EU finality debate

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The EU finality debate is about the dispute about the ultimate goal (finality) of the European Union (EU). The two poles between which development projects and reform efforts have always been located in the history of the European Union are, on the one hand, a political union with a federal constitution, as already discussed by Winston Churchill with the United States of Europe and by the Union of European federalists were picked up, on the other hand a confederation of states which as little impaired the sovereignty of the member states as possible , a Europe of the fatherlands , as it was especially propagated by Charles de Gaulle .

Until the treaty on a constitution for Europe , which failed due to plebiscites in France and the Netherlands in 2005 , the tendency towards progressive European integration was predominant, even if several member states had previously refrained from introducing the euro in their own area of ​​responsibility despite meeting the EU convergence criteria had. As a result of the financial crisis from 2007 , which resulted in the euro crisis , and the refugee crisis in Europe from 2015 , disintegrative tensions and EU skepticism have increased in many member states of the European Union. The 2016 Brexit referendum showed the tendency to re-emphasize national sovereignty claims. Since then, the EU finality debate has also been heavily influenced by this.

Enlarging and deepening the Union as a double challenge

Further facets in the objectives of the European Union have already emerged from the EU's eastward expansion, on the one hand on the part of the new member states that have joined, which in some cases bring their national sovereignty , which was only regained after the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc , into play; on the other hand, in the form of growing EU skepticism from parts of the Western European population who are concerned about their own jobs, wages and living standards, for example because of the extensive free movement of workers within the European internal market.

The European Union, which emerged from the original economic community in the last decade of the 20th century, was in its composition, even after the expansion in 1995 to include Austria, Sweden and Finland to 15 members, still an association of states shaped by the western market economy and democratic principles but in the interests of European unification, since the end of the East-West conflict, was also ready to open up to the Central and Eastern European states that had been organized according to a planned economy and ruled by communist state parties . By 2004, however, the accession candidates had to make much more radical adjustments than had been the case with earlier enlargements.

Philipp Ther sees the conversion phase of the Eastern European economies essentially shaped by neoliberal principles and especially by the Washington Consensus . It starts with a phase of fiscal stabilization by means of austerity and austerity policies, followed by liberalization, privatization and deregulation, true to the model of the unlimited, free market economy in the sense of Milton Friedman . “The Western European model of capitalism encircled by the welfare state,” said Ther, “was far too expensive for the post-communist countries.” Gesine Schwan complains that in the course of globalization, social inequality has been understood and conveyed as a stimulus for competition: “One of the essential pillars of integration , namely to promote social cohesion among the states and societies of Europe, clearly fell behind in the European discourse. "

The eastward expansion came about under different conditions than the earlier accessions. As was the case with the 1995 enlargement, the 1993 Copenhagen criteria did act as a prerequisite for joining the EU, with the aim of ensuring that new EU members were eligible for community membership and that the international community was relatively homogeneous . Edmund Stoiber cites political reasons for this, especially on the part of the German federal government: “In the normal procedure, using the Copenhagen criteria, it would have taken a while. But that has been put aside and overlooked unevenness. ”According to Jürgen Rüttgers , the original guideline of the member states, which provided for“ deepening before enlargement ” , was instead“ before enlargement ” under the pressure of the global political events of 1989/90 "Deepening". With the constitutional treaty that failed in 2005, the goal of deepening also suffered a clear setback.

With the increase in the number of members (first through the accession of the EFTA states in 1972/73, then reinforced by the eastward expansion) with simultaneous unanimity and a high quorum of approval for EU decisions, transgovernmental cooperation (e.g. Germany-France, Poland-Hungary) as a possible and attractive alternative for asserting interests. At the same time, the finality discussion could always be postponed or re-initiated depending on the needs of integration policy. The factual deepening of integration through the enactment of ever new legal provisions without conclusive clarity about the European finality also turned out to be an increasing problem.

Politicians shy away from the finality discussion, says Dieter Grimm : “What should the relationship between unity and diversity look like, like that of exclusion and inclusion, like that of the market and the welfare state? The solution to the problem will differ depending on the answer to these questions. ”Politicians reacted to demands for clarity in principle with consolation in such a way that the questions would be discussed when they were about to be decided. “However, referring to the future does not prevent politicians from making decisions today by ignoring the target question, which will develop consequential constraints tomorrow and prejudice the answer to the target question. If the follow-up constraints emerge, it is usually too late for a discussion of the goal question. "

Models for differentiating integration progress

The differing willingness of the individual member states to take additional supranational integration steps at the EU level has given rise to initiatives and advances with which some of the union members ("core Europe") have been or will be able to adopt the acquis communautaire that is binding for all member states move ahead with forms of enhanced cooperation and deeper integration. Examples of application for this include the Schengen area and the euro zone .

For Elmar Brok it is clear: “Only by combining our national sovereignties do we Europeans have the chance to regain and maintain sovereignty in today's world. Only together can the countries of Europe exist in our globalized world; the EU offers the best future model for this. National interests and EU interests are not mutually exclusive, but complement each other. This is even more true on a global scale and from the point of view of a long-term perspective for our continent. ”Today a Europe is needed that conveys to people that today's challenges such as internal and external security, terror, globalization and climate change can only be answered together . "Now is the time to make the EU a res publica in the sense of the actual meaning of this term - a public cause, with the strong involvement of the European population."

Polarizing effects of the financial and euro crisis

The different effects of the financial crisis from 2007 and the subsequent euro crisis in the countries of the European Union as well as partly contrary ideas about crisis management have become stress tests of the relationship between the EU member states. Even under the euro bailout fund , the southern European countries Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy recorded further declines in employment rates after 2009 because - especially in contrast to Germany - they have comparatively small export sectors. The euro regime tailored to Germany, according to Fritz W. Scharpf , does not fit there. “The economic effect of the combination of fiscal austerity and wage dampening implemented in the current Euro regime is therefore highly asymmetrical. It divides the Eurozone into a group of "northern countries" with strong exports who benefit from the real undervalued exchange rate and a group of "southern countries" whose economies, which are dependent on domestic demand, cannot expand and will be driven even deeper into crisis by any future recession. "

Instead, Scharpf proposes to make it possible for member states to exit the euro zone on a voluntary basis while maintaining EU membership and to relate their own currencies to the euro, following the example of Exchange Rate Mechanism II created in 1999 . Such countries no longer belonged to the monetary union, but they did belong to a European currency union. Such a currency union does not diminish the European influence on the international level.

In the field of tension between the refugee crisis and the Brexit referendum

Further serious tensions within the European Union arose since 2015 from an increasing influx of refugees of different origins and motives who immigrated across the southern and southeastern EU external borders and sought humanitarian protection. Because the EU member states showed very different levels of willingness to take part in taking in refugees in the sense of a joint task.

After a decision by the German Chancellor Angela Merkel , which was coordinated only with the Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann , at the beginning of September 2015, to allow refugees who had been rejected by Hungary to enter Austria and Germany on the Balkan route under suspension of the Dublin III regulation in the given humanitarian emergency It is not possible to enforce a quota regulation for the distribution of 160,000 vulnerable refugees in the member states. The EU Commission is suing the European Court of Justice against Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic for refusing to implement a decision by the EU interior ministers on the binding admission of refugees.

For the Brexit proponents in Great Britain, which only met its admission quota for refugees by 20 percent in 2016, the perspectives on the migration issue from Dominik Geppert's point of view in the course of the EU referendum were highly significant. David Cameron had expressly promised in the 2010 and 2015 election campaigns to reduce annual immigration from six to five figures; but in the spring of 2015 this number was 330,000 for the past 12 months, as high as never before. “That is why the topic of» migration «stayed at the top of the list of topics that played a role in the referendum.” For Tanja Börzel , the outcome of the Brexit referendum also shows that migration, similar to globalization fears, does not only mean rights Let voters mobilize. The response of Eurosceptic and anti-European populists among employees and among residents of rural areas and small towns who fear competition for low-wage jobs and cheap housing makes it increasingly difficult for the governments of the EU member states to agree on decisions that affect the European community interest over the respective national Self-interest.

As a consequence of the recent disintegrative tendencies in the Union structure and of increasing EU skepticism in the population of member states, those voices in the EU finality debate that call for more participation and empathy of the Union citizens in the institutional area and in the decision-making processes of the community are more prominent who want to promote more “Europe from below” and who want to anchor the principle of subsidiarity in practice: fewer “Brussels regulations” that are perceived as externally determined; more freedom of decision-making to create identity for a Europe of regions .

Objectives under the impression of multiple crisis phenomena

Menasse during his speech in the European Parliament on the occasion of the ceremony for the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome

For Jürgen Rüttgers , however, after Great Britain leaves the EU, it must not just be about handing some European responsibilities back to the member states. Because at the same time the transfer of further sovereignty rights to the European Union was pending in foreign and security policy. "What is needed is a reform of the foundations of the EU: the united Europe needs more democracy, more transparency, more rule of law, more separation of powers."

Martin Schulz , who sees re-nationalization and small states on the rise in the face of the “multiple crises we are facing”, speaks out in favor of a new departure “that makes Europe more democratic and produces fairer political results.” It is about more To create closeness and to bridge distances. "Isn't the legitimacy of a political decision the greatest", asks Schulz, "if it was made as close as possible to those affected?" But it is also necessary to provide the EU with the instruments it can use to combat it international terrorism and organized crime, which they need to complete economic and monetary union, to establish tax justice and to fight tax havens for speculators, as well as to effectively assert European interests in foreign policy.

Brendan Simms and Benjamin Zeeb plead for a rapid and far-reaching transformation of the European Union when they advocate the imminent formation of the United States of Europe. They advertise an “Anglo-American solution” to the EU finality problem and refer to the models of state unions created by the British in 1707 and the Americans in 1787/88. From both models one could assume that “only joint government bonds, for which a joint parliament is responsible, can put the state on a solid financial footing and enable it to assert its position in the world” Europeans, on the other hand, rely on the patent recipe that the process by itself will eventually lead to the desired result. Instead, it is important to turn to a strategy "that begins with an event, which is followed by an open-ended process."

At the institutional level, Simms and Zeeb envisage a citizens' chamber elected by the Union population, a Senate representing the member states or regions, and a directly elected president modeled on the USA as characteristics of a united Eurozone state. This model should be introduced in a short period of intense debate, guaranteed by external actors: the US, the UK and Canada. Simultaneous referendums in all eurozone member states would be needed as a basis for legitimation. "This new union will be constituted the moment two or more political entities decide to join."

In this context, Ulrike Guérot and Robert Menasse are the initiators of a project to build a European republic committed to the European community of the res publica . In their “Manifesto for the Establishment of a European Republic” they explain why transnational democracy is to be further developed through a post-national European project, which, by the way, was already anchored in the Treaty of Rome during the time of the first Commission President Walter Hallstein .

See also

literature

  • Jürgen Habermas : On the constitution of Europe. An essay. Bonn 2012
  • Bodo Hombach , Edmund Stoiber (Hrsg.): Europe in the crisis. From dream to enemy image? Marburg 2017
  • Jürgen Rüttgers , Frank Decker (Ed.): Europe's end, Europe's beginning. New perspectives for the European Union. Frankfurt / New York 2017
  • Brendan Simms , Benjamin Zeeb: Europe on the Abyss. A plea for the United States of Europe. Munich 2016
  • Ulrike Guérot : Why Europe has to become a republic !: A political utopia Bonn 2016

Remarks

  1. ↑ Jürgen Rüttgers and Frank Decker describe the free movement of workers in the EU as a great achievement, “because, in addition to the political core, it also includes the political core of the common understanding of identity. At the same time, one has to deal with the problem that people cannot move back and forth across cultural, linguistic and welfare state borders as easily as goods or money flows. ”( What is wrong with Europe? In: Jürgen Rüttgers / Frank Decker (ed .) 2017, p. 11.)
  2. ^ Philipp Ther: After neoliberalism: The challenge of refugee integration. In: Jürgen Rüttgers / Frank Decker (Ed.) 2017, p. 259.
  3. ↑ Gesine Schwan: Europe has no future without solidarity. In: Bodo Hombach / Edmund Stoiber (Hrsg.) 2017, p. 94 f.
  4. ↑ From dream to enemy image? Make Europe a referendum! Editor's discussion between Bodo Hombach and Edmund Stoiber moderated by Christoph Schwennicke. In: Bodo Hombach / Edmund Stoiber (Ed.) 2017, p. 207.
  5. ^ Jürgen Rüttgers: History and Future of the United Europe. In: Jürgen Rüttgers / Frank Decker (Ed.) 2017, p. 28.
  6. ↑ Marcel Kau: Legal Harmonization: Investigation of European Finality presented using the example of border control, immigration and asylum law. Tübingen 2016, p. 678.
  7. ↑ Dieter Grimm: Europe: Yes - but which one? In: Jürgen Rüttgers / Frank Decker (Ed.) 2017, p. 47.
  8. ↑ Elmar Brok: A Europe of Fatherlands? In: Bodo Hombach / Edmund Stoiber (Hrsg.) 2017, p. 149 f. and 153.
  9. ^ Fritz W. Scharpf: The European Monetary Union: From the forced convergence to the differentiated integration. In: Jürgen Rüttgers / Frank Decker (Eds.) 2017, p. 202.
  10. ^ Fritz W. Scharpf: The European Monetary Union: From the forced convergence to the differentiated integration. In: Jürgen Rüttgers / Frank Decker (eds.) 2017, pp. 197–211.
  11. ↑ “As things stand today, around 30,000 newcomers have been redistributed. Germany absorbed the most with over 9,700 and should have absorbed up to 27,536. Austria should have accepted more than 1,900, but actually only accepted 17. Luxembourg accepted 512 out of 545. “Malta, for example, actually exceeded the quota. Der Tagesspiegel , December 14, 2017, p. 5: Fuel for the summit. Tusk's push for refugee policy met with little approval .
  12. ↑ EU Commission sues Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland In: Zeit Online , December 7, 2017
  13. ↑ Der Tagesspiegel, December 15, 2017, p. 5: Split Solidarity
  14. ↑ Dominik Geppert: The European Union without Great Britain: How it came to Brexit and what follows from it. In: Jürgen Rüttgers / Frank Decker (Eds.) 2017, p. 125.
  15. ↑ Tanja A. Börzel: Europe without borders and the borders of Europe. In: Jürgen Rüttgers / Frank Decker (Ed.) 2017, p. 81.
  16. ^ Jürgen Rüttgers: History and Future of the United Europe. In: Jürgen Rüttgers / Frank Decker (eds.) 2017, p. 29.
  17. ↑ Martin Schulz : For a new start in Europe. In: Bodo Hombach / Edmund Stoiber (Ed.) 2017, pp. 126–130.
  18. ↑ “The United States of Europe can adopt from the Anglo-Scottish Union the principle that national identities and the nation state can be overcome through a political union without loss of cultural heritage. The United States of America can be a role model for them in terms of how the needs of the center and the regions can be reconciled in a union of a large number of states of different sizes, with different economic strengths and different strategic interests. "(Simms / Zeeb 2016, P. 81 f.)
  19. ↑ Simms / Zeeb 2016, p. 82.
  20. ↑ Simms / Zeeb 2016, pp. 82, 90 f., 104. Thomas Schmid , on the other hand, argues: “The United States could be created because it was a conscious re-establishment of people who expressly wanted a new statehood and therefore left the old world had. Europe can strive for a new state order. But it had and still has - inextricably entangled in its history of conflict - no possibility of completely recreating itself, of inventing itself and of becoming a shining phoenix from the ashes. Europe will always cling to the clumps and remnants of its history. It can only improve, gradually, step by step, pragmatically and with the sober will to tackle the big in the small goal. ”(Thomas Schmid: Europe is dead, long live Europe! A world power has to reinvent itself . Munich 2016, p . 221)
  21. ↑ [1] europa.blog: The declaration of a European Republic: The European Project Balcony
  22. ↑ [2] Manifesto for the establishment of a European republic by Ulrike Guérot and Robert Menasse
  23. ↑ [3] The end of the nation states - ways out of the crisis Law Faculty of the Humboldt University in Berlin