The State of the Union is … weak
Who could have envied Ursula von der Leyen as she rose today to deliver her State of the Union speech in the European Parliament?
The European Project has never seemed so empty or irrelevant. At least two major crises are in full flood, both equally pressing. The first – the most immediate – is the war in Ukraine; the second is the debilitating shortage of oil and gas from Russia that threatens the economy of much of Europe, including Germany.
In each case, the European Commission, of which Von der Leyen is President, has so far played only a support role. It has no army, no navy and no air force. When it comes to defending Europe against aggression, it is Nato that does the job. All Brussels can do is make the appropriate noises. It is much the same on the energy front. The Commission is at best a coordinator. It brings disparate approaches together and tries to ensure that whatever is decided doesn’t benefit only those countries that have the loudest voices and carry the most weight.
What the Commission and the Council (which hasn’t met since June) have to accept is that when push comes to shove in Europe, national governments have made most of the running not only over the last six tumultuous months but in the period roughly corresponding to the Brexit debate. The approach to immigration is a case in point. Increasingly – as in France, Italy, Spain, Greece and Malta, to say nothing of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia – it is every state for itself.
Germany since Russian troops first crossed the Ukrainian frontier on 25 February, has been locked in a fraught nationwide debate, involving state assemblies as well as the Bundestag, that turns on how best to resist Vladimir Putin while at the same time ensuring that manufacturing industry and private homes receive the energy they need throughout the coming winter. What Brussels has to say on the matter is listened to, just in case it helps. But in the end, Berlin will act in its own interests.
Italy probably lacks the self-confidence, and the strength, to adopt the same approach, but in Rome, too, the preoccupation is with who is listening to the people and who is going to do what needs to be done. Mario Draghi, the consummate European, is on his way out as premier, and the far-right Brothers of Italy party, led by Giorgia Meloni, looks set to take over, with her emphasis very much on Italy First.
France has lucked out in one key area. Due to its continuing reliance on nuclear power, it is well ahead of the pack when it comes to energy provision. All but a handful of its 54 atomic reactors are expected to be up and running by the middle of November, giving it the sort of electricity autonomy of which Germany (and the UK) can only dream. When most of the rest of Europe began to pull back from nuclear, France ploughed its own atomic furrow. In the same way, though with somewhat less effect, President Macron opted to go it alone on Ukraine, banking on the fact (since disproved) that Putin valued the Élysee’s counsel above that of any other outside power.
Macron has since veered towards the British position, which is that victory for Ukraine is the only way forward, however risky. Thus, though a European integrationist, he is now obliged to work in parallel with Liz Truss, a Brexiteer with the conviction of a convert. It will be two old allies, their histories interwoven for centuries, that will most decide the future course. If only it could be the same on Brexit.
To the East, Poland has emerged from pariah status to be the new hero country of the EU, championing Ukraine, doing everything it can to assist its neighbour to resist the Russian invader. The bad news for Brussels is that is has done so while defying the Commission and Council on how to run its internal affairs and in the belief, stated as an act of faith by prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki, that the EU is a bully, and a pretty ineffective one at that.
Next door to Poland is Hungary, another EU pariah state. But in this case, its leader, Viktor Orban, has chosen to sidle up to Putin, presumably in the belief that Russia will win the conflict with Ukraine – an assumption he may already be regretting. Orban doesn’t care what Ursula von der Leyen thinks. He is his own man (and Putin’s). He has even flirted with the idea that Russia might build his country’s first nuclear power station. But, again, it is the fact that Hungary is going its own way that must give pause to the irredentists within the pro-European lobby.
History can only be predicted in retrospect. What will happen in Europe over the next five years can only be guessed at. But one possibility – no more than that – is that the ties that bind the EU so tightly will be loosened, allowing the member states to breathe more freely and to take their own decisions. If so, the Commission and the Council would not only be recognising a conveniently neglected principle – that of subsidiarity, the doctrine that decisions are best taken at the most appropriate level – but also an emergent reality. The two institutions could even turn things to their advantage by in the future concentrating on those issues – trade, market regulation, the single currency and the coordination of Europe’s approach to climate change – that are in reality its strongest suits.
The Commission will always have a role when it comes to crisis management, as with the pandemic or when coordinating gas purchases for distribution across Europe, and there will always be those, Macron among them, who aspire to deeper integration (though it is possible that even he is wavering). The fact remains that when times get rough and national interests are exposed, it is member states that step up to take the big decisions, and it may just prove that, beneath a smokescreen of rhetoric, this tendency will grow.
It is early days. For every reformation there is a counter-reformation. The ghosts of Robert Schuman, Jean Monet and Paul-Henri Spaak, as the EU’s founding fathers, will be invoked, rather as statues of saints are paraded through the streets of Spain and Italy on holy days to reinforce the faith. But a door has been opened that will not easily be shut. Should a suitable wedge be put in place, leading to the admission of new ideas, the irony would be that the EU could end up more like the kind of community of free states that Britain always wanted.
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