SOS for Europeans in distress

"Nothing is possible without people, nothing is lasting without institutions". This observation by Jean Monnet was the secret of the political emergence, economic development, monetary union and continental enlargement of European integration. There is no greater regret for today's Europe than to have lost him.

Never have so many Europeans owed so much to so few

The secret of its political emergence lay in Jean Monnet's personal initiative in 1950, which was immediately taken up by Robert Schuman, a Moselle native with a dual culture and then Minister for Foreign Affairs, who, without any political mandate and outside official channels, obtained the enthusiastic support of Konrad Adenauer, the new Chancellor who was making reintegration and reconciliation a priority. The initiative of the three accomplices left the unprepared French government with no other attitude than to go along with it, leading four other countries to sign the ECSC Treaty of the six founding members the following year, the first step towards European unification.

The secret of its economic and commercial development was the signing in 1957 of the Treaty of Rome, the essential key to the "trente glorieuses", which generalised institutional free trade across the six member states. Charles de Gaulle, who had little inclination to European enthusiasm, respected this when he returned to power, aware of the shortcomings of a French protectionism that had remained too atavistic. On the other hand, he failed, despite a declared fraternisation with Adenauer, to extricate Germany, the dismembered hostage of a Europe divided between East and West, from an American stranglehold that was as vital for it and its partners as it was vassalising for the General. But Montesquieu had already observed: "truth in one time, error in another".

The secret of its monetary success, which so few had bet on until then, lay in the far-sighted audacity of Jacques Delors and Helmut Kohl. Against the largely sceptical or opposing opinions in their own camps, they seized the opportunity presented by the fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification to push François Mitterrand and his counterparts to conclude the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, isolating the British, flanked by the Danes, in a derogatory status.

To conclude these blessed times, the end of the Cold War thanks to the exceptional Mikhail Gorbachev and the fall of Communism that accompanied it finally enabled the European Union to complete its continental enlargement. At the dawn of the 21st century, a strengthened, unified and sovereign Europe appeared within reach, ensuring its place among the world's leading powers. But the cruelties of history were to decide otherwise.

What has become of the dreams we held so close?

Unfortunately, today's Europe no longer seems capable of guaranteeing the conditions of the Delorian axiom. Exceptional leaders are rare, as their name implies by definition, and as everyone can now regret. And without successors of their calibre, the European institutions that grew out of their audacity but are confronted with a rapidly changing world are wearing out prematurely.

With the wind chill now upon Europe, once again faced with an aggressive Russia, Beethoven's ode to joy seems likely to give way to Rutebeuf's lament. For this European Union plunged into winter inertia, with a cruel lack of intrepid European activists among its leaders, does indeed seem to have lost its vitality, its faith, its ambition, and even a good part of its soul.

So where are the great European leaders who can now only be identified in yellowed photos? Why have our successive enlargements ended up weighing down the continental team instead of strengthening it? And by what miracle will twenty-seven States, each clinging excessively to too many autonomous prerogatives from another era, be able to adapt to the urgent challenges of a hostile, over-armed neighbourhood and hyper-competitive global competitors who will do them no favours?

In the absence of leaders who would renew or even refound the Union, it finds itself plunged into the unknown, truly lost "a bridge too far", as incapable of optimising its rich past achievements as it is of correcting its gaping shortcomings.

Twenty-five years on, its single currency remains devoid of any economic convergence or fiscal framework. Although it has provided Europe with the merits of unprecedented monetary stability, it has not been accompanied by the necessary accountability. Too many countries have taken advantage of the anaesthetic effect of this stability and of a guilty indulgence in mutual surveillance to postpone essential reforms and bring their public finances under control. For some countries, France in the forefront, the level of debt has reached alarm levels, depriving them of any room for manoeuvre to revitalise the economy. As for the economies of scale that a European rationalisation of investment and spending would have made possible, they have remained non-existent as a result of the stubborn refusal of the Member States to re-evaluate a European budget that has for ages been capped at an insignificant 1% of GDP when their own budgets go so far as to confiscate half of that GDP!

Its single market has been weakened by countless holes for the benefit of fraudsters and smugglers, encouraged by the stubborn absence of common customs officers at its external borders. As for the shaky agreement improvised in the North Sea following the Brexit, it has only added to the ambiguity, in the manner of Alan Greenspan saying "if you think you've understood me, I've expressed myself badly".

For eighty years, Europe's military security has remained totally dependent on the United States. What we need now at European level is the same determination that de Gaulle showed at national level to ensure defensive sovereignty based on an autonomous nuclear deterrent.

Lastly, as the Draghi report presented last September pointed out, our economic competitiveness is tragically lagging behind that of our new competitors, particularly in the technology-intensive sectors of the future.

With all these shortcomings poisoning each other, Europe is now on the verge of being ruthlessly sidelined in this century's great global match, having squandered most of the advantages that were within its reach.

They were too sparse the wind blew them away

How did we get here?

The calamitous failure of the Constitutional Treaty in 2005 certainly played a key role, since a spring broke, euroscepticism has only increased since then, and all efforts to remedy the situation have been nothing more than a sticking plaster on a wooden leg.

But just as one swallow does not make a spring, one raven does not make a winter either. For an original ambiguity had never been dispelled until then, and no more so than until now: that of this "federation of nation states" cited by Jacques Delors but so close to an oxymoron. The United Kingdom, with whom the graft had never really taken, intended to lift it in its own way by aiming for the exit door.

Petrified by the prospect of losing the United Kingdom, the European Council did not hesitate to propose betraying the ideal of integration, without consulting the people of Europe! Among the pearls in the crown: explicit renunciation of an ever-narrower Union, downgrading of any monetary monopoly of the euro, the possibility for a majority of national MPs to repudiate a European rule, exclusion from national social benefits for residents from another member country.

The astonishing thing is that the British still decided to leave the Union! But how can we blame them for leaving a club where all cohesion was thrown to the four winds, even on the spurious pretext of pleasing them? The Brexit will have had the merit of sparing us from paying for a Remain on terms unworthy of a true Union.

For its part, the European Parliament, discovering that it had a missionary vocation in all directions, began to surf on the wave of avant-garde ecological exemplarity, without worrying too much about the real capacity of the European economy to adapt, or checking to what extent its competitors were themselves adhering to such a profession of faith.

For its part, the European Commission, discouraged from pursuing ambitious political projects or seeking to reform the institutions, did not fail, in the absence of major tasks, to succumb to small ones, the source of excessive technocracy. Equally anxious to set an example in the same way as Parliament, it was not long before it too began sacrificing itself, more or less, to the currents and sirens of the eco-socio-libertarian zeitgeist.

In the absence of sufficient staff, it has come to rely on a myriad of expert committees and consultants of predominantly Anglo-Saxon origin, as well as socio-categorical lobbies of all kinds, now proliferating around the European institutions, many of them more motivated by the funding of their work than by the political, economic and security challenges of this multi-headed Union.

"That's what makes your daughter a mute," Molière would have concluded. Your "méli-mélo", as de Gaulle would have said at a time when the original Community deserved it less!

Poverty drags us down and wages war on us from all sides

In spite of, or because of, these multiple but uncoordinated interventions, the decline in Europe's competitiveness continues unabated, as the Draghi report has vigorously underlined. But where are we going to find the 750 to 800 billion euros a year in additional investment, or almost 5% of GDP, to catch up with our technological lag and secure our economic, social and security future, when our Member States, faced with faltering public finances in some cases and open crisis in others, are refusing to strengthen a European budget that weighs five times less than these 5%, or to envisage any new collective borrowing along the lines of the one, described as exceptional, granted to meet the bill for the covid crisis?

Avoiding any confrontation, the programme of the renewed Commission presented to Parliament by Ursula von der Leyen adds up priorities in all directions but carefully avoids tackling the central and unanswered question of the new resources required by the conclusions of the Draghi report which, despite all the denials promised/sworn, seems doomed, like all the previous ones, to end up in the drawer...

To compensate for such an abdication on the part of the European executive, we will no longer be able to rely as we did in the past on a Franco-German motor that has broken down. The cultural misunderstanding of a Jacobin, anti-federalist France as opposed to Germany has continued to worsen, despite the euro, and mutual relations have grown weaker and even deteriorated, despite the vain attempts of the Treaty of Aachen. Above all, both countries are currently facing major political and economic crises.

Finally, it is still very risky to count on any significant political, industrial or technological knock-on effect from the European rearmament programme promised following Russia's aggression against Ukraine. Already incomparable on paper with the resources of the United States, on which Europe's protection still depends, it has so far failed to generate any convincing momentum, whether in terms of unprecedented joint projects, mutual preferences or investments on the scale required. Faced with the risk of American disengagement following the return of Donald Trump, it seems incapable of making up for it, both in terms of support for Ukraine and for its own European security in the face of Putin.

Emerging from the winter weather that shamed us

"Pris dans leur vaisseau de verre les messages luttent mais les vagues les ramener en pierres d'étoile sur les rochers". How can we fail to see in the late Balavoine's "tous les cris les SOS" the analogy with our persistent inability to convince our leaders to cross the Rubicon and break down the armour of their own turf to give themselves the means to show solidarity, at last on a scale commensurate with the challenges, perils and opportunities of a new world where they have no other response to offer?

In the face of obstacles and setbacks, won't stubborn perseverance, against all odds, even in the face of bottles in the sea, eventually triumph over all imponderables, even if it means constantly putting the work back on the drawing board? We will therefore dedicate with conviction to Europe the SOS of an inspired singer: "we must change the heroes in a world where the best remains to be done".