surplusproduct by the monarchs and required the participationof the 'estates'. The political assemblies of the estates,dominated almost everywhere by the nobility, despitetheir social limitations established a tradition of repre-sentation against the rulers which was important forthe future constitutionalisation. Even in the epoch of

'absolute' monarchy - that is one limited only by divineand natural law - and in the most 'absolutist' states theintermediary powers of the estates remained muchmore important than has been commonly assumed. Intheir own understanding, the claims to autonomy andparticipation of the estates included, in certain conditi-ons, the right of resistance to a law-breaking authority,perhaps even violent resistance. The modern declarati-ons of human rights are grounded in the Europe-widediscourse of resistance in the early modern era.

One of the most fundamental historical preconditionsof the constitutional state in Europe was the role ofthe Christian, especially the catholic, churches as a uni-fying factor in the ancient European political culture.The church had absorbed the cultural heritage of anti-quity, including that of Roman law, which served tolegitimate the monarchical central power arising in the

late middle ages. There was no directroad from a feudal society based onlegal inequality and territorially frag-mented empires to a modern constitu-tional state which, while divided intosocio-economic classes, required a citi-zenship defined by legal liberty andequality. It was only the rise of thesovereign state in the form of absolutemonarchy during the 17th and 18th cen-turies which pushed back the interme-diary powers of the estates to such anextent that a politically more uniformsociety of subjects came into existencewhile on the opposite side the executive

functions of the ruler became increasing-ly differentiated and transferred to the

bureaucracy. The relationship between a society of sub-altern subjects and the monarchical state power becameboth more direct and more abstract, and against thebackground of a clearly accelerating social and econo-mic dynamic since the mid-18th century demanded anew set of administrative and juridical rules.

Alongside the originally dominant medical and geogra-phic uses of the word 'constitution' it was common toconsider fundamental treaties and laws such as theBritish Magna Carta of 1215 or the Roman-German'Golden Bull' of 1356 as 'constitutional laws'. However,none of these 'constitutional laws' of the early modernperiod was intended to provide a comprehensive politi-cal framework; they were always concerned with pres-sing individual issues even if their settlement impliedbroader commitments. It was only the modern conceptof a constitution, as for example in the 'constitutions'of the USA (1787) - with its strong influence onEurope - and France (first 1791, in the same year alsothe Polish one which was frustrated by the second andthird partition) made possible the part revolutionary,part reformist transformation of the political systemsof Europe around 1800. The beginnings of thismodern concept of constitutions reach back to Britainin the early 17th century and took shape during the18th century in the debates among the enlightened

14 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

Dimitris Tsatsos

intellectual elites of the continent, acquiring an increa-sing normative and political charge: Individual free-dom, equality before the law, division of powers, pressfreedom, political representation. Between the late 18thand the mid-20th centuries, in particular, one can iden-tify broad, Europe-wide connections, certain waves andregions of constitutionalisation which strongly qualifythe dominant image of this age as a long epoch ofnational fragmentation.

The first republican-democratic constitution had comeinto being as early as the 1750s under the special con-ditions of the Corsican secession from Genoa; the pro-ject finally failed in 1769 with the French annexation ofthe island. The highly developed plan by ArchdukePeter Leopold, the later emperor, for the constitutiona-lisation of Tuscany in the 1780s, too, did not come tofruition mainly because of the resistance of the conser-vative clergy. Yet it deserves study as a strong exampleof enlightened reform absolutism. The examples men-tioned here show that the constitutional state was 'inthe air' from the final quarter of the 18th century at thelatest. They also point to the fact that the long roadfrom the early, usually monarchical, constitutionalismto a fully-fledged democracy was certainly not smoothor without contradictions but rather marked by massi-ve, even violent resistance and reactionary retrogressi-ons, and in the inter-war period even by a complete,albeit temporary, change of direction.

The constitutional state of the 19th century

Important as the role of revolutionary France as partcatalyst, part direct promoter - via the Napoleonichegemonial system - was for the transformation ofEurope around 1800, it could only play this role becau-se there had been for some time - more in some placesthan in others - changes taking place in society andsocial consciousness which alone made it possible forthe revolutionary impulses 'from the outside' to findfertile soil. Beginning with the Spanish war of indepen-dence, the idea of the self-determination of 'nations'made a dialectical turn against the Emperor, not least asa result of constitutionalisation. The extent to whichthere was a common and fundamental political trans-formation and paradigmatic change all over Europearound 1800 was shown when the so-called restorationafter Napoleon's defeat not only left most of theimportant social and political reformations of the pre-vious period untouched, at least in Western, Northernand Central Europe, but also permitted another waveof constitutionalisation following the CharteConstituionelle of 1814, especially in the SouthGerman states. It was the new bourgeois elites, the'educated' in Germany, the 'notables' in France, and the'middle classes' in England (of whom only the latterrepresented anything like a real bourgeoisie) whounderstood the constitutional state as a means of itsown emancipation and also, simultaneously, as a meansof integrating the post-revolutionary societies (ifnecessary, in league with the monarchy). Alongside thismoderate liberal constitutionalism, and in part opposed

to it, could be found more radical, more plebeian cur-rents which, usually in connection with social protests,demanded the unrestricted sovereignty of 'the people'as had been done in the French revolution after 1789.

In decades of struggle in parliamentary bodies, inpublishing, and not least on the street and oftenenough in armed struggle, the liberal 'party of move-ment' achieved the constitutionalisation of all ofEurope's states, culminating in the revolutionary eventsof the early 1830s and late 1840s. The foundation ofnew nation states in Italy 1859-61 and Germany 1866-71 as a result of, on the one hand, the bourgeois natio-nal and constitutional movement and, on the other, themilitary dominance of the states of Piedmont andPrussia, concluded this process in the main - with theexception of the constitution which, following therevolution of the previous year, was imposed fromabove in Tsarist Russia as late as 1906 and which, alt-hough it left the monarchical executive in a particularlystrong position, was none the less more than a merepretence. The fact that the new nation states in Easternand South-eastern Europe issuing from the dissolutionof the Ottoman empire in the last third of the 19thcentury, and then at the end of the First World Warfrom the destruction of Austria-Hungary and the east-ward shift of Russia were constitutional states - at leaston paper - from the start was already considered nor-mal.

It is well known that the constitutionalisation ofEngland preceded that of continental Europe by atleast a century. In 1688-89 (the 'Glorious Revolution'),following a decades-long conflict, including a civil war,between the lower house of parliament and the king, ade facto constitutional monarchy emerged, with thefinancial prerogatives of parliament, as they didelsewhere, becoming the main lever of successive furt-her constitutional change. Although no comprehensivepolitical framework law was ever adopted and no suchlaw exists until the present day, a concept of 'the con-stitution' emerged which comprised the documents -some going back to the Middle Ages - stating the per-sonal rights of the Englishman or Briton, such as the1689 Bill of Rights, as well as the Common Law andthe unwritten rules of constitutional practice. Theresult is an evolutionary, customary law based under-standing of constitution which has only recently begunto adopt elements of a more normative, systematic, andjuridical concepts of the continental European coun-tries (as well as the USA).

Britain's constitutional monarchy with its tendencytowards parliamentarianisation was an aristocratic formof rule and remained that to some extent until theHouse of Lords was effectively stripped of its powersin 1911. However, the English nobility had always beensocially open to the commercial bourgeoisie as a resultof the strict rules of primogeniture and had establishedclose economic and political ties with it quite early. Thepolitical taming of the high nobility by the Crown andthe economic de-feudalisation of aristocratic land

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ownership in the early modern age provide the mostimportant keys to understanding the pioneering role ofEngland in both the constitutionalisation and the capi-talist industrialisation of Europe.

Until the First World War, the pan-European processof constitutionalisation proceeded largely within thelimits of a constitutional monarchy in the narrowerdefinition that is a monarchy limited by law but with theexecutive remaining with the ruler or a governmentappointed by him. Even in the Prussian-German, aswell as the Austrian-Hungarian constitutionalism withits characteristic emphasis on the executive power it ispossible to discern in the years around 1900 a creepingconstitutional change which strengthened the govern-ment against the crown and, at the same time, the posi-tion of the national parliaments - elected through ageneral male franchise since 1867/71 in Germany, 1907in Austria - against the executive and federal organs ofthe state. However, the breakthrough to parliamentaria-nisation had to await defeat in the First World War; itcould then no longer prevent the revolutionary demo-cratic rising of the people.

All over 19th century Europe therefore, constitutionalmonarchies below the level of parliamentarianism stilldominated. When in 1906 the traditional autocracy wasreplaced by a very modest version of constitutionalmonarchy even in Tsarist Russia, France had alreadyhad a parliamentary republic based on a general malefranchise for over three decades. In Northern Europe,the introduction of women's right to vote was immi-nent. However, even France, for all its revolutionarytraditions, remained a monarchy between 1804 and1870, with only a brief interruption. Switzerland, theonly constant republican country in Europe, only beca-me a modern federal state in 1847-48 and it was notuntil 1874 that a combination of parliamentary andreferendum democracy established itself. Otherwise itis possible to speak of the adoption of a parliamentaryform of government (de facto, not necessarily de jure)at this time only in Italy (1861), the Netherlands (1868),Norway (1884) and Denmark (1905), with some reser-vations also Greece (1875) and Serbia (1903); onlyGreat Britain and Belgium had done so much earlier inthe 1830s and early 1840s if one ignores the specialcase of a temporary, quasi-parliamentary governmentby the French ultra-conservatives under the Bourbonmonarchy restored in 1814.

The European constitutional state of the 19th centuryand beyond, of course, organised a capitalist classsociety founded upon extreme inequality, which inaddition was marked by a mixture of many pre-bour-geois and clientilist elements. The representative organseven of already parliamentary states such as Britainwere elected on the basis of (initially very) restrictedand unequal franchises. In addition, it is important toemphasise the fundamentally manipulative character ofEuropean constitutional development. This applies notonly to the Southern and South-eastern periphery ofthe continent but also for the plebiscitary-populist

Bonapartism of the two Napoleons, as well as to thespecific lobbyism of sectoral interests in ImperialGermany. The Spanish 'Turno pacifico', in whichgovernments were changed by arrangement betweenthe conservatives and liberals and only subsequentlylegitimised through systematic electoral manipulationand falsification, was matched by the Italian'Transformismo', a veritable system of oligarchic ruleby a liberal government elite in which local clan chiefsand the leaders of provincial administrations took careof the desired results. In Italy as in Spain, where theConstitution of Cadiz (1812) had provided one of theearly examples of relatively far-reaching constitutional-ism, such practices led to a thorough discreditation ofparliamentarianism; much the same can be said for thecorruption and clientelism inherent in the constituionalpractices of the Balkan states.

From the liberal constitutional state to socialdemocracy

The rising democracy movement in many Europeanstates around 1900 demanded, alongside the strengthe-ning of parliaments, above all improvements in thefranchise. Through a series of its extensions - 1832,1868, 1884, 1918, 1928 in Britain - the general franchisefor men and later also for women was gradually achie-ved. The demand for a democratic franchise, fought forbitterly including with mass demonstrations and strikes,was a key issue for the young socialist workers move-ment which considered parliamentary democracy, pre-ferably in the form of a republic, as the most benefici-al form of government in a bourgeois-capitalist socie-ty, but also at the same time as the form of its aboliti-on. Alongside the labour movement, and sometimes inan alliance with it, were the radical liberal currents ofthe bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie, but sometimesalso the peasantry, which contributed to the achieve-ment of democratisation against the traditional rulingelites of the aristocracy and big bourgeoisie.

This phase of the democratisation of the franchiseand, where it was still unachieved, the parliamentariani-sation of government corresponded also with the erain which the legal regulation of social policy became apolitical issue, and here too with the involvement ofbourgeois politicians who recognised the need to secu-re the working population against existential risks suchas accidents, illness, old age, later also unemployment).The pioneering model was the social insurance systemintroduced in the 1880s for the German Empire by theconservative chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Eventhough Bismarck's motives were patriarchal and anti-socialist and the material benefits quite modest in thebeginning, social security and the improvement ofemployment law gradually became a constitutive ele-ment of the European constituional and democraticmodel. The difference between their financing throughtaxes or contributions is, in this context, secondary.

The expansion of the social security systems withregards to their objects, their expenditures, perfor-

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mances and the number of those insured to the con-cept of the 'social state' or 'welfare state' occurred afterthe Second World War and was made possible by thelong phase of reconstruction and prosperity, the East-West conflict and the temporary, and in some countriesmore long-term, dominance of social democracy andKeynesian economic policies. It would not be much ofan oversimplification to say that - Great Britain apart -democracy did not reach the degree of stability requi-red for the process of European unification in WesternEurope until the 1950s. The welfare state element inthe political order must be considered the most impor-tant precondition alongside the defeat of fascism andits collaborators.

After the First World War, during the Weimar Republic,political theorists and constitutional law experts fromthe ranks of German social democracy, especiallyHermann Heller, had argued that the 'material' or 'soci-al' law-based state, as it found expression in the articlesof the Weimar constitution concerned with labour andsocial policy which themselves were a compromise bet-ween the republican bourgeoisie and the reformistlabour movement, would expand the traditional legaland constitutional state by a qualitatively new dimensi-on. The aim of social democracy and the trade unionswas to gradually expand this dimension with their soci-al policies and 'economic democracy' approach. It wasthought that, in legal terms, it would even be possibleto overcome capitalism and realise socialism withoutany change in the text of the constitution and withoutleaving the territory of representative democracy.

The key argument was that without a minimum of'social homogeneity' - which, under the conditions ofmarket capitalism, included also the ability to achievecompromise between different interests on the basis ofconsensual notions of justice - the masses could not beenabled to complete the self-determination of thepeople in actual political practice and therefore couldnot become an integrated citizenry.

These still very relevant deliberations on constitutionalpolicy were directed not only against the old liberal ideathat formal freedom and equality before the law weresufficient. They also entailed a clear demarcationagainst communist statism with its political dictator-ship, abolition of the division of powers and fullynationalised command economy, as it had then takenshape in Russia and would later be exported to manyregions of Europe and Asia. The theory and practice ofa radical-democratic council system as the politicalform of socialism, which had emerged in severalvariants from the revolutionary upheavals of 1917-18,had in Russia been overlaid from the start by the edu-cational dictatorship of the Bolshevik party elite whichin turn then itself socially into the marasmus of thenomenklatura. The end of that system in the EastEuropean popular revolutions of 1989-91 can therefo-re also be understood as a constitutional revolution.

The historical background of the European con-stitution

The afore-described historical procedure, i.e. the routeof the constitutionalisation process in Europe, definesand renders the course towards a EuropeanConstitution. That is, the historical procedure of a latosensu European constitutionalisation acquires now aconcrete form through the creation of the EuropeanCommunities in 1952 and reaches its first peak and atemporary 'integration' with the signing of the 'Treatyestablishing a Constitution for Europe' on October29th, 2004.

The history of the idea of the European Constitution,which commences with the concept of theConstitution of the nation-state, evolves adapted to theidea of a transnational and, finally, supranational and inthe same time multi-national legal order of states, andis the one that led to the first steps of constitutionali-sation of the process of European integration.Theterm 'Constitution' - irrespective of the accuracy of theterm for describing the European Constitutional Treaty- refers, even symbolically, to the political will to createa unitary legal order or, in any case, a common legal fra-mework of competencies, to ensure a space of liberty -and finally this might be the problem of constitutiona-lisation of the integration process - to create for theEuropean Union something like a state quality.

These elements are at the starting point and constitutehistorical and logical conditions of the unificationcourse from a beginning of international law nature(the point of view of international law) to an institutio-nal condensation and, finally, to an outcome of consti-tutional law nature. The history of the concept andmeaning of constitution in Europe explains finally aconstitutional romanticism, which prevailed in theEuropean Union and gave birth to the will and thedynamic of the respective evolutions. The internationallaw nature of the starting point of the Communitiesrendered them inappropriate for a constitution. Thelegal-political content of unification though, its ratio,already incorporated all the elements of constitutionalnecessity.

The development of the European integration intoa political process

The contemporary history of European integration hasas a symbolic starting point: May 9th 1950, which isnowadays celebrated as 'Day of Europe'. At that time,the French Minister of Foreign Affairs RobertSchuman proposed the establishment of a supranatio-nal organisation for the common administration of twoprinciple sectors of economic policy, coal and steel. Hisfinal objective was to ensure peace and prosperity inpost-war Europe through solid cooperation links bet-ween the European states, especially between Germanyand France. In 1952, the European Coal and SteelCommunity was established (ECSC) with the participa-tion of 6 European states: France, Germany, Italy, The

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Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg.The undertaking of ECSC proved to be so successfulthat some years later the six states decided to extendtheir cooperation to even more sectors. In 1958, twoadditional communities were established through theConventions of Rome, which were signed in 1957: theEuropean Economic Community (EEC) and theEuropean Atomic Energy Community.

The European Communities have been based since thebeginning on a novel principle of transnational coope-ration, which went beyond the concept of a traditionalinternational organisation. The core of the unifyingtask was lying in the so called, 'community method' ofcooperation which was based on the transfer of sover-eign rights from the member states to theCommunities, as well as on their joint administration atEuropean level. Schematically: the Council, whererepresentatives of member states participate, decides,the Commission proposes to the Council and imple-ments its decisions, while the Assembly, which wascomposed at that time by representatives of the natio-nal parliaments, had an advisory role.

The European Communities evolved soon into a poleof attraction for the remainder of the states of WesternEurope: in 1972 Great Britain, Denmark and Irelandjoined, in 1981 Greece and in 1986 Spain and Portugal.The last enlargement was accompanied by the first revi-sion of the founding treaties, under the SingleEuropean Act in 1986. This historical moment marksthe evident commencement of politicisation of thephenomenon of the Union. On the basis of the SingleEuropean Act, a decision to create a unified internalmarket was made and the first step was taken towardsthe political - apart from economic - unification ofEurope, through the establishment of a mechanism ofloose coordination of the external policy of memberstates, the European political cooperation.

The European unification process undergoes afirst institutional deepening

At the end of the 1980s, while the existing socialistregimes were collapsing and the re-unification ofGermany was becoming a reality, everybody realisedthe need for deepening not only the economic unifica-tion in view of the aim of its political unification ofEurope. Moreover, the unified internal market in 1992created the conditions - and according to many theneed- for a single currency. In 1991, the MaastrichtTreaty was signed, according to which the EuropeanUnion was established as it principally operates to date.The European Union is based on three pillars. The firstpillar refers to the European Communities, where thecommunity method is implemented. An underlyingevolution was the creation of the Economic andMonetary Union (EMU), which was completed on 1stJanuary 2002 with the circulation of Euro. The secondpillar refers to Common Foreign and Security Policy(CFSP), where cooperation in the field of external poli-cy is implemented at intergovernmental level.

The third pillar, finally, refers to cooperation on issuesof justice and home affairs (e.g. asylum and migrationpolicy), where the member states cooperate also atintergovernmental level i.e. without the communitymethod being implemented.

Amsterdam

Following the next enlargement of the EuropeanUnion in 1995 (Sweden, Finland and Austria) a thirdrevision of the treaties took place under theAmsterdam Treaty in 1997. This treaty extended theimplementation of the Community method of coope-ration and enriched the institutional framework ofCFSP; however the problem of preparing the Union -and especially its institutions - for an already visibleenlargement of the European Union towards EasternEurope was not dealt with. This task was undertaken bythe next intergovernmental conference for the revisionof the treaties, which lead to the Treaty of Nice.

Nice

By means of the Treaty of Nice (2000) the Unionattempted to solve the leftovers of the AmsterdamTreaty and to render the Union capable to receive thetwelve member states, which were in the course ofaccession negotiations. Among the achievements ofthe Treaty of Nice were the promotion of the commu-nity method in new policy sectors, the reinforcement ofthe European Parliament, as well as the facilitation ofenhanced forms of cooperation should be acknowled-ged. It remains to be proved though, since these formsof cooperation have not been used so far, whether theywill serve the need for flexibility or whether they willendanger the unity of the European Union in the futu-re. In parallel, a compromise in the institutional archi-tecture of the enlarged Union has been achieved: thecomposition of the Commission and of the Parliamentin a Union of 27 was regulated and the votes for deci-sion making in the Council were allocated. On the con-trary, the Charter of Fundamental Rights that was ela-borated by a Convention established for this purpose,was not incorporated in the Treaty, despite the relatedendeavours of the European Parliament, but was onlyadopted as a political declaration. The Nice Treaty hasbeen enforced on February 1st, 2003 paving the wayfor the enlargement of the EU. As of May 1st 2004Estonia, Cyprus, Malta, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary,Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and the Czech Republicbecame members of the Union. The Nice Treaty con-stituted a difficult compromise, which was not convin-cing as a basis for the future of the enlarged Union. Inparticular the solution of weighted votes has since thebeginning been considered extremely complex, partlyunfair, and convoluted for the citizens. The allocationof competencies between the member states and theUnion, the role of national parliaments, the incorpora-tion of the Charter in the treaty, as well as the overallrationalisation and simplification of the treaties couldnot be encountered in Nice.

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The necessity of a Constitution becomes directlyvisible

An extremely crucial point of the institutional evoluti-on of the European Union comes on: Nice designatedexpressis verbis, in a declaration annexed to the treaty,the limits of the intergovernmental conference as amethod for the revision of treaties: lack of transparen-cy and publicity created intense alienation of theEuropean citizens from the procedure of Europeanintegration. Thus, during the Nice Summit onDecember 2000 the member states decided to embarkon a new attempt for global dialogue on the future ofEurope. A year later, during the Laeken Summit(December 2001) the European Council decided toconvene a new unofficial organ, the EuropeanConvention for the Future of Europe, following thesuccessful example of the convention that elaboratedthe Charter of Fundamental Rights; the objective ofthe convention was to prepare the subsequent intergo-vernmental conference.

The Convention

The mandate of the European Council to the conven-tion was to elaborate proposals in three directions,namely how to bring citizens closer to the endeavour ofEuropean unification and to European institutions,how to organise politically the enlarged EuropeanUnion in order to operate efficiently, and how to ensu-re a reinforced role of the Union in the world. At thesame time, the convention had to examine whether theneed to simplify the treaties could be served by theadoption of a constitutional text.The convention was composed of 16 representatives ofthe European Parliament, a representative of thegovernment of each member state and two representa-tives of each national parliament. The representativesof the ten accession member states had equal status,while the candidate countries (Romania, Bulgaria andTurkey) were given observer status. Two members ofthe Commission and - under status of observer - repre-sentatives of the Economic and Social Committee, ofthe Committee of the Regions, of the EuropeanOmbudsman and the Court of Justice of the EuropeanCommunities participated.The works of the convention were initiated under thepresidency of Valery Giscard d' Estaing on February2002 and were completed on June 2003. It operatedunder conditions of unprecedented publicity and trans-parency for European standards. Within the limits ofthe possible, the convention set the conditions forexpression and participation of civil society and elabo-rated ideas for almost the total of the provisions of theEuropean treaties. During its operation, the conventionacquired a reinforced political dynamic, which led thegovernments of many member states to have represen-tation at the level of ministers of foreign affairs. Underthe guidance of the presidium, the convention finallymanaged to surpass the initial mandate of theEuropean Council; instead of being restricted to thesubmission of different alternative proposals, it drafted

a global, to a large extent novel, comprehensive 'DraftTreaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe' whichwas adopted on June 13th, 2003 with consensus. Thedraft treaty was submitted to the Thessaloniki Summiton June 20th, which adopted it, despite the objectionsof several member states, as a solid basis for the worksof the intergovernmental conference.

The European Constitution ante portas

The Intergovernmental conference was initiated onOctober 2003 in Rome under the coordination of theItalian presidency. The objective of the presidency, sup-ported mainly by Germany and France, was to decrea-se the spectrum of issues to be discussed anew. In thatway, two tendencies were formed: the first was the posi-tion of the countries which supported the draft of theconvention or pursued limited improvements andamendments; among them was also Greece. Thesecond tendency was expressed by countries whichadopted a critical stance towards the draft of the con-vention and maintained that it had proceeded extreme-ly with the unification endeavour (especially GreatBritain) or that it was impairing their interests (especi-ally Spain and Poland). The effort to conclude theConference in December 2003 failed, since it provedimpossible to achieve unanimity among the 25. Itshould be highlighted that the consensus of the tennew member states was deemed necessary, althoughthey were not yet formally members of the EuropeanUnion. A key issue of disagreement was the refusal ofSpain and Poland to accept the convention's proposalregarding decision making at the Council and their per-sistence for the maintenance of the Nice system, whichalmost equated them with the four bigger memberstates.

The endeavour was further taken up by the Irish presi-dency, which valorised the new political conditionscreated by the fall of the governments of Aznar andMiller in Spain and Poland respectively, and convenedanew the intergovernmental conference on April 2004.The Irish presidency was based on the acquis of thefirst phase of the intergovernmental conference andattempted to reduce the issues under negotiation,despite the effort of some member states (especiallyGreat Britain's) to 're-open' several topics. Following acomplex compromise on the critical issues, the 'Treatyestablishing a Constitution for Europe' was finallyapproved by the Intergovernmental conference, name-ly, by all the member states, that convened in the frame-work of the European Council, held in Brussels onJune 17th and 18th, 2004. The 'Treaty establishing aConstitution for Europe' was signed by the govern-ments of the member states on October 29th 2004 inRome, following the necessary technical elaboration ofthe final text and its translation into all the officiallanguages of the Union.Should one fact be designated as the main startingpoint of the last phase of constitutionalisation of theUnion, this is beyond any doubt the enlargement,which cannot be compared to the previous ones neit-

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her quantitatively nor qualitatively. The leap of theUnion from the 15 of the European West (and South)to the 27 of the reunified continent, was the catalyst,which accelerated evolutions and bended the existingobjections.With respect to the method, the procedure of theIntergovernmental conference served the 6 foundingmembers and reached its limits with 15 members.However, it was made clear, that it would not possiblycontinue to endure - as an exclusive procedure - with 27members.With respect to the content, the form, structure anddecision making procedures foreseen by the treatieswere planned for the 6 member-states and operated ina relatively satisfactory way, with minor amendmentsfor 15 members as well. However, it was certain that aUnion with 27 member states would be condemned toparalysis. Schematically speaking: historical 1989 politi-cally imposed the enlargement. The enlargement politi-cally imposed the constitution.

The next steps

The next step until the enforcement of the EuropeanConstitution is the ratification by each member state.Once the Constitution is signed, the ratification proce-dure by each member state commences separately,according to domestic constitutional procedures. Inthat case, two options exist: ratification through themember state's parliament or through a referendum.Many member states have already announced referendafor the European Constitution. The procedure ofapproval of the European Constitution by the 25 mem-ber states will certainly be time-consuming. It mightalso prove to be extremely problematic according tohistorical experience. Denmark, in 1992 and Ireland in2001 were obliged to hold second referendums follo-wing the first negative outcome regarding theMaastricht Treaty and the Nice Treaty, respectively.These facts of course delayed the enactment of the twotreaties, the delay in the case of the Nice Treaty reachedalmost 2.5 years!

In order to avoid extreme delays in enforcing theEuropean Constitution, the Intergovernmental confe-rence adopted a declaration, according to which, ifduring the two years following its signature by thegovernments of the member states, at least 4/5 of themember states have ratified the European Constitutionand one or more have not done so, the issue will bereferred to the European Council. Certainly, this provi-sion is of mere political nature, since the obligation ofratification still remains for all member states. It isworth mentioning, that during both the convention andthe intergovernmental conference it was maintainedthat the enforcement of the Constitution had to befacilitated. According to this viewpoint, even if one ormore member states do not ratify the Constitution, theremaining states should have the possibility to proceedwith its implementation. That is, the Union should notbecome a hostage of one member state. Finally, it hasnot been possible to conclude to overcome the binding

legal nature of the treaties in force, along the lines ofwhich proceeds the enactment of the Constitution.Several procedural proposals have been presented forencountering the problem, such as the simultaneous (atthe same day) approval of the Constitution in all mem-ber states either through referenda or by the parlia-ments, aiming at creating a dynamic which will facilita-te both citizen's awareness and the approval of theConstitution.Commencement of implementationshould the ratification procedures be promptly finali-sed, the European Constitution is expected to comeinto force on November 1st 2006. Should delay occur -and should any other procedure be not decided - theConstitution will be put into effect following its ratifi-cation by the last member state.

Constitution or Constitutional Treaty?

The term 'constitution' has a specific history in conti-nental Europe and therefore a specific content. Firstly,the constitution emanates from procedures based onincreased legitimisation. Secondly, the constitution hasacquired, through the evolution of European institutio-nal culture, a specific content and includes regulationsof specific nature. The first prerequisite - the constitu-tion-making procedure - is not met, since the origin ofits legitimisation is the international treaty concluded bythe member states of the European Union. The factthat the convention was set up brings about a certainconstitutionalisation of the procedure, which is howe-ver not sufficient. The content of the European'Constitution' undoubtedly has elements of constitutio-nal quality. For the afore-mentioned reasons the term'European Constitutional Treaty' is more precise.

Final remark

The refusal of the constitutional treaty by a significantpart of the European left is justified in terms of oppo-sition to neo-liberal ideology and capitalist globalisati-on. What must be criticised here is not this basic poli-tical stance but the conclusion derived from it - that is,to consider the failure of the constitutional treaty andtherefore the maintenance of the status quo as the les-ser evil. The constitutional treaty is a step which cannow be taken in order to progressively expand the abi-lity of the European Union to act and therefore also toprovide the institutional framework for a defence ofthe welfare state model and the re-regulation of thecapitalist economy. Whether or not that can be achie-ved will be decided by political conflict.

Peter Brandt is Professor of History at the University of Hagen. Heis the son of former German Chancellor Willy Brandt.

Dimitris Tsatsosis Professor Emeritus of the Universities of Hagen andPanteion, Athens and board member of the Institutefor European Constitutional Sciences, Hagen. He isalso Associate Professor of the Law School at theUniversity of Düsseldorf.

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After the Treaty of 29 October2004 the form ‘constitution’now describes both the legal

material collected in the treaty and thatgathered in the constitutional texts ofthe national states. However, owing tothe significance of the existing legal

order interdependences and those introduced by theTreaty, the form ‘constitution’ does not refer to sepa-rate legal orders but actually describes the compositeset comprising the European constitutional system andthe national constitutional systems. From this angle,one of mere qualification, the ‘Constitution forEurope’ already plays a unifying role.

The main significance of the unification induced by the‘Constitution for Europe’ is to be sought, however, inthe novelties it introduces into the existing system andin the renewal of institutions that, in the context of adifferent system, now have a legal significance that dif-fers from the original one. We speak of ‘unification’here only in the sense which is possible in a suprastateconstitutional order, in which the degree of integrationcannot reach so far as to eliminate the individual‘national identity’ of the member states. TheConstitution confirms this counterlimit (to the limita-tions of sovereignty from which European publicpower ‘originates’) inherent in the ‘fundamental, politi-cal and constitutional structure’ of the member statesand in the respect of their ‘essential functions’.

Unity in diversity – a European Union motto – thuscannot be pursued following the traditional state-basedtechniques for imposing uniformity. These techniqueswould be negated by the very concept of ‘diversity’.The unification specific to suprastate constitutionalismshuns mechanisms of superimposition and commandand is implemented through principles of coordina-tion, homogeneity and consensus. It avoids compe-tence hierarchies and is instead organised in accordancewith criteria of subsidiarity and mutual recognition. AsRudolf Smend explains, it is not a ‘datum’ but the‘result’ of a process dynamics in which the circularnature of the positions is also the basic premise onwhich the equilibrium of the whole rests. Unification,therefore, in the sense of homogeneity: the coexis-tence, on the basis of shared criteria, of different polit-ical autonomies in a legal order that undertakes toresolve the internal antinomies of organisation andfunctioning.

What are the main points of this work of innovationand renewal which translate into elements of intercon-nection among legal systems, of unification, in the

sense defined?

a) The first and most emblematic factor of unificationof the Union is represented by the specific procedurewith which, in a unitary framework, it endeavours togovern the sum total of the existing diversities inside it.Collective diversities, and no longer – as we have seen -diversities of individual member states. Voluntaristic,not identity, diversities. Here the process of integrationactually aims, conceptually and practically, within theunity of the system, to embrace the action of groups ofmember states which decide to set up a closer andstronger cooperation ‘aimed at attaining the Union’sobjectives’.

In the constitutional view of these coalitions of thewilling, their diversity is viewed as a resource for theUnion and not as a difficulty or disuniting element.Their formation is actually ‘intended to reinforce itsprocess of integration’. And indeed to ‘protect its inter-ests’, with a projection towards external functions rep-resentative of the Union as a whole.

Politically and juridically, we have reached the point ofgreatest tension of the Union’s life experience. On oneside, we have the abandonment of the concept itself ofconstitutional unity in favour of the option of a simpleeconomic facilities zone. On the other, there is the scat-tering of State nuclei that choose their own pathtowards a different sub-European Union.

The maintenance of unity is entrusted in theConstitution to the teleological aspect, which plays acentral role in all aspects of European constitutionalunification. It is indeed the ‘attainment of the Union’sobjectives’ that represents the key to the formation ofspecial orders inside its own order. They are undeniablylinked to the ‘respect of the Constitution and of Unionlaw’. Their ‘authorisation’ stems from a European deci-sion of the Council at the Commission’s recommenda-tion approved by the European Parliament.Furthermore, it is the Council and the Commissionthat guarantee the ‘coherence’ of the action ofenhanced cooperation with the Union’s policies.

Nevertheless, the application of constitutional provi-sions inside enhanced cooperations allows bending and‘slippage’ compared with the clumsier decision-makingprocedures applied in the general system. And eachsafeguarding clause – in the first instance the costlyunanimity required for the European authorisationdecision – is observed to be a paper counterweight tothe political will of a group of states to proceed togeth-er, a will that is in any case achievable outside the pre-scribed procedures. It is therefore only the constraintof European purpose which truly counts in legitimat-ing the enhanced cooperations, in order to turn them

21 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

Constitution and Unificationby Andrea Manzella

into effective tools of progressive or deferred unity.Through them, in a sense, the Union is gambling onand investing in its future. And it also explains why itcan administratively pick up the tabs not only for thecost of functioning of the common institutions, butalso the actual ‘expenses deriving from the implemen-tation’ of enhanced cooperation.

This actual realistic vision of ‘possible unity’ within thecommon institutional framework (or of the inevitabledifferentiation in the plural system, currently number-ing 25 but which already conceptually includes withinits boundaries all the Balkans and Turkey) has led to athird way being envisaged between voluntarism and theprecariousness of the enhanced cooperations and thecomplicated stability of the common institutions: a‘permanent structured cooperation’ as a special subsec-tion of the system which, once created, at the requestof the states, no longer steps outside the institutionalconfiguration.

The outlook of this quite special ‘cooperation’ towardsa priority objective of the Union - security and com-mon defence policy; its ‘reservation’ for the memberstates that satisfy higher criteria in terms of militarycapacity, an equally permanent ‘opening up’ to theother states: these are all elements that confirm theleaning of the European Constitution towards resultsinvolving unification around the Union’s objectives.This unification is meant to be achieved with the pres-ence of avant-garde states together with that of groupsof States lagging behind, provided they are ‘kepttogether’ by the fact of pursuing the same objectives.

b) The unitary effort to contain ‘orders within theorder’, which is so visible in the great issue of enhancedcooperations (even though they have a constraint ofspeciality with respect to the general order of theUnion), becomes both more subtle and more profoundwhen the Constitution sets up mechanisms of unifica-tion between the Union order and those of the mem-ber states.

A unification factor in this sense was the elimination ofthe compartmentalisation of the Union order in threedifferent parts - the ‘pillars’: that of economic andmonetary union; that of common foreign and securitypolicy; that of cooperation in justice and home affairs.The separation was intended to restrict application ofthe suprastate community method – and therefore thepowers of the Commission and the EuropeanParliament – exclusively to the first pillar (economicand monetary union). The removal of the pillars didnot completely eliminate the diversity of the other twofields (foreign and home policy). Nevertheless it nowconfigures these procedural diversities as exceptionswith respect to the general rules governing the entirecomplex Union order, no longer as general rules of twospecific sectors – which among other things are deci-sive for the very identity of the Union – to flank withequal status the general community rule which appliesto all the rest.

The correction is not just a face lift but is aimed at pro-ducing effects of homogeneity on the order. But whatis of greater interest here is the fact that, since the ‘sep-arate sectors’ are those having a definite intergovern-mental vocation and reflecting a traditional reservationof state sovereignty (the sword, the scales), the topplingof the pillars affected not only the suprastate constitu-tional framework but also and specifically the degree oflinkage and interrelatedness of the orders of the mem-ber states with that of the Union.

c) The narrowest point in this interweaving of orders isnow somewhat paradoxically located precisely in thepart in which there should be the most definite separa-tion between Union and member states: the distribu-tion of competences. In itself the interpretation of theparadigm of the competences of the Union and themember states seems to confirm the rigid principleaccording to which ‘the limits of Union competencesare governed by the principle of conferral’. And so,‘under the principle of conferral, the Union shall actwithin the limits of the competences conferred upon itby the member states in the Constitution’.

However, this rigidity is softened when a teleologicalrelationship between Union ‘competences’ and ‘objec-tives’ inside the Constitution itself is established. Thesumptuous identification of the Union’s objectives,their irreducibility to specific ends must therefore beviewed against the wide range of (exclusive, competing,coordinating) competences of the Union. Havingascertained this constraint, an all-comprehensiveexpansion of the ‘legal base’ that possibly supports theaction of the Community institutions emerges. Ofcourse the Union pursues its objectives in accordancewith the competences attributed to it in theConstitution, although the general nature of the objec-tives and the flexibility of the competences make theUnion an organisation which has general aims just likethe member states.

This ultimate sharing of aims between Union andstates perfectly justifies three clauses: the clause of theprimacy of Union legislation over the law of the states(originally jurisprudential, but now significantly consti-tutionalised); the pre-emptive clause in favour of theUnion in competing matters (such that the memberstates exercise their competence to the extent to whichthe Union has not exercised its own or has decided tocease exercising it); the flexibility clause establishingthat if an action of the Union appears necessary toachieve one of the objectives of the Constitution with-out the latter providing the relative action powers, theCouncil of Ministers, the Commission, the EuropeanParliament, acting in concert can adopt the ‘appropriatemeasures’.

Clearly, these three clauses further ‘open up’ communi-cation between state orders and the Union order. Theprimacy clause, by modifying the system of the sourcesof law in each member state more than any other ele-ment expresses the overall constitutional substance of

22 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

the new order. The preemptive clause acknowledgesthat in competing matters the Union’s action has thesame nature as the regulatory action of the memberstates (plus the advantage of banning substitutive stateaction while that of the Union is in progress). Lastly,the flexibility clause allows powers that are the Union’scompetences, to be extended precisely to achieve theobjectives of the Constitution.The system of the Union’s competences, with its con-nection to its objectives, thus represents the area inwhich the connective tissue joining up the Europeanorders is thickest.

d) This observation may be affirmed therefore evenwithout reference to the principle of subsidiarity whichcontinues to represent the Grundnorm of the Europeanconstitutional mechanism. The insertion point of thisprinciple actually remains the evaluation of the objec-tives pursued (the teleological criterion therefore stilloccupies a central place in any coherent view of theUnion order). They represent the parameter with whichto compare the ‘scope’, ‘sufficiency’ and ‘effects’ of theaction to pursue them.

The strategic difference between this principle and theclauses examined above, in relaxation of the principleof conferral, lies not so much in the fact the clauses areall in favour of an arrogation while subsidiarity is aprinciple of arrogation-devolution (and it is the latterthat prevails, at least in the declarations: ‘to guaranteethat decisions are taken as close as possible to theUnion’s citizens’). The difference lies above all in thefact that with it infra-institutional communicationinside the Union is guaranteed to the point that all theCommunity architecture (from the EuropeanParliament to the smallest municipal council, from thePresident of the European Commission to the presi-dent of the regional community) is informed by the cri-terion of functional interchangeability. Preventive con-trol of the national parliaments and, through them, ofthe respective regional assemblies, the subsequent con-trol of the Court of Justice, are directed not towardsconservative aims but actually to safeguard the objec-tives-competences relationship in accordance with thecriteria of ‘scope’, ‘sufficiency’ and ‘effects’. The recentdecision handed down by our Constitutional Court (no.3 of 2004) which, on appeal from the regions, respond-ed in a boomerang decision by shifting upwards, in thestate attributions, not only administrative power butindeed the actual legislative power regarding ‘large-scaleworks’, is a significant precedent for what may happen(and, in view of the assumptions, probably will happen,taking into account the great weight taken on by the‘dialogue between courts’).

The legal value of the principle of subsidiarity there-fore lies in the penetrating efficacy in unifying theorders – which coexist in close interrelation - in theconstitutional framework of the Union. The newConstitution takes this efficacy to its logical final con-sequences, linking to this unit order also regional andlocal subjects. The substantial co-ownership shared

with the national parliaments – albeit via the softmethod of consultation – of the power of early warn-ing regarding failure to observe the principle of sub-sidiarity and the obligation for Union institutions totake account of the assessment made of the financialand administrative impact on the government of theregional and local authorities of the Community legis-lation, represent the legislative elements that have sym-bolically broken through the state-level diaphragmbetween the Union and the sub-State level subjects.And also with regard to this aspect they have led tosubstantial unification: in a ‘Constitution with manyStates’ but also ‘with many regions and local authori-ties’.

The same definition of the national identity of mem-ber states changes significantly and now conforms totheir fundamental political and constitutional structure,including the local and regional autonomy system.

e) Performance value of legal-political unification isalso assumed by ‘simplification’ (with the reductionfrom 15 to 6) and above all the change of denomina-tion of the Union’s legal instruments, accompanied bya redefinition of their contents.

The Constitution performs five operations: the aboli-tion of the classification of sources linked to the origi-nal specialist tradition specific to the Union; the simul-taneous introduction for the legal instruments ofdenominations that generally correspond to the com-mon language of the national legal systems (law, frame-work law, regulations, delegated legislation); the possi-bility to use the ‘new’ instruments for all matters (thusproviding further confirmation of the demolition ofthe ‘pillars’, with the exception of the sectoral speciali-ties); the non proliferation clause referring to atypicalacts (‘where the Constitution does not specify the typeof act to be adopted, the institutions shall select it on acase-by-case basis, in compliance with the applicableprocedures’); the definition of a regulatory hierarchyamong the legislative acts of the Union (which containthe ‘essential elements’ of the governance of a sector)and the implementing acts adopted by the memberstates (which contain ‘all measures of national law nec-essary to implement legally binding Union acts’). Theseare the operations by which the system of legal sourcesof the Union is innovated. They make it more compre-hensible to the citizens (thereby achieving a result ofpolitical unification of very great significance, by virtueof the value, political that is, of the principle of legalcertainty). But above all, these are operations that, bymeans of a skilful use of defining techniques aimed atunifying a complex system, align and naturally com-bine, with no further semantic and exegetic imbalances,the sources of the Union with those of the individualnational states to form a substantial unity.

f) As has been seen so far, the process of Europeanconstitutional unification is carried out as a function ofthe Union’s objectives. The nodes that it embraces rep-resent also the nodal points of the network linking the

23 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

legal systems that coexist inside the Union – united intheir diversity, in order to achieve the ‘European’ goals.The attainment of the Union’s ‘legal personality’appears to be the result of rather than the premise forthis process.

However, European constitutional unification is basedalso on a system of ‘founding’ values, ‘common to themember states’. These are values referring to institu-tional organization: ‘democracy’, ‘equality’, ‘state oflaw’ and the relationship between institutions andhuman rights. And they are values that refer to theorganisation of a ‘society characterised by pluralism,non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity andequality between men and women’.The value foundation of the European Union is thusprojected beyond state-based conditions and seeksdeeper rooting in the very ‘characteristics’ of Europeansociety.

The discourse on unification, however, must again bebased on closely linked structural nodes, this timebecause of the constitutional values, in order to giveunitary form to the Union order. The first of thesenodes is European citizenship.

When first enunciated at Maastricht, the idea ofEuropean citizenship immediately appeared as thatwhich better than anything else expressed the linking oforders (a meso-institution, as it were, between one andthe others). This citizenship did not replace nationalcitizenship but was added to and completed it. Eventhe severe decision concerning Maastricht handeddown by the German constitutional court identified inthis institution a breaking point in the theory of theseparation of orders: ‘with European citizenship, alegal democratic bond is formed among the citizens ofthe member states which confers a legally binding formon the degree of homogeneity that actually exists’.In fact, in view of the long trek from Maastricht (1992)to the Constitution (2004), citizenship is an expressionof a ‘homogeneity’ that is not only factual. It attains alegal fullness that gradually extends in two directions -contents and guarantees. In both, the concept of citi-zenship shows its organising force, that extends acrossthe various orders.

The contents. The idea of citizenship is from the out-set in excess with respect to the character-typing of thefive original rights (right of circulation and residence;right to vote and stand as candidate in municipal elec-tions and for the European Parliament; right to diplo-matic and consular protection; right of petition; rightto good administration). It is immediately clear that itcomprises also ‘the fundamental rights, as guaranteedby the European Convention on the Protection ofHuman Rights and the Fundamental Freedoms and asthey result from the constitutional traditions commonto the member states’. The Charter of FundamentalFreedoms, drawn up by the ‘first’ EuropeanConvention and that the ‘second’ Convention incorpo-rates into the constitutional treaty, will afford European

citizenship a full and in many ways richer and moremodern content than that of the national catalogues ofrights.

However, the most important aspect for constitutionalunification is the inclusion in the Charter of rights of‘constitutional subsidiarity’ clauses. By means of thelatter open communication is set up that will allow themore favourable between the European constitutionalformulation of rights and the national formulation tobe chosen. Once again, as we saw for the general prin-ciple of subsidiarity, constitutionalisation leads to a uni-fication of orders.

One observation concerning this point is that the fun-damental rights, disregarding individual-jurisdictionaland collective-political protection, to be illustrated inthe following, ‘shall constitute’ according to theConstitution ‘general principles of Union’s law’. Also inthis sense, therefore, they have a transversal function ofunity among orders in accordance with the specific vir-tuality of the legal principles.

The guarantees. The aspect of the guarantees illustrat-ed here is not that of the protection of the individualsphere of rights, in accordance with the jurisprudenceof the Court of Justice, in constant interaction withnational jurisprudences. It is that of the protection ofthe collective sphere of rights – of the collective citi-zenship, in other words. The ‘obvious risk of a seriousbreach of European values by a member state’ or their‘serious and persistent breach’ can lead to the limitationof the rights of the state in question in the Union: wewould thus have a member with a diminished status. Inother words, when the national soul of European citi-zenship suffers compression during the enjoyment ofcommon constitutional values, it is the entire Unionthat reacts as though this compression affected each ofits member s.

Besides, the political guarantee of the rights representsa counter-limit to the limit of respecting the nationalidentity of the member states, in the sense that thestates may neither violate nor jeopardise the constitu-tional values of the Union even by advancing claims ofnational specificity.Here, the indivisibility of rights and constitutional uni-fication overlap. The connection between them, nowthat the Charter of Rights subscribes to a ‘systematicoverall political project’, has an obvious function oforganising the European orders. It actually representsthe basic premise for a Union that is transformed froma legal organisation to a constitutional organisation.

Andrea Manzella, university professor of constitu-tional law, is Director of the Centre of Studies onParliament of the Luiss University of Rome. MEP dur-ing the 1994-1999 parliament, he is currently memberof the Senate of the Republic, Deputy Chairman ofthe 14th Committee on European Union Policies,member of the Parliamentary Assembly of theCouncil of Europe.

24 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

Britain’s general election,held on May 5th, may havereturned Tony Blair as

Prime Minister with a solid major-ity in Parliament (a 67 seat major-ity over all other parties), but theresult brought little comfort toany of the three major parties.

For Blair’s New Labour Party it was, in reality, an unin-spiring result. Labour achieved only 35 per cent of thevote, representing a sizeable fall from the last election.This is a lower per cent vote than the party receivedwhen it lost the 1979 election to Margaret Thatcher(and secured only 268 seats); and is the worst vote forany winning party for over 30 years. And, interestingly,Labour is now the second party in England (behind the Conservatives in the English popular vote,and reliant upon its large majorities in Scotland andWales).

The Conservatives also did badly. Their vote - 32 percent of the total - was only 1 per cent up on their dis-astrous showing in the 2001 general election and 2 percent up on their worst ever post war result in 1997. TheConservative leader, Michael Howard, was well awarethat in this election it was unlikely that he would win,but he had hoped to do well enough to build a sturdyplatform for winning next time. In this strategy he wasnot successful. A cold-eyed look at the electoral statis-tics will show that in order to win the next election, bysecuring a majority over all other parties, theConservatives still need to win over 140 seats next time,an almost impossible task. The blunt fact is that it willneed a political earthquake to put a Conservative PrimeMinister in Downing Street at the next election.

So the Conservatives will now engage in a period ofintrospection and division. An internal debate can beexpected that will incapacitate the party for somemonths, if not years. Already, only weeks after the elec-tion, battle lines between ‘modernisers’ and ‘traditional-ists’ and between rural Tories and suburban

Conservatives have been drawn. And these divisionswill be played out in an organisational conflict betweenthe majority of Conservative MPs in the House ofCommons (who will seek to make the Tories more up-to-date and acceptable to what they see as a changingBritain) and grass-roots activists who want the party toremain true to what they see as its heritage (a sociallyconservative ‘British’ traditionalism which rejects mul-ticulturalism and European integration, and stressesissues like law and order).

But, if Labour and the Conservatives are unable todraw much comfort from the election, then Britain’sthird party, the Liberal Democrats, is not much betteroff. They did relatively well in the popular vote as theyincreased their vote from 18.3 per cent to 22 per centand their leader, Charles Kennedy, is right to claimthat, with his party now possessing 62 seats, more thanat any time since the war, Britain is now a genuinethree-party polity.

But the central problem for the Liberal Democratsremains: Their main objective in the 2005 campaignwas to replace – or be seen as on the way to replacing- the Conservatives as the major opposition party. Andthis strategy failed. The Lib-Dems won only 8 extraseats, taking their total number to 62 (compared to 197for the Tories.)

Intriguingly, although the Liberal Democrat leadershipexpected to gain a large number of Conservative seats(because in these seats Labour voters were thoughtready to switch to the Lib-Dems because of oppositionto Blair’s policy on the war on Iraq) they, in fact, tooknone. This gives the Lib Dems a real strategic headacheabout how to progress from here on: do they try againto replace the Tories as the ‘real opposition’ or do they

25 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

The British GeneralElection 2005 – An

Interpretationby Stephen Haseler

The Conservatives will nowEngage in a Period of

Introspection and Division

go left, and undercut New Labour amongst some of itscore constituents?

More importantly, though, than the narrow interestsand hopes of the politicians, the British general elec-tion result shows, once again, how the country contin-ues to tolerate a very un-democratic and un-representa-tive electoral system. The winning party formed thegovernment (without the need for a coalition partner)with 356 seats on only 35 per cent of the vote; the sec-ond party secured 197 seats with 32 per cent of thevote; and the third party secured 62 seats with 22 percent of the vote. But as both Labour and theConservatives support the existing electoral system -the Conservatives may today lose by it, but know theycan gain by it one day - the system is unlikely to bechanged.

Britain will therefore go into the next election (in fouror five years time) with a three-party system that couldproduce unpredictable results. On the face of it theConservatives cannot win outright next time (themountain is too high to climb); butLabour could lose - in the sensethat no party could hold a majori-ty.

Everything will depend on ‘exter-nal’ events. Should the Britisheconomy begin to slide into reces-sion (and, as of writing, there weresigns of such a development) thenthe Labour Party, whether underTony Blair or Gordon Brown,could become very unpopular andvery soon. The Conservative Partywould normally be the naturalrecipient for disaffected voters, butif the Tories are still divided - andincoherent about their messageand identity - then the anti-government sentimentcould be swept up by the Liberal Democrats.

Much too depends upon the great question that hasdivided and soured British politics for so much of thepost-war period - the European issue. If in the nexttwo or three years Britain has to face a referendum onthe constitution - or any other big test of the country’sfundamental attitude towards Europe - then Britishpolitics could face a serious upheaval. For instance,should the public say ‘yes’ to the European constitution– or to any other serious act of integration - then theConservative Party, no matter any new found discipline,could founder asunder on the issue.

Should Europe become an over-riding issue then theparty will continue to be divided, with a sizeable num-ber of MPs continuing to flirt with the extreme posi-tion of withdrawal from the EU. The ideas and cultureof the pro-withdrawal party, UKIP (the UnitedKingdom Independence Party), remains attractive tomany Conservative activists in rural areas. And there

remains within and around the Conservative Party agroup of political activists (probably representingaround 20-25 per cent of the wider electorate) whowant to see Britain reverse existing integration by ‘re-patriating functions back to London and, should thisde-integration become unattainable, they would arguefor pulling the country out of the Union altogether.Should Britain’s relationship with Europe become thedominant political issue then this grass-roots Toryismcan be expected to clash - probably irreconcilably- withmore centrist Tory MPs, and such a divide could causea fundamental re-alignment of the parties.

Stephen Haseleris Professor of Government at London MetropolitanUniversity and Director of its European ResearchForum (www.europeanresearchform.com). He is theauthor of many books including ‘Super-State. The NewEurope and its Challenge to America’.

26 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

Ihave spent morethan one year ofmy life working

in the WesternBalkans, as the chair-man of an interna-tional commissionthat also had amongits members Richardvon Weizsäcker, KiroGligorov, Carl Bildt,Zlatko Lagumdzija,Ilir Meta, KemalDervis, JanezPotocnik, GoranSvilanovic, MirceaGeoana, Avis

Bohlen: all of us with experience in government, someof us from Western Europe and the US and some oth-ers from the Balkans. Our final Report was released on12 April, it is now on the web site of the commission(www.balkan-commission.org) and we are currentlydevoting ourselves to publicising it throughout the cap-itals. Our road show is aimed at convincing both theBalkans’ leaders and the international community that acourageous political endeavour is needed to movethings forward (also facing the issues that are not easyto face) because the status quo is unsustainable. It doesnot lead to any desirable future. It might only lead to anendless confinement of the region in its past.As our report underlines, almost a century has passedsince 1914, when a summer shot in Sarajevo triggeredthe first of the two world wars that indelibly markedthe 20th century as the ‘century of madness and selfdestruction’.

Two world wars were enough for Western Europe tomove towards integration, aiming at internal peacethroughout the construction of the Union we havenow. They were not enough for the Western Balkans todo the same. Their unsolved ethnic and religious con-flicts, frozen for decades under the communist rule,exploded as soon as that rule was over in the early1990s’, leading to new wars, new crimes and new vic-tims. When the Dayton agreements were eventuallysigned, the entire European continent brought the cen-tury of madness and self destruction to its end.

Ten years after Dayton, we can be satisfied of what hasbeen achieved. The region is relatively stable, militaryconflicts and ethnic cleansing are over and free elec-

tions are being held (more or less satisfactorily) in allthe countries. Peace was badly needed and peace hasbeen reached. However, the region lives a suspendedpresent, more mindful of the past than of the future.The arrangements adopted on the basis of the Daytonagreements are not useful to pave the way to the future.Power sharing among ethnic groups, weaker states thantheir own enclaves and exceptional powers bestowedupon outsiders have stopped the bloodshed, but havegreatly impeded steps forward such as the growth ofresponsible national leaderships and their own renewal.A preliminary conclusion, that can hardly be chal-lenged, is that the status quo has outlived its formerusefulness.

Paradoxical as it might seem, this widely shared conclu-sion is not enough for the Balkan countries to moveahead nor is it enough for the international communi-ty, and mostly for the European Union, to promote thenecessary change. Within the region, the stakes linkedto the past are still highly rewarding and replacing themis politically costly. Within the European Union every-body understands that accession is the only sensiblefuture for the countries of the region, but Europeanpublic opinion is more and more reluctant to committo further enlargements. We consequently risk a verydangerous stalemate, with the Western Balkans becom-

ing more and more a depressed (also economically)ghetto and we Europeans not just ignoring them (forwe could not ignore them) but continuing in our heavymilitary and financial commitment, the only purpose ofwhich would be to keep things as they are now.

Courage and farsighted vision are needed to put thefuture beyond the narrow horizons of this uncertainand long-lived present. And courage and vision are firstof all needed in the countries of the region. Their lead-ers, and at least parts of their citizens, know that thestandards for membership of the European Union arefar from being reached. Ways and timing can certainlybe discussed, but there are demands that areinescapable for them and in their own interest. To

27 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

The Balkans A Call for Courage

The Dayton Agreementsare not Useful to Pavethe way to the Future

by Giuliano Amato

begin with, their preference lies on discussing status asthe main topic, but they cannot ignore that the higherthe number of the expected member states, the small-er their size will be and the lower their economic viabil-ity will also be. We can be as flexible as might be need-ed in recognising states in the region, but economicintegration among them certainly is a prerequisite oftheir viability as member states of the EuropeanUnion. This is why our report suggests completion ofthe free trade area in the region, leading to a customunion with the EU, regional infrastructures (both phys-ical and institutional) that facilitate trade and capitalflows, and labour market and travel policies within theregion that support economic integration.

Economic integration is the first and basic ingredientof the viability that the Balkans’ states should givethemselves. But it is not the only one. They also shouldreshape their institutional machineries in order to makethem oriented more towards delivering decisions andservices than towards power sharing. Furthermoreexceptional powers such as the Bonn powers of theHigh Representative in Bosnia should disappear onbehalf of definite responsibilities of government,bestowed upon the officials elected by the citizens.Finally, all of the states of the region should complywith the rule of law. This means on the one hand toisolate and reduce corruption and organised crime andon the other hand to put an end to all forms of ethnicdiscrimination (which are milder than ethnic cleansing,but no less unacceptable) and replace it with equaltreatment to which each individual citizen is entitled,independently of the ethnic group he/she belongs to.Is this too much? Is it too demanding for countries thatwere at war with each other until a few years ago?Certainly it is not, if we only think that the expecteddestination of these countries is the European Union,where the described principles are an essential part ofthe underpinnings upon which the Union itself isbased. But it is certainly demanding in the context ofthe values and feelings that still prevail in the region andsupply the political arena with the main and paramountresources that have cause in the competition for leader-ship.

Let us take the case of Kosovo as an example. Everyreasonable person in Serbia has already understood thatleaving it to the local majority of Albanians is part of asolution rather than a problem for Serbia itself. Ofcourse the rights of the Serbian minority there have tobe effectively safeguarded (and currently they are not)and the area where this minority is mostly concentrat-ed (Mitrovitza and its surroundings) could also have aspecial international status. But if someone in Belgradeseriously thinks about the future of his/her country,Serbia comes to his or her mind, not Kosovo, which formany years has already been somebody else’s problem.The only real doubt is whether Montenegro will beindependent or still part of the same state. However,this is a politically sensitive and tricky issue. Should apolitical leader plead for separation, he/she would runquite a big political risk to be seen as an enemy of

national identity.

There are political leaders who are aware that remain-ing prisoners of the past do not provide any help forbuilding the future. But it is not easy for them to turnto new future ideas such as integration in the EuropeanUnion with all its implications in terms of economicgrowth, students and business mobility, having voice inthe wider world and not just within national borders. Iam confident that public opinion could be (and in partalready is) very open and more and more eager to fol-low along this new path. It entirely depends oncourage, that kind of courage that always is necessarywhen sorting out of vicious circles becomes anurgency.

We cannot ask the Balkans’ leaders to be the only onestaking the risk of being courageous. The EuropeanUnion has to promote the change that is needed andconsequently we, citizens of the existing Europe,should be supportive and courageous. Do we want tokeep caring for the Balkans as if they were a sort ofcolony of ours? Do we want to keep our soldiers thereto manage a form of stability that depends on publicorder, while it should depend on respect of humanrights and the dynamics of economic growth as is thecase in more deeply rooted democracies? Are we sowary of further diversities in our European family asnot to formally accept others in it, ignoring the fact thatthey already have joined our societies as second or thirdclass members?

This is where politics, and political families, play theiressential roles, for neither the Balkans nor our Unioncan wait for the other to make the first move. Theyhave to move together, relying on each other and ontheir mutual influence.

Let me indicate a crucial implication of the demand togo beyond the status quo as soon as possible (ourreport suggests that in 2006 all the countries of theregion should have their own road maps and their fasttracks towards accession). Up to now, we have acted inthe Balkans on the assumption that whenever there arestandards to be complied with, complying with themalways is a hundred per cent pre-requisite for whateverfurther step. And yet we have been forced to take noteof the fact that in the suspended present of today thereare standards that are not (and cannot be) satisfied. Itdoes not make any sense to remain where we are, withthe danger not to move forward and to have a fall back.Our report strongly recommends the opening of theprocess of accession, which would allow us to availourselves of the incentives and disincentives inherentto the process itself for lifting up the level of compli-ance with the standards. Against this backdrop, the EUinstitutions have done the right thing, on the one sidein making the first (and preliminary) steps with Serbiaand Montenegro, despite a good, but not yet ‘full’cooperation with the The Hague Tribunal, and at thesame in delaying the final steps with Croatia, which, atits stage, should demonstrate ‘full’ cooperation and

28 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

hand over the still missing General Gotinova to theTribunal.

This is the reasoning backing the proposal, that thereport makes, of a European Conference to be held inthe second half of 2006, aiming at identifying the inter-locutors in the region (the expected member states withwhom to open negotiations), solving therefore theKosovo issue (upon the formula of independencewithout the prerogatives of sovereignty, that should begradually handed over to Kosovar institutions as longas the process of accession proceeds) and giving eachof the identified interlocutors its own road map toaccession.

There is a final point that perhaps is even more impor-tant than the previous ones: how to involve not justinstitutions and officials, but real people, ordinary citi-zens, in the process of ‘Europeanisation’. Amongst themost discouraging findings of our commission is thatthe youth, young men and women under 30 who sharethe values of Europe most keenly and who vote forpro-European parties most regularly, are those whoexperience the greatest difficulties in visiting the EU.More of 70 per cent of students in Serbia have nevertravelled abroad. Their difficulties are due to us, to thecostly and lengthy procedures they have to undergo toget visas. Courage is needed here too! Security is a seri-ous matter and filtering immigrants is no less serious.But a special programme could be envisaged for whitelisting special categories and facilitating their entranceinto our countries. It is the best and most efficient wayto lay the foundation upon which accession may bebuilt as a solid priority on both sides.

A new, fresh start in 2006 at the level of institutionsand what we call ‘the smart visas’ programme at thelevel of civil society. These are the two tracks uponwhich we could move on towards the accession of allthe Balkans countries by 2014. From Sarajevo toSarajevo. It is very symbolic, but it is also realistic. Ittook fifteen years for the former communist countriesto pass from their communist status to their formalentrance into our Union. It may equally take fifteenyears for the countries of the Western Balkans to passfrom the end of their wars to the same destination. Letus see it as a hope, as a common hope. And let us workfor it to come true.

Giuliano Amatois a Senator and former Prime Minister of Italy.Furthermore, he is senior Vice President of the Partyof European Socialists (PES) and chaired the‘International Commission on the Balkans’.

29 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

On April 18th, a little morethan one month after thesensational socialist party

electoral victory of March 14th,Spain’s new Prime Minister JoseLuis Rodriguez Zapatero made abold public announcement:Spanish troops in Iraq should bewithdrawn as soon as technicallypossible. The breaking news sentshock-waves not only through hiscountry but also Europe and,

above all, the United States. For the Partido Popular, afterits humiliating defeat at the polls, it was only addinginsult to injury. For the US conservative administration,Zapatero’s challenge amounted to a cowardly retreat ofSpain as an ally and a crime of lese majeste. But it had tobe done.

One has to look beyond this spectacular episode andthe impassioned headlines it produced around theworld and consider the rationale behind Prime MinisterRodriguez Zapatero’s decision: moral consequence andpolitical coherence. The troops’ retreat from Iraq wasonly the first decision that showed the change ofSpanish foreign policy compared to the previous gov-ernment. It was the beginning of a new mindset ininternational affairs that marked a real comeback oftraditional patterns in our relations and alliances withinEurope and the rest of the world. It was a return to ourhistorical and geographical roots after a parenthesischaracterised by Aznar’s priority on transatlantic rela-tions above Europe and against our allies in the Union.

From the new Madrid government’s perspective, thereturn of the army units from Iraq was only a questionof political honesty. From the outset of the long con-flict between the USA and Baghdad on, the Spanishrole, including the first socialist government of FelipeGonzalez, was as a faithful ally in the UN coalition ledby the US during the first Iraq war. After the PartidoPopular victory of 1996, when the socialist party wentinto opposition, the PSOE kept on being clearlyopposed to the despotic regime of Saddam Hussein.

Over many years it supported all policies from theinternational community to make Hussein accountablefor the military arsenal he was suspected of hiding. Andthe Socialist International supported the democraticopposition in Iraq. Thereafter we stood by theUNSCOM inspections and supported their search forthe caches of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)supposedly in control of the Iraqis.

When the United States - ever since President Bushchose Saddam Hussein as his nemesis - started to esca-late the conflict in order to invade Iraq regardless ofUN resolutions not allowing military force, the PSOEleadership opposed any unilateral action as a matter ofprinciple. Spain will support the fight against interna-tional terrorism in Iraq or elsewhere, but within theframework of international multilateral institutions.

In the election programme, the PSOE doctrine wasclearly supporting a robust strategy both defensive andcounter-offensive against international terrorist organi-sations, but did not support the American way of ‘waron terror’. During its campaign, Zapatero insisted timeand again that not only the presence of Spanish troopswas against international law but also that it had beenjustified on a flawed basis. We did not think that theexistence of WMD was sufficiently proved. After theinvasion, months of thorough inspections in Iraq failedto find evidence of those ‘secret arsenals’. And a seriesof independent and official reports, including theEnquiry Commissions of the US Congress and theCIA, stated unequivocally that it was ‘dead wrong’ intel-ligence that established the existence of those WMD.

According to the Aznar government, our military wassent to Iraq on a peace keeping mission and to help inhumanitarian and reconstruction tasks. But Zapaterofound that in reality they were part of an occupyingarmy and were perceived as such by the Iraqi popula-tion. Above all, the Spanish army was also targeted asenemy by the insurgent militias that fight the foreigninvasion. This explains why several Spanish intelligencemen had to pay the ultimate price in an ambush inBaghdad.

When it became clear that the White House and thePentagon chose to bypass the United Nation’s SecurityCouncil and attack Iraq, there was a spontaneous oppo-sition in Spanish public opinion evidently opposing theunilateral US military intervention. Nevertheless, Aznarwas determined to support the Washington ‘neocon’aggressive policy. Therefore he turned his back on themajor EU allies, France and Germany, and decided tojoin the ‘coalition of the willing’ to go and attackSaddam along the US. It was Aznar’s personal decisionto commit Spain to invading Iraq as he did not evenconsult the parliament.

30 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

One Year of Spanish Foreign Policy: SocialistGovernment Returns To Europe

By Enrique Baron Crespo / MEP Chairman of International Trade Committee

European Parliament

Spanish Troops in Iraq shouldbe Withdrawn as Soon as

Technically Possible

Thus, it was hardly surprising that after winning theelection, Rodriguez Zapatero was eager to be consis-tent with his party’s electoral programme. He explainedhis government’s rapid decision in straightforwardwords: ‘We cannot support a war that is illegal andtherefore immoral’. This simple proposition entailed amore profound philosophy. The new socialist govern-ment will guarantee that Spain abides by internationallaw, supports the UN and opposes any action basedupon unilateralism. In the whole history of the conflictwith Iraq, from the beginning on, the socialist party hassupported the UN’s thorough inspection of Iraqi terri-tory in order to establish whether or not it had WMD.From day one of his premiership, Zapatero clearly stat-ed his position to reject any unilateral alliance solelybased upon the military might of a superpower that willnot respect the diplomatic rules of the internationalcommunity.

Shortly before the start of the US-led invasion of Iraq,Aznar ignored polls that showed that 85 per cent of theSpaniards were clearly against the military intervention.Nonetheless, he chose to join Bush and Blair in theAzores Pact. There was out-rage in the vast majority ofthe Spanish population. Thebombings and attacks in Iraqwere immediately contested inthe most important Spanishcities by means of peacefuldemonstrations where the cit-izens shouted their own‘shock and awe’. Millions of Spaniards took over thestreets to show frontal opposition to the unilateral warof the US. This mobilisation, that lasted several weeks,was ignored and mocked by the Partido Popular govern-ment. But it was there in the streets of Madrid,Barcelona and other cities. The support for the social-ist party began gaining momentum to establish the newmajority that appeared at the general election a fewmonths later. And it must also be remembered that,right after the Madrid terrorist attacks at the Atochatrain station on March 11th 2004, even more Spaniardsfollowed the call for massive demonstrations againstterrorism.

Since Rodriguez Zapatero has assumed power, he hasset the fight against international terror as one of themain priorities of his government. Given the tragicprice Spain had to pay on March 11th 2004 to Islamicfanaticism, it could not be otherwise. Unfortunately,Spain has a long history of suffering terrorist attacksfrom the Basque separatist organisation ETA. Butespecially because of this long and painful experience,the new socialist authorities feel that this struggleshould be tackled by other means and methods thanthose of the American ‘war on terror’. The Madridtrains bombings were the proof that one cannot suc-ceed against international terror with bombs and tanks.Instead, intelligence sharing and exchange are the keyweapons.

Consistent with this priority, the socialist governmenthas undertaken a drastic review of the past antiterror-ist and security policies and has adopted an ambitiousplan to implement a muscular strategy to prevent andfight terrorism in its first months in power. Army,police and security forces were fundamentally reorgan-ised and their forces substantially enhanced and mod-ernised to match the challenges of terrorist organisa-tions operating in our territory. Furthermore, thehuman and technical security resources were alsorestructured to boost international cooperation withthe EU, the USA and other continents. Our intelligenceservices were also updated to ‘state of the art’ tech-nologies to match the challenges of international terrornetwork operations worldwide. At the same time dur-ing its first year in power, the Spanish government sawthe success of police and judicial investigations. Theseinvestigations lead to dozens of arrests and detentions,in Spain and elsewhere, of people suspected responsi-ble for the March 11th massacre. The SpanishParliament also set up an Enquiry Commission thatindependently investigated the Atocha attacks for oneyear. Its conclusions have been accepted by all parties

except for the PartidoPopular.

Stage two for theZapatero governmentwas a reshuffle of thediplomatic agenda inorder to reinstate Spain’sforeign policy along our

historical alliances. It amounted to a clear cut ‘return toEurope’. It was an energetic move to reverse Aznar’soutrageous U-turn that prioritised his allegiance to thepolicies of George Bush above the fidelity to the EU.The Partido Popular attitude contradicted a firm princi-ple of the previous socialist government that Zapaterowished to restore: the conception of Spain’s integrationinto the heart of a Europe that is a political union (aswell as an economic one). This implies the open sup-port of a Common European Foreign and SecurityPolicy, including defence and security matters. The newgovernment thinks that CFSP is a basic pillar of ourEuropean and international commitments that cannotbe ignored and abandoned but need to be developed,reinforced and implemented.

Zapatero decided that our relationship with the EUbadly needed to be restored to regain our position ofprestige and respect among our allies. The PartidoPopular government period had a rather confrontation-al attitude towards the EU. From his debut at theEuropean Councils, and especially at the Berlin summitin 1999, Aznar’s hype with his aggressive attitude chal-lenged the rest of the European leaders in order tokeep EU funds for Spain (that had been negotiated bythe previous socialist government). On the surface, ityielded some benefits, but in the long run, Spainbecame the odd guest at the EU leaders’ table.

31 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

85 per cent of the SpaniardsWere Clearly Against the

Military Intervention

Idem ditto for the blocking capacity in the negotiation ofthe Nice Treaty, at the summit in the Riviera city in June2001. As a result of his strenuous battle against the EUpartners, Aznar indicated that he wanted to obtain anincreased voting weight and some more blockingcapacity in the Council. In fact the results were at besta pyrrhic victory against the backdrop of serious lossesin the number of Spanish MEPs in the new EuropeanParliament. Finally at the European Convention, theAznar representatives systematically blocked progressand produced a stalemate. It was only after the March14th elections that the new socialist governmentchanged this blockade strategy and turned it into a pos-itive attitude of cooperation. Within a few months, theEU reached a consensus to agree for a new text of theConstitutional Treaty. Spain was back in Europe.

The new positive attitude of the Spanish governmenttowards the EU was of course in the textbook of thesocialist electoral programme. From the beginning on,Rodriguez Zapatero has shown his intention of rap-prochement to our European allies not only withwords. He has also made it clear with deeds that hewants to ‘put Spain back into the heart of Europe’,where it belongs. From the outset of his administra-tion, this new atmosphere was clear. At the first sum-mit attended by the new Primer Minister, the main EUleaders showed him their sympathy. Soon it becameclear that Zapatero’s Spain was granted back a seniorstatus. This became evident in improved bilateral rela-tionships with the major partners. There were soonmeetings between Chirac and Zapatero, reunions withSchröder and even trilateral gatherings of a renewedBerlin-Madrid-Paris axis. Even Tony Blair (after all amember of the socialist family) had to put up with thesuccessor of his Iraq war allied Aznar.

In its first year, this open pro-EU priority of theZapatero foreign policy has changed the atmosphere ofthe Rumsfeldian ‘old and new Europe’ divide, eagerlypromoted and embraced by Aznar. The Spanish turn-around was good for the current affairs of theCommunity and also positive for the reassessment oftransatlantic relations through NATO. With its EUcomeback, Spain recovered its dignified role in theBrussels and Strasburg scene. The atmosphere gave theimpression of a ‘return to normality’ in internationalrelations after the rifts and traumas of the Iraq conflict.

The only exception of this positive atmosphere was thenegative Madrid-Washington relationship. From theday Zapatero announced his decision to withdraw theSpanish troops from Iraq, the conservative administra-tion in Washington did not conceal its indignation.Their criticisms of the new Spanish government policy,together with the contempt shown by their warlordDonald Rumsfeld, sentenced the bilateral relations to avery problematic period of a mini cold war. Thisincluded various diplomatic snubs to Zapatero by Bushwhilst meeting frequently with Aznar. In his first visitto Brussels after his re-election, Bush reduced his con-versation to Zapatero to a dismissive greeting ‘Hola qué

tal, amigo’, more appropriate to salute one of hisemployees at his Crawford ranch. Better than a greetingen passant would have been serious political talk betweenthe two leaders.

In my opinion, the results after one year of socialistforeign policy present a very positive balance. Over allthese months, the socialist government has tried toexplain to the White House and the State Departmentthat Spain’s policy towards the US has not changed andthat the disagreement with Washington is exclusivelylimted to its approach to the ‘war on terror’. As evi-dence for this attitude it should be remembered thatthe Spanish army has cooperated in its peace keepingmissions in Afghanistan, and that the Zapatero govern-ment has recently accepted to increase the number oftroops allocated to this crisis zone. Unfortunately, thereadiness for normalisation of its bilateral relation tothe USA from the Spanish side did not seem to matchthe disposition for reconciliation from the other side ofthe Atlantic.

From the beginning of his mandate, Prime MinisterZapatero has shown a considerable degree of staminato implement his main foreign policy engagement: thedifficulty of the Iraq withdrawal. But he was also swiftin getting his ‘Europe first’ priority on the way andintroduced a clear cut return to our Continental rootscomprising full integration and active participation atthe appropriate level in the EU institutions and alsoimproved bilateral relations with our fellow members.

Aside from Europe, another main goal of the socialistgovernment’s foreign policy was the restoration of apositive and constructive relationship with the USA,despite the rift on Iraq, in which Spain should be per-ceived and trusted as a dignified partner and not as avassal. Here, it is relevant to recall the Spanish-American Transatlantic Declaration signed in Madrid in1995 by President Bill Clinton and socialist PrimeMinister Felipe González. This US-Spain relationshipshould be reestablished on the basis of a reinforcedtransatlantic link through both the EU and NATO aswell as a good bilateral dialogue. After more than oneyear, the Spanish disposition seems to be picking upmomentum in the US administration. The April visit toMadrid of the new US Undersecretary of State RobertZoellik sent a signal that Washington is also ready tomend fences with Madrid. In a newspaper interview, hestated that US and Spain can be allies even with differ-ences because good friends should tell each otheropenly their disagreements.

The objective of maintaining and enhancing Spain’straditionally privileged relations with Latin America isalso paramount for the socialist government.Therefore, Zapatero has taken advantage of the situa-tion with many democratic and progressive govern-ments across Latin American to boost cooperation.This became especially evident in his joint initiativeswith Brazilian President Lula, and his diplomaticinvolvement in Venezuela and Colombia, which could

32 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

have important implications for peace in the guerrillawar and also in the fight against ‘narcotraffic’.

For the new Spanish foreign policy, the Middle East isalso an important priority. As it could not be otherwise,the government is trying to help to resolve the conflictas intermediary and within the international institu-tions. Spain has a long tradition in this mission. It hasto be remembered that as early as 1991, the socialistPrime Minister Felipe Gonzalez hosted the MadridMiddle East Peace Conference also attended byPresident George H. Bush; a meeting that openedhopes for a new negotiation between Israelis andPalestinians. Today, Spain is ready once again to try tohelp boost expectations for the peace process. Asregards this endeavour, Spain’s Foreign Minister MiguelAngel Moratinos (a former EU envoy in the area forseveral years) could be instrumental with his knowledgeof the problems and his acquaintance with the protag-onists of the crisis zone.

Finally on a wider, global perspective, RodriguezZapatero has offered a new formula for the fightagainst international terrorism and the struggle forpeace and stability in today’s world. In his speech to theUN General Assembly, he proposed to the internation-al community his concept of building an alliance ofcivilisations. He also repeated his ideas at the ArabLeague Summit in Cairo. Zapatero proposes to turnSamuel Huntigton’s more deterministic idea of a ‘clashof civilizations’ into a positive perspective by means ofa worldwide dialogue to preserve peace and stability.Obviously, with the current challenges of internationalIslamic terrorism, this principle is not the instantpanacea, but it is a noble and interesting idea worth tobe explored in the immediate future for the sake ofhope.

33 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

Now it has happened:the Stability Pact hasbeen ‘watered down’,

‘overturned’, ‘torn up’, andmany other formulations inthe same vein. Ironically, thecountry which could notenvisage a single Europeancurrency without a strict setof rules to keep a tight leashon those whose actions jeop-ardise stability, this countryof all countries has been the

strongest driving force behind the move away fromthe Stability and Growth Pact (SGP). The topic hasdominated the headlines in recent days. The media isspreading an atmosphere of alarm. The Opposition,businessmen and bankers are all united in their belief

that the red-green government now intends tounabashedly continue building up ever more debt.

Who is surprised? This country, the Federal Republicof Germany, has not only made no progress towardsbudget consolidation in recent years, but has alsofailed to meet the three per cent deficit criterion forthe past three years. It hardly seems astonishing thatthe government should look for an easy way out,rather than trying to determine where it has gonewrong.

But let’s set aside the rhetoric and focus on the sub-stance. Critics of a single European currency wereconvinced that the euro would inevitably fail becauseit would not be sufficiently strong. Despite all theprophecies of doom, our currency is surprisinglystrong, indeed, it has reached new heights.

Monetary stabilityThe rate of inflation in the eurozone is stable atunder two per cent. While some EU countries have ahigher domestic inflation rate, Germany has the low-est rate of all, and thus has made a crucial contribu-tion to stability, indeed, is practically a stabilising forcein and of itself!

Astonishingly, the strong euro has not yet hurtexports – a concern always loudly voiced wheneverthe European currency reached new heights. A coun-try which is as export-oriented as Germany would beparticularly hard hit by any negative effects of theexchange rate. However, savings on the import sideshould not be underestimated – the strong euroenables German companies and tourists to buy morecheaply abroad.

Germany’s continuing exporting success must beattributed to the attractiveness of the productsoffered, companies’ productivity, and the success ofthe German economy. ‘German exporters’ trump cardis their high level of competitiveness, which ... shouldimprove further.’1 Nevertheless, one negative effect ofthe strong euro is making itself felt: real interest ratesin Germany are higher than elsewhere (and Germanyis thus making a greater contribution than other coun-tries to the stability of the euro); this acts as a brakeon our growth, since investment is an importantmotor for growth.

Budget disciplineBefore joining the single currency, there was concernthat many countries would (continue to) take a reck-less approach to public finances and drive up debt.The Pact therefore set out the goal that each countryshould keep its debt below 60 per cent of GDP. Thishas not been achieved.

Nonetheless, the Pact has had a stabilising influence.2Debt largely stabilised in the eurozone at around 70per cent of GDP between 2000 and 2006, althoughthere are still very large differences between individualeuro countries. Deficits have grown significantlysmaller: between 1991 and 1995 they were still around5.0 per cent of GDP, while in 2004 the average wasaround 2.9 per cent of GDP.

As a result of the SGP, the eurozone is in a far betterposition than the USA and Japan in terms of fiscalpolicy. While the eurozone deficit was 2.9 per cent in2004, the USA ran a deficit of 4.2 per cent, andJapan’s deficit was 7.1 per cent. If the long-awaitedeconomic upturn occurs, the eurozone will be signifi-cantly less prone to inflation than the USA, which isrunning a double deficit (current account deficit, largegovernment deficit), and Japan, which has been run-ning a record deficit of over 7 per cent since 2000.

Nevertheless, there is no denying that we have notmade sufficient progress towards the aim of budgetconsolidation. In order to achieve sustainability, wemust not waver in our efforts to meet this aim. Thedebate about which instruments are most suitable andpromising, however, is still ongoing.

34 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

The End of Stability?by Angelica Schwall-Düren

Deputy chairwoman of the SPD Parliamentary Group inthe Bundestag

Our Currency is SurprisinglyStrong, indeed, it HasReached New Heights

Three per cent deficit thresholdThe European Commission launched excessive-deficitprocedures against Germany and France in November2002 and April 2003 respectively, because both coun-tries had breached the three per cent deficit threshold.Even Germany’s massive efforts at federal level, interms of savings measures and social security reform,did not manage to reduce the deficit sufficiently.(Incidentally, it is important to note that the publicbudgets take into account not only the social securitysystems and the Federation, but also Germany’sLänder, or federal states, and local authorities).

The cuts made have been painful for the citizensaffected; moreover, scrapping popular programmesdoes not simply make life a little less comfortable, butinstead often also involves job losses.

Boosting growthHowever, budget consolidation was not the sole aimof the social security reforms. These reforms werealso intended to boost growth through a reduction innon-wage labour costs and the introduction of greaterlabour market flexibility as a result of the Hartzreforms (one of the measures which the EU calledfor within the framework of the Lisbon Strategy andin its excessive-deficit procedure against Germany).

Growth was also supposed to be boosted by taxreforms. Since 1998, businesses and individuals havebenefited from more than 59 billion euros in taxrelief. However, this has not generated sufficientgrowth; at the same time, public authorities have suf-fered huge drops in revenue while, on the expenditureside, high unemployment has meant that far moremust be spent on benefits.

Insufficient progress has been made on the issuewhich goes hand in hand with systematic tax relief,namely cutting subsidies, since the Opposition refusesto give its consent. A well-known example of this isthe debate about scrapping the owner-occupiedhomes premium, or Eigenheimzulage. The leaders ofthe Opposition, Angela Merkel and Edmund Stoiber,show no movement on this issue in the ‘Pact forGermany’ proposed by the Opposition. On the otherhand, the FDP and parts of the CDU are demandingcuts in subsidies to employees, in other words a groupwith a lower savings ratio. For example, they want pre-miums for working at nights and on public holidays tobe taxed.

Why has Germany not met the deficit threshold?Following 11 September 2001, the global economy

suffered a sharp downturn; this was aggravated by thewar in Iraq and the explosion in oil prices. Despiteconsiderable success in terms of exports, these phe-nomena have had a dampening effect on Germany’seconomic growth.

The challenge of consolidating German unity means

that four per cent of GDP is transferred from west-ern to eastern Germany, year after year, without thishaving thus far generated sufficient growth potentialfor self-supporting, lasting economic growth.

The fact that the economy has been stagnating or, aswas still the case in 2004, growing at too slow a rate,has meant that tax revenues have been too low andemployment incentives have been inadequate.

The German Institute for Economic Research (DIW)rightly notes ‘that consolidation of public financescannot succeed while the economy stagnates; from aneconomic perspective, such an aim should not even bepursued.’3 Consolidation should be pursued once theeconomic recovery has taken hold.

Stability and Growth PactThere is one point on which all politicians and aca-demics are agreed: growth in 2004 and the correspon-ding forecasts for 2005 give grounds for hope, but arefar from sufficient to boost employment and thusmake lasting progress towards consolidation of thepublic budgets.The only idea which the Opposition has to offer,however, is the motto ‘more of the same!’ In line withthe ‘beer-mat tax’ proposed by Mr Merz – so calledbecause it is designed to be so simple that tax returnscan be worked out on the back of a beer mat – taxesare to be further reduced, even though the average taxburden in Germany is, at 21.5%, one of the lowerrates in the EU. Further tax cuts, if not financed bycuts in other areas, would, however, only drive debtup further. At a high level cross-party meeting held on17 March at the invitation of Federal ChancellorSchröder, a further cut in corporation tax was agreed.The Opposition now has a duty to prove that it is pre-pared to dismantle subsidies to prevent a new budgethole from opening up.

How is growth boosted?The Stability and Growth Pact was drawn up during aperiod of strong economic growth, and phases ofstagnation or even recession were insufficiently con-sidered, or even wholly disregarded. Attention musttherefore be paid to the causes of economic weak-ness, and we must examine to what extent the SGPdeals with these causes.

A similarly persistent phase of low macroeconomicgrowth was last observed in the early 80s. Whileexports are booming, domestic demand is weak.There has never been such a persistent divide of thiskind in the past. The German Council of EconomicExperts believes that this shows how fragile the eco-nomic recovery will remain unless shored up by sig-nificant domestic demand. The primary causes of thedrop in consumption are the weakness of the labourmarket, the decline in the number of employees liableto social security contributions, and low increases incontractual and actual salaries and wages (+0.4%).4Domestic demand has been far too weak in recent

35 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

years. The DIW believes that because pay rises contin-ue to be low and job insecurity is declining only slight-ly, ‘private consumption will again be the Achilles’heel of the German economy this year’.5

The level of public investment, particularly by localauthorities, also continues to be much too low.‘The main contributing factors to this have beendeclining employment and changes in disposableincome. While private consumption recovered some-what towards the end of the year, it did not expandstrongly.’6 Further savings would, however, place alasting brake on the recovery. The expansive effects ofthe tax cuts could be outweighed by this. Spendingrestraint aggravates stagnation. Procyclical policies aredamaging!

Proposals for reformFederal Chancellor Schröder drew severe criticism forhis proposals, published in the Financial TimesDeutschland, on how to deal with the SGP. He called –as have many other politicians and experts, incidental-ly – for a flexible interpretation of the SGP.

This would mean that for each country, reforms andexpenditure would both be examined to determinetheir positive impact on growth. In general, themacroeconomic situation would have to be consid-ered; moreover, Member States’ payments promotingsolidarity should be judged regarding the principle ofsustainability. This was a reference both to horizontaltransfers within the framework of European structur-al aid, and to investment for the future in educationand research, or the years of transfers to Germany’snew federal states.

It was not just the Opposition, parts of industry andthe banking sector which reacted critically to thesedemands. Concerns were also expressed abroad. Forexample, Arnaud Leparmentier and Philippe Ricardasked in an article in Le Monde whether Germany wastrying to pursue its interests at the expense of theother Member States. In their view, while Germanyrejects the idea of gouvernement économique, it is assertingits economic interests in disputes with the EuropeanCommission (Volkswagen law, REACH, state banks),and on top of that now wants the SGP to be bindingon other euro countries, but not apply to Germany.

Flexible applicationSchröder is right to point out that a single policy is farfrom suitable for every Member State: ‘Twelve yearsafter the Maastricht Treaty entered into force, howev-er, it is clear that the EU economy is far too heteroge-neous to be governed according to the principle of‘one size fits all’.’7 For this reason, another new set ofEuropean rules, for example on how to define a ‘goodperiod’ in economic terms, will not, by itself, achieveanything. Instead, it is dangerous to want to regulatedifferent situations with supposedly objective criteriathat apply to all – which would, in fact, be just asimpossible as the mechanistic application of the 3%

and 60% thresholds.

The basic rules of the Pact, namely that public debtmay not be allowed to rise above 60 per cent and thebudget deficit may not grow to more than three percent, are to be maintained. This ensures that in future,budget consolidation and monetary stability will con-tinue to be taken seriously and pursued.

This primarily requires Member States to intensifytheir efforts to consolidate their budgets during phas-es of good growth.

At the same time, it will in future be possible to avoidthe Stability and Growth Pact acting as a procyclicalbrake on growth, and thus a period of stagnation oreconomic downturn being extended.

In future, Member States’ net financial contributionsto European integration will also be taken into consid-eration as an element of the overall evaluation, as willstructural reforms promoting savings in the mediumterm.

The consolidation process in the case of excessivedeficits can be better tailored to the economic situa-tion and the real options open to Member States, forexample by allowing them a period of up to threeyears to meet the deficit threshold.

Economic policyTaking into consideration the specific situation of theindividual countries regarding stability and growth fac-tors does not simplify the tasks of the Commissionand the Council. Since the mechanistic application ofthe Pact is now to be scrapped, this requires an inten-sive dialogue and a time-consuming consensus-build-ing process, since decision-making by the Commissionand the Council weigh the principle of equal treat-ment against the need to make macroeconomic dis-tinctions. In order to avoid the danger of consensus-building turning into a process of naming, blamingand shaming (the effectiveness of which has in anycase thus far proven to be limited), this kind of‘European coordination’ can only take place on thebasis of cooperation on equal terms and in a spirit ofpartnership.

1 Wochenbericht DIW Berlin, No. 1 – 2/2005, ‘Grundliniender Wirtschaftsentwicklung’ (basic outlines of economicdevelopment) 2005 / 2006, p. 162 Ognian N. Hishow, SWP-Zeitschriftenschau, ‘Stabilitätspakt,Lissabon-Ziele und Euro-Erweiterung’ (stability pact,Lisbon goals and euro-enlargement), January 2005, p. 23 DIW, ibid., p. 314 Annual report of the Council of Economic Experts forthe Assessment of General Economic Trends of18.11.2004, pp. 6-75 DIW, ibid., p. 146 DIW, ibid., p. 177 Hishow, ibid., p. 4

36 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

Our economicage bringsmany phe-

nomena with it,which we are onlybeginning to under-stand. If the industri-al age saw the searchfor productivity, withall its demographicand social implica-tions, we are now liv-ing in an era whereindustrial productionis highly rationalised,so that about 60 per

cent of our economic activity is now services to sup-port our opulent lifestyle, to develop our personal

ambitions as well as industrial production, which runsas invisibly as possible in the background.

The impact of this new balance of economic activityon the social existence of the individual is multi-faceted.

On the one hand, the social situation in WesternEurope is much better than in the past. Positioning inthe corresponding labour markets is possible with ‘soft’skills (communication, organisation, time-management,languages) and less attention is paid to specialised skillsin the large general services markets. The ratio ofphysically dangerous jobs is greatly reduced. The serv-ices industry faces you at every move you make, provid-ing you with information, orientation support and var-ious communications and mobility services – so thatundertaking the operations you need to, for private orprofessional purposes, is easier and more efficient.

On the other hand, as new efficiencies increase, thespeed at which transactions and operations are under-taken, the pace and stress-levels for the engaged indi-vidual are increased. The multiplication of people andplayers, of institutions and rules, give a variety andcomplexity which need more and more sophisticated

tools for orientation, for coping with relationships andinstitutions at many different levels. Correspondingly,new basic skills are needed to master these situations.

In a broad sense, this shift in economic balance doesnot differ a great deal between ‘old’ and ‘new’ memberstates. If western industrial production becomes obso-lete and must be refreshed with new investmentsthanks to technological change, eastern Europeanindustry collapses to a large degree following the break-up of the Eastern Bloc and the national statistics showthat most growth in these countries is now comingfrom the services sector. With different histories andconditions, the economic balance appears to be head-ing in the same direction.

If these new basic skills are absent, difficulties experi-enced by the individual accumulate, leading to frustra-tion and compounding the lack of ability to perform.Blockage eventually ensues, of the individual perform-ance and very soon at the levels of groups or institu-tionalised movements, which take up the agenda oftheir members. The European population already sens-es this need in a general and intuitive way1 by placingeducation and training at the top of the list of needs tostrengthen possibilities in the labour market.

This skills gap in our new economy will not be the onlynew need which can produce such blocking effects if itremains unresolved. If the Luddites of the 19tth cen-tury had a direct grievance with new technologicalapparatus2 that directly reduced jobs in textile plant,the real agents and barriers to change today (such aslack of new basic skills) are much harder for policy-makers and social partners to identify.

The recent debate on the EU services directive3 wasindicative of the current debate. While the EuropeanCommission promotes the extension of the single mar-ket to services aggressively, the real difficulties lying atthe root of this new labour market start to emerge andare rightly flagged by the social partners.

The debate over the services directive has taken ussome of the way, but a deeper understanding of thenew labour markets is needed based on focused studywork on key issues. Such knowledge needs time toemerge and mature, so it cannot be hoped that by 2010(the Lisbon target date) this work will have been com-pleted. Nevertheless, undertaking it in parallel with theLisbon social agenda will surely enrich and sharpenboth.

The new Lisbon agenda, and the High Level Group onLisbon4 which gave a harsh critique of the originalLisbon agenda, places education needs among its keypriorities. However, education does not take immediate

37 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

The Changing Economy and Social Fabric – ChallengesFaced by the New Member States of the European Unionby Andrievs Janis Folkmanis, Economic andEuropean Affairs Adviser to the President of

Latvia

In a Broad Sense, this shift in Economic Balance does not differ a

great deal between “Old” and “New”Member States.

effect, it is a progressive process. If the new skills gapis really one of the most urgent of issues that the newLisbon agenda needs to resolve, how must the remain-der of the social agenda be designed, what is needed, sothat the societies of Europe do not suffer too greatlyuntil the skills gap is closed?

Is the picture of social conditions and evolution equiv-alent in the new and old EU member states? Notentirely. Accelerating industrial production was anachievement of the pre-war era in Russia, albeit at ter-rible human cost. The regimes in eastern Europeanstates did largely succeed in eliminating private partici-pation industry, but working conditions lagged behindpartly due to a different tradition of expectancies ofthe working population. The thresholds for workingconditions achieved in the west were higher throughunion action, than the thresholds set and enforced (ornot) by the communist governments in the east.

If for the individual personal profits were greatly limit-ed, the social welfare net in the Eastern Bloc was realand effective. The normalsoviet citizen occasionallysuffered through incompe-tences in a large andbureaucratised system, butwhere in these very diverseterritories the systemworked as it was designed,health care and other pub-lic social services were readily available and of reason-ably good quality at very modest cost to the citizen.

As a result, the least well-off in the population had nodifficulties when it came to obtaining social and healthservices. If difficulty or even poverty existed, it wasdue to mismanaged planning5, corrupt bureaucracieswhich were excessively draining the system or failure ofinfrastructure or similar technical components of thesystem. The threshold of service achieved in the east-ern regimes, if not higher, had much less variationacross earnings brackets compared to the west, so thatfor the lower earnings brackets the eastern system wasbetter than in the west. For upper earnings bracketshigher quality could be achieved in the west thanks tomore readily available technology, but the cost wasmuch higher.

The transition out of the legacy of the Eastern Blocsystem has left a society in the new member states withhigh expectations on the availability of social andhealth services. These expectancies cannot be fulfilledtoday, as the states have low national revenues and can-not afford to pay for good quality public services forall. At the same time, the collapse and restructuring ofthe economies results in large pressure on wages, whilethe consumer prices of private social and health servic-es grow inexorably. Dissatisfaction of the people isrife. Democratic institutions are not sufficientlymature, the political playing field too rough, to lead eas-ily to a new balance for social and health services.

Public subsidies for utilities and transport were a stan-dard feature of the Eastern Bloc and a key domesticselling point of the regimes. Today, with energy pricesrising unremittingly and the progressive privatisation oftransport sectors leading to reductions in public serviceand much more diversity in prices and service quality,the working population in new member states is facedwith rapidly increasing prices and costs for these serv-ices, coupled with reduced service and quality.Everything gets worse!

It is for this reason that in some states the political par-ties have found themselves compelled to retain somelevel of subsidy, to retain state interests in enterpriseswhich they would otherwise most likely privatise. Thisphenomenon of course has a negative influence on theEU liberalisation agenda, sometimes leading to thestate not fulfilling its promises to the EU in implement-ing EU legislation on the single market.

The European Social Fund (ESF) could in principleserve to cushion theseeffects, by providing thesocial affairs ministries ofthe new member states withmuch needed funds. This isalready happening, but to alimited degree. Fund alloca-tion to priorities and thestyle of instruments used

will surely need to be tuned to real needs as experiencegrows. Even at its best, ESF cannot be a durable solu-tion, but will tend to create space for manoeuvre forpolicy-makers and raise hopes again. One likely posi-tive result will be that politics will find it difficult tolower the bar of social standards later on.

In these arguments we find elements which can lead usto reflect whether a new ‘social model’ has emerged inthe east? Does this extreme shift from maximal to min-imal social services generate something new? Probablynot. The pragmatic force of circumstance which hasled to the choice of a sparse social net is not a deliber-ate or conceptually structured solution. Surely though,it can be converted into one and this is probably hap-pening, also by force of circumstance and without planor reflexion.

By necessity, but not by choice, the Anglo-Saxonapproach to welfare as a system of last resort becomesthe model by default. It is objectively cheaper for thestate, and politically easier to argue for. With the stateconstraining its social responsibility, much responsibili-ty for social protection falls onto the shoulders of theindividual, who is neither ready nor equipped to dealwith the situation properly. With this extreme swing ofthe pendulum from a maximalist to a minimalist socialmodel, the shock effect on the social sphere is unsur-prising.Without adequate democratic instruments in place, the

38 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

Does this extreme shift frommaximal to minimal social

services generate something new?

people cannot object, even if they were psychological-ly disposed to do so, which they probably are not, beingconditioned from the past, that complaint only gener-ates punishment. In such examples we are beginning tosee the more profound and lasting effects of the earli-er regime, not as spectacular as concentration camps,but in their own way just as disastrous for society. Atthe same time, new corporate players actively oppose astrong public social net, fearing increased taxes andhoping to benefit from the emergence of private socialand health services.

This tendency is unequal through. The new memberstates and the political and social pressures in the statesare by no means the same. Some have retained moresocial welfare than others. The difference betweenurban and rural populations is large, and much dependsalso on how extensively industrial production andfarming have found new investors and markets.Nevertheless, common trends as described are visible.

Can Corporate SocialResponsibility (CSR) play a rolein the new member states? IfEU efforts to strengthen theCSR agenda since 2002 arelaudable, there are many criticsand by no means full accept-ance by employers. The typicalcorporation in the new member states has even lesstendency to participate. Those companies which havesurvived the very robust competitive environment ofthe 1990’s in these countries will typically have littletime for the social sphere. It can be asked, how muchvoluntary support is possible? If this turns out to bevery low, legislation and incentives may be the only wayforward to ensure minimal social standards.

If social and health services are a burden on the statebudget, at least they are conditional upon the state ofwelfare of the population. If you succeed at improvingthe people’s lot, the cost will go down. Not so for pen-sions. The cost of the social net becomes prohibitive,as pensions index upwards and our society ages. Thechallenge is well-known. It has been studied extensive-ly and the sums are clear – there is no technocratic bar-rier to finding solutions. Of course, political resolutionof the pensions explosion is unsurprisingly provingextremely difficult, as any measures to reduce pensionswill be politically highly unpopular.

In the new member states we have the same phenome-non as for other social services. There is no money, sothe solutions for pensions are today minimalist by forceof circumstance, as low as local political conditionsallow.

But there is a trap. New political forces emerge contin-ually, the landscape of political players is very volatile,

with new players emerging, with old players dressing updifferently and reappearing. Pensions increases are avery effective populist programme, as they immediate-ly summon support not only from the aged, but alsofrom their children, now professionally active, who areafraid that the burden of supporting their parents willfall to them and are relieved that the state is picking upsome of the bill. This is the entire non-bourgeois pop-ulation, and the nouveau-bourgeois in these states isrich but small and not very concerned about pensions.

Political push, with no political counter-pressure is con-strained only by budget discipline. This discipline isclearly fragile and at some stage could well collapse.The result would be exactly the heavy-spending prob-lem for pensions with which the western Europeanstates already find themselves burdened.

Putting these pressures together, there is pressure in thenew member states for pensions to increase, but muchless upward pressure for other social and health servic-

es. So, as national budg-et becomes available forsocial issues throughgrowth of the economy,there will be a tendencyto use it up for pensionsat the cost of otherservices. This is exactlythe opposite of the

Lisbon strategy! For this reason, Lisbon is of theutmost importance, to counteract this effect.

If a basic objection to the EU services directive, that itdoes not adequately take new labour markets intoaccount, is fully justified, there is a sad aspect of thisdebate, which seeks to protect relatively rich westernworkers from their poorer colleagues in the east. Thisdebate even goes so far, as to start back-pedalling onenlargement!

The European Charter of Fundamental Rights hasbeen adopted as part of European policy and legislativebase6. The Charter has many features which make it anatural candidate to be fully integrated into theConstitutional Treaty, as the Draft Treaty proposes.One very important component is the solidarity chap-ter, a feature which is to be found nowhere else inEuropean legislation.

The new protectionism of labour markets in the west,even if it is very understandable in the context ofincreasing unemployment and slow growth, is at oddswith solidarity. The losers of such a process will be theworkers of Eastern Europe. Where is solidarity acrossborders if we let this happen? The end effect for newmember states could be tragic, as the prevention ofmobility east-west of workers will weaken the alreadyweak position of employee representatives, leadingeventually to larger social imbalances and diminishing

39 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

The Losers of such a Processwill be the Workers of

Eastern Europe

political capital.

It is clear that the west can help and can take seriouslythe principle of European solidarity as embodied in theCharter. It is not clear if the current tendency to self-ishness will allow this. Clearly, there need to be transi-tion measures and some restrictions to prevent or cush-ion shocks. But these should be agreed in the spirit ofsolidarity and not by creating a labour fortress ofWestern Europe.

The European social agenda7 as recently presented bythe Commissioner for employment, social affairs andequal opportunity, Vladimir Spidla, promises to devel-op solutions for EU 25. This is a major challenge forthe Commission and the EU. A number of these pol-icy elements have been on the social agenda before andin particular linked to the original Lisbon agenda, whichhas been harshly criticised recently by the memberstates and by the High Level Group report. Followingthe EU Summit of March 2005, and the presentationof the social agenda to the European Parliament whichpreceded this, it will be necessary to find new angles onthese policies, to get a strong grip, in order to reach thenew targets set by the Summit of March 2005.

The new social agenda gives us all much homework todo. In the above, attention is focussed on thosedomains of social policy where there is a differencebetween the new and old member states. These differ-ences exist, and can lead us to the conclusion that forthese issues, the implementation of the social agendamust have special characteristics in these states toresolve these specific trends.

This article has concentrated on the aspects of a socialstate which differ between old and new EU memberstates. There are of course serious social challengeswhich the states have in common, which are notaddressed here, such as long-term unemployment,social inclusion, discrimination. This should not beinterpreted as deeming them to be unimportant, on thecontrary, they are central to the Commission’s newsocial agenda, but it is easier to identify them as beingsusceptible to the same or very similar solutions in allEU states, the intensity of measures differing regardingthe intensity of the problem, but not according to theeconomic and social history of the member states.

If the Lisbon agenda places increasing focus on thesocial agenda, this is surely correct. Entrepreneurshipand technological change will drive our economies for-ward, but the citizen must not be allowed to be caughtin the wheels of change and suffer from this. We muststeer this progress, so that the citizen gains, whereverhe or she is living in the European Union.

1 See Eurobarometer 2004

2 power-driven weaving looms

3 COM (2004) 2 final

4 HLG Report, EU, November 2004

5 eg the Ukraine famine of 1932/33

6 at the Nice EU Summit in December 2000

7 COM (2005) 33 final

40 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

We would like to express our special gratitude to Chloé Aublin,Stephen Barber and Bernd Spanier who helped a great deal in thedevelopment of this issue.

All rights reservedSocial Europe Forum© 2005

41 Social Europe the journal of the european left May 2005

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