GENEVA
As London hosts the second summit of the G-20 on 2 April, an event that could impact the course of global affairs into the next decade and beyond, the European Union stands in a state of cacophonic disarray.
The disarray is audible at three interconnected levels: within the member states, among the member states and in the EU’s position in global governance. Of course, cacophony and disarray are not strangers to the EU – but never to this degree. The EU has not faced such a daunting global situation since the creation of the union with the 1957 Treaty of Rome.
Disarray within the member states at the G-20 summit is most visibly illustrated by the weak positions of government leaders. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is virtually certain to lose the next general election, but more poignantly many of his compatriots see him as responsible for the crisis. Hence, how can he be part of the solution? Angela Merkel, undoubtedly the most impressive of the lot, must contend with a fractious coalition. Nicolas Sarkozy is fortunate in that the opposition is in greater disarray, but his popularity rankings in the 30th percentile are a historic low for the Fifth Republic. In respect to Silvio Berlusconi, disarray in Italian politics has been a permanent feature.
And in ironically perfect timing, the government of the Czech Republic, which holds the current presidency of Europe, has been overthrown in a vote of no confidence. The colorful Czech ex-Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek – who described the American response to the crisis as the "road to hell" – will be in London as a lame duck. Commission President José Manuel Barroso will also attend the summit, but his mandate runs out in a few months and his reinstatement is uncertain. Weakness and disarray of EU member-state governments will, among other pernicious effects, direct their focus on domestic politics rather than global governance.
The cacophonic disarray among the member states, while reflecting a frequent EU condition, is nevertheless shriller and more ominous than it's ever been. This is in part exacerbated by the fact that membership is now composed of 27 highly diverse states, with more voices, accents and instruments to add to the cacophony. In the context of an enlarged EU, the Franco-German axis would not count as much as it did in the days of the Konrad Adenauer/Charles de Gaulle, Helmut Schmidt/Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and Helmut Kohl/François Mitterrand ententes. Still the rift and mutual suspicion between Merkel and Sarkozy only heighten the cacophony's pitch.
While many other examples could describe the disarray among member states, the most alarming is what in a recent BBC interview former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer termed the "existential threat "to the Common Market, which remains the EU’s greatest crowning achievement. The cruel paradox is that while the EU proclaims that protectionism is the greatest threat to the global economy – as Barroso did recently at the Brussels Forum on 21 March – EU member states are now taking protectionist moves of diverse sorts against one another.
"British jobs for British workers" chant British trade unionists, as they virulently attack a British contract awarded to an Italian firm using Italian labor. Sarkozy stated French cars made in the Czech Republic should not be allowed to enter the French market. European banks are told to lend only to national companies. Thus Western European banks are rapidly retreating from Eastern European capital markets, where they had built up – under conditions imposed by the accession process of these countries to the EU – a considerable presence, just when a number of these economies are on the tipping-point of implosion. Not only are such acts in violation of EU rules, they are much more so in violation of the European spirit.
Since the beginning of this century the EU seemed bogged down in unfulfilled promises and incomplete initiatives. Take the Lisbon Agenda, also known as the Lisbon Process or the Lisbon Strategy, but not to be confused with the Lisbon Treaty: It was adopted in March 2000 with the aim of making the EU "the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion, and respect for the environment by 2010." With eight months to go, mentioning the Lisbon Agenda in Brussels today is met with embarrassed silence.
Then in 2004/2005, there was the fiasco of the European Constitution, rejected in referendums in two of the EU’s founding member states, the Netherlands and France. The constitution has in the meantime been recalibrated and re-branded as the Lisbon Treaty, rejected by the Irish in their referendum in June 2008. So, constitutionally the EU remains at an impasse. Perhaps a turning point has been reached. The initial belief that ultimately the EU would overcome the obstacles and continue its ascension has eroded. Current trends would seem more indicative of a weakening or indeed unraveling of the EU – including membership, the Common Market and the single currency. While not a prediction, this emerges as a plausible scenario.
The disarray of the EU’s position in global governance is reflected in the G-20 summit choreography. And the convening of the G-20 in turn provides the occasion to turn up the cacophony. Henry Kissinger’s famous quip in the 1970s, "When I want to call Europe, I cannot find a phone number," has ironically been turned on its head. There are too many phone numbers.
While among the 20 there will be one China, one India, one Indonesia, one Brazil, one US, one Russia, etc, there will be six EU members at the table and a host of others, with past and present EU roles. Account must also include the head of the International Monetary Fund, who by convention must be a European. Director General of the WTO Pascal Lamy, also attending, is a European, but his predecessor was a Thai, so the WTO position is far less contentious than is the case with the IMF head. While there are many Europeans, there is no European position of substance, though efforts will be made to keep the flowery rhetoric going. To reduce the noise, the EU participants at the G-20 summit need to reach the lowest possible common denominator among themselves, wielding considerable influence on the summit's outcome.
In 1900, at the height of Europe’s "global glory," in terms of power over the rest of the world, Europeans accounted for 25 percent of the world’s population. Now, including EU and non-EU Europe, the population is less than half that figure and by 2050 will diminish by another half. A single European voice would make sense for the EU and for the world. Instead, at a time of crisis, when stability and clarity are sought, the EU in disarray is producing a high-pitched cacophony.
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Jean-Pierre Lehmann is professor of International Political Economy and the founding director of The Evian Group atIMD. Rights: © 2009 Yale Center for the Study of Globalization. YaleGlobalOnline
