Seeking directions in the shallows of a stormy sea with no clear point of reference to steer by
BRUSSELS – In an extremely difficult environment caused by past mistakes, Greece must defend the acquis communautaire of the past two decades in a European Union which is doing everything to divest itself of them. The factors that determine Greece’s European itinerary at present are marked by great fluidity, some opportunities but also some serious threats on many levels. The family sized European Economic Community of the first decade following Greece’s accession ceased to exist long ago, and the union of clearly defined common rules that was constructed by the treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam is now in a state of almost total eclipse. Having already lost any cohesion after the two most recent enlargements, to the north in the 1990s, which boosted the basically anti-federalist Protestant camp of the European north, and last year’s enlargement to the East, which destroyed any political solidarity in its trunk, the EU is currently going though a grave crisis of internal legitimacy that is being prolonged by the chronic economic crisis in Germany, in particular, and in most member states in general. This crisis, sowing panic among politicians in not a few member states, has led to the need to search for a peculiar kind of insulation within the EU, in the form of an ongoing breakdown of the fundamental principles of the entire enterprise. The Stability Pact While Britain’s machinations against every European project (incited and guided by the American superpower) have remained unchanged for 30 years, the stance of Germany and France holds serious dangers. Having arrogantly imposed the euro on its partners through the Stability Pact, Germany suddenly realized that the rules were about to be applied to itself. Its reaction was to violate the regulations and then, in November 2003, to force its partners to legitimize its rebellion. Now it is trying to perpetuate what was essentially an act of piracy by revising the pact. Another instance is the colossal fuss that was created about the EU directive on services, which is intended to free up the provision of services within the so-called single market. Having adopted the role of representative to the powerful states, similar to that adopted by Germany in relation to the Stability Pact, France is practically ordering the Commission to make drastic changes to the directive, arguing that it will boost employment in the service sector in new member states at the expense of itself and other member states that have high taxes. As for the EU’s new budget, nobody wants to contribute to it and everybody wants to get something out of it. The battle is even harder for Greece, given its long reliance on various packages, its fabricated growth rates and the grave misdeeds of the past concerning the proper management of EU funds. And this comes at a time when much poorer countries are claiming, with some justice, the lion’s share of the new budget. But that is not the present issue, as negotiations for the new seven-year budget are in the future and everything is still up for grabs. Yet another instance is that of Cyprus. The EU, notably Britain, France and Germany, are talking seriously about beginning talks with Turkey, without the latter having first recognized the existence of a member state of whose territory it occupies a significant part. But the case of the Pact, like the others, is not the most blatant example of the attempted destruction of shared legitimacy, of which a prime component is the attempt to weaken the European Commission, the unions’ connective tissue. The chief institutional victim of this rebellion, the EC, sees the political role it was given 20 years ago – by Jacques Delors with the support of Francois Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl – as gradually disappearing and its interventionary role of imposing legitimacy being attacked on a daily basis, mainly by the larger members. During the previous presidency of Romano Prodi, the already drastically weakened Commission attempted, even through the courts (in the case of the Pact) to save its role. In Brussels, it is widely believed that the eventful, almost gangsterish imposition of Jose Manuel Barroso as Prodi’s successor by certain states serves the same purpose of dismantling the Commission as the political lever of the EU. It was not by chance that a senior EC official recently asked journalists to direct their more «political» questions to the council of ministers «due to changes in institutional balances,» which until this time last year could not have been said. What does this mean for Greece? A permanent violator of nearly all the rules that govern life in the EU, Greece may accrue some very short-term benefits, in the nature of hushing up one or another of its transgressions. But in the long term, it will be a rather negative development. When all the rules are relaxed and the central mechanism for imposing legality disintegrates, it is always the powerful countries that win out and never the smaller or weaker countries. Two years ago, Greece held the key vote in the overturning of the Stability Pact by Germany. At the meeting of finance ministers in November 2003, then-Greek Economy Minister Nikos Christodoulakis entered the hall avowing the need to preserve legitimacy in the face of the Franco-German rebellion, and went out having cast the crucial vote with which that legitimacy was destroyed. By the book Our reward, two years later and after the outrages revealed by the new economic inventory, was to have the Stability Pact applied almost according to the book in our case and Greece subjected to all the repressive provisions of the law that its vote had exempted for Germany and France. One does not need a degree in political science to see that in an environment where legitimacy has completely disintegrated (and which the EU constitution, if ever ratified, will not correct), the weaker member states walk on quicksand, seeking opportunistic alliances in the hope of gaining some temporary benefits. The EU is not yet the Wild West. To a large extent its basic mechanisms continue to function, but it is certainly in a phase of major transformation. The so-called common vision of a more political union has been abandoned and absurdities, such as the appointment of euro coordinators, foreign policy or terrorism in no way offset that picture. The economy, the traditional reason for the union’s existence, is facing a serious lack of coordination, if not disintegration. The challenge for Athens is evident: In the next few years, before the new state of affairs – whatever that is – becomes settled, it must sail into the shallows of a stormy sea, seeking opportunities and avoiding risks, without a compass and with its arsenal of arguments much depleted by a decade of corrupt management.
