“We must redefine the European project”
Bronislaw Geremek, former Polish dissident and renowned European historian, believes widespread debate on Europe’s future is the only way out of the current deadlock.
Is the future of Europe up in smoke? The Polish polyglot Bronislaw Geremek, an MEP for the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, belongs to a generation of politicians and intellectuals who left their country because of communism. A celebrated medievalist, and the brains behind the Solidarity trade union movement, the former Polish Foreign Minister has never hidden his love for Europe. Now his European dream is in crisis, it’s question time.
The European Union is in a period when it is questioning its future, even though the enlargement of May 1 2004 [to include 10 new member states] should have led to a resuscitation of the European project of integration. I believe that the anxiety about the future of the EU has two principal causes. First of all, the negative results of the constitutional referenda in France and the Netherlands. Secondly, the failure of the summit at Brussels [on June 16-17 2005] to decide on the EU budget for the period 2007 to 2013. Today the EU is faced with a new challenge: redefining the European project. Almost half a century after the beginning of European integration, we now have to find a new way to envisage the future.
It has been just over a year since several Central and Eastern European countries joined the EU. Of what significance is the institutional crisis for these new member states?
We have been disappointed by European public opinion, which doesn’t seem to have recognised that enlargement has been an extremely positive and historic event. But it must be said that there hasn’t been public debate on this problem and the EU institutions have not tried to inform European citizens on the real value of enlargement. After thirteen months, it is clear that enlargement has been a win-win situation for all involved. So why not respond to the expectations of the new countries? Since the failed negotiations over the EU budget, there has been increasing concern among the new countries that the EU is not keeping its promises to them. Similarly, we have fears about the direction that European construction is taking. In the EU we are looking for a strong structure capable of creating a sense of security on the continent.
The gap between the citizens and their institutions is the biggest danger threatening Europe at the moment. We have to find a way to overcome it. But it is not with decisions coming from the European institutions that we will succeed in doing so. Now it is time to directly address the citizens, and not by going through MEPs and intellectuals. Europe needs a big public debate on its future.
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