European Union

[MJ]

New York Times

Europe's Vision of Unity Meets Headwinds

By RICHARD BERNSTEIN

 

Published: December 4, 2003

 

 

RUSSELS, Dec. 2 — The grand, even historic vision shared by all of the 25 current and imminent members of the European Union is that the organization, begun as a simple customs union several decades ago, will move to ever higher levels of integration, able to forge common European positions on defense and foreign policy as well.

But the recent reality of the union has been a series of crises and disagreements that have led some analysts to wonder if it can work at all with so many members of such different sizes and interests. It is now making final preparations for its largest expansion ever, with 10 new member countries representing about 80 million people scheduled to join next spring.

Lately, it seems, the European Union can hardly take a step without finding itself entangled in some maddeningly divisive issue.

Controversy erupted last week over a decision to allow France and Germany to run budget deficits that exceed statutory limits governing the euro, leading to suspicions of one set of rules for big countries, another for small ones. Right after that, Britain, France and Germany agreed on a common European defense policy but had to omit any reference to a headquarters, to avoid a suggestion of competing with NATO.

Next week, foreign ministers from member countries will meet in Brussels to decide whether to adopt a new constitution. Its text, already the subject of a year and a half of intense negotiations, is still producing arguments, mostly over how power is to be distributed among the members, but not only over that.

There are also fierce disagreements over the demands of some countries that the constitution's preamble mention God. There are even debates over whether to give the holder of a post to be created soon the title of foreign minister or foreign affairs representative or something else.

"It is a serious thing," Reijo Kemppinen, the spokesman for Romano Prodi, the European Commission president, said of the current splits within the organization. "At the moment it looks a bit worrisome.

"But," Mr. Kemppinen continued, "the E.U. has faced these types of crises before. Political integration is not something that can be reached overnight. It took 50 years to reach a common currency. It might take a couple of years more to reach political integration."

This is not to neglect the historic meaning of the looming enlargement, by which the European Union, which started with just six countries, will become a 25-member club bringing most of the former East Bloc states, including Poland, the Czech Republic, Lithuania and Hungary, into its democratic, free-trade embrace. Still, as the enlargement approaches, the group has been enmeshed in a host of arguments, small and large, stemming from one common root, experts say.

"The basic, central conflict has to do with the distribution of power between the big and the small states," said William Drozdiak, director of the Trans-Atlantic Center of the German Marshall Fund, a research organization.

"The danger is that what you'll end up with after enlargement is a glorified customs union," he added. "All the pretense of a common European defense and security policy would fall apart, and you'll see more and more the big countries just getting together to create coalitions of the willing to do things on their own. That's where we're heading."

His assessment is far from universally shared. Yet the accumulated disagreements of the last few weeks and months have led other people to worry that the organization's goal of moving from economic integration to common policies in defense and foreign affairs will at the very least be difficult to accomplish.

The immediate battleground has to do with the new constitution, whose purpose is to create the rules by which the expanded European system will operate.

The draft of the constitution has been criticized by Poland and Spain. They are demanding more weight in the European Union's councils of power than the current document gives them.

One reason for their dissatisfaction is that an earlier plan, agreed to in Nice two years ago, gave Poland and Spain almost as many votes each in the European Council as Germany, which has about twice as many people as either country.

Now, to their displeasure, the earlier system has been jettisoned in favor of an arrangement known as the double majority, which would give greater weight to the bigger countries: Italy, France, Germany and Great Britain.

At the same time, the French and the Germans worry about the danger to them of giving a preponderance of voting power to the smaller states. If, for example, there were to be another debate like the one over war in Iraq, a combination of smaller states could win official support for a policy that France and Germany bitterly opposed.

French and German power certainly seemed to be on display in the recent action on the rules regarding the euro, which specify that no country using the currency can have a budget deficit exceeding 3 percent of its gross domestic product or an inflation rate higher than 3 percent.

Paradoxically, it was Germany itself, by far the European Union's most important economy, that insisted on strict anti-inflation curbs as a condition for creating the euro in the first place.

But that was a decade ago, before anybody imagined that the economies of Germany and France would go into prolonged recessions, making it politically impossible to keep deficits below the required levels.

Facing that situation, both countries will by the end of this year have surpassed the deficit ceiling three years in a row. Despite bitter opposition from many bureaucrats, they persuaded the organization's finance ministers not to impose the costly penalties that are required in the official currency stabilization rules.

The reaction shows not only concern over the two countries' power, but also the way toward possible compromises.

In the end, according to senior European Union officials, there was no great appetite for imposing penalties on the Germans in particular, because the other countries need Germany to resume its economic growth. In other words, what seemed to prevail was a recognition that not all of the member states need to always be precisely equal.

"Germany and France have always been the engines of the union," Pavel Telicka, the Czech ambassador said, "and we don't have a problem with that. It's the reality."

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/04/internat...pagewanted=1&th

[Armen]

RFE/RL Armenia Report - 01/26/2004

 

Monday 26, January 2004

 

EU To Consider Caucasus States For `Wider Europe' Scheme

 

By Ahto Lobjakas in Brussels

 

The European Union took late Monday what appears to be the first step

towards including Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia in its "Wider Europe"

program of preferential relations with the so-called "new neighbors."

 

The foreign ministers of the EU's 15 member states and 10 other nations

that are poised to join the bloc instructed its executive body, the

European Commission, to look into ways of expanding the cooperation

scheme into the South Caucasus and to report back to them by next June.

In a statement, they said a final decision on the matter will be based

on the opinion of the Commission and its High Commissioner for Foreign

and Security Policy Javier Solana in particular.

 

Unveiled by the European Commission last summer, the "Wider Europe"

offers Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus -- among others -- closer

cooperation. Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan were not covered by the

initiative.

 

EU officials told RFE/RL earlier that the November `rose revolution' in

Georgia prompted the EU to consider sending an "explicit" signal to the

three countries that their inclusion remains a possibility, even though

none of them presently meets the legislative and regulatory criteria

necessary for closer cooperation. Not surprisingly, Georgia was singled

out in the ministers' statement issued after a meeting in Brussels.

 

Officials now say that the three ex-Soviet states will have to adopt a

large percentage of EU law if they are to achieve closer integration

into Europe. That would mean, in the long term, becoming part of what

the EU calls its `four freedoms' -- free movement of people, capital,

goods and services. Further economic assistance to the impoverished

region, in the meantime, will remain the bloc's main short-term focus.

 

Speaking at a news conference, the EU's External Relations Commissioner

Chris Patten stressed that greater aid to Armenia, Azerbaijan and

Georgia will be contingent on more political and economic reforms.

[Armen]

The Washington Times

www.washingtontimes.com

http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/...00240-4474r.htm

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Why Europe lags behind

By Bruce Bartlett

Published August 11, 2004

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Europeans are frustrated. They have been behind the United States economically for years and thought this was due to lack of economic integration. So they created the European Union, with a common currency and virtually free mobility of goods, capital and labor throughout the Continent. Yet Europe continues to lag.

A new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the United States with real gross domestic product (GDP) per person in 2003 of $34,960 (in 1999 dollars). This is well above every European country. The most productive European country, Norway, has a per capita GDP of just $30,882 (converted using purchasing power parity exchange rates). The major countries of Europe are even further behind: United Kingdom ($26,039), France ($25,578), Italy ($24,894), and Germany ($24,813).

In other words, Europeans produce no more per year than Americans did 20 years ago. And they are not catching up. According to the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland, the productivity gap between the U.S. and Europe is actually widening. In the euro area as a whole, workers were 86 percent as productive as American workers in 1995. In 2003, this fell to 84 percent.

As a result, living standards are much lower in Europe than most Americans imagine. This fact is highlighted in a new study by the Swedish think tank Timbro. For example, it notes the average poor family here has 25 percent more living space than the average European. Looking at all American households, we have about twice as much space: 1,875 square feet here vs. 976.5 square feet in Europe. Average Europeans only live about as well as those in the poorest American state, Mississippi.

Where Europeans are better off, perhaps, is in terms of leisure -- they have a lot of it. According to the Union Bank of Switzerland, the typical European has 2 to 3 times as many paid days off per year as Americans. And according to Eurostat, Europeans don't put in much of a workday, either.

According to the report, the typical European only does a bit more than 5 hours of gainful work per day, with Norwegians at the low end at 4 hours, 56 minutes per day, and (surprisingly) the French at the high end at 5 hours, 44 minutes per day.

One reason for the short workday is Europeans seem to get sick a lot more than Americans. According to a July 25 report in the New York Times, on an average day 25 percent of Norway's workers call in sick. A 2002 study in Sweden found the average worker there took more than 30 sick days per year. Makes you wonder just how good their health care systems really are.

Consequently, aggregate hours worked are much lower in Europe than in the U.S. According to a new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris, last year the average American worked 1,792 hours. By contrast, the average Frenchman worked just 1,453 hours and the average German worked only 1,446 hours. Twenty-five years ago, annual hours worked in Europe were much closer to those here.

The OECD blames the unwillingness of Europeans to work as the principal reason for the lower output per worker and their lower standard of living compared with Americans. "Research has clearly established a remarkable fact: namely, that the sizable U.S. advantage in real GDP per capita ... is largely due to differences in total hours worked per capita," the report states. It urges European governments to reform their labor policies to increase work hours, a recommendation seconded in a recent report from the International Monetary Fund.

Unfortunately, neither the OECD nor the IMF has any real explanation why Europeans take so much leisure time. However, a new study by economist Edward Prescott of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis provides the answer. He says Europe's higher taxes explain almost all the difference in labor force participation rates between Europe and here. He notes that when European tax levels were comparable to those here, work hours were similar. But as Europe's taxes have risen, workers responded by working less.

Consequently, tax cuts in Europe would raise labor supplies, increase output and raise the standard of living. For example, if France reduced its tax burden from 60 percent of GDP to 40 percent, the average Frenchman would be able to consume 19 percent more over his lifetime than he does now. This is a very large impact.

In short, Europeans don't work because it just doesn't pay to work after the government takes its cut. And because welfare benefits are so high, the cost of not working is low. Thus, when workers compare what they make after-tax with what they can make by doing nothing, the gap is very small.

 

Bruce Bartlett is senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis and a nationally syndicated columnist.

[Armen]

http://www.foreignpolicy.com

The Metrosexual Superpower

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/files/story2583.php

 

By Parag Khanna

 

 

July/August 2004

 

The stylish European Union struts past the bumbling United States on the catwalk of global diplomacy.

 

According to Michael Flocker's 2003 bestseller, The Metrosexual Guide to Style: A Handbook for the Modern Man, the trendsetting male icons of the 21st century must combine the coercive strengths of Mars and the seductive wiles of Venus. Put simply, metrosexual men are muscular but suave, confident yet image-conscious, assertive yet clearly in touch with their feminine sides. Just consider British soccer star David Beckham. He is married to former Spice Girl Victoria “Posh” Adams, but his combination of athleticism and cross-dressing make him a sex symbol to both women and men worldwide, not to mention the inspiration for the 2002 hit movie Bend It Like Beckham. Substance, Beckham shows, is nothing without style.

 

Geopolitics is much the same. American neoconservatives such as Robert Kagan look down upon feminine, Venus-like Europeans, gibing their narcissistic obsession with building a postmodern, bureaucratic paradise. The United States, by contrast, supposedly carries the mantle of masculine Mars, boldly imposing freedom in the world's nastiest neighborhoods. But by cleverly deploying both its hard power and its sensitive side, the European Union (EU) has become more effective—and more attractive—than the United States on the catwalk of diplomatic clout. Meet the real New Europe: the world's first metrosexual superpower.

 

Metrosexuals always know how to dress for the occasion (or mission). Spreading peace across Eurasia serves U.S. interests, but it's best done by donning Armani pinstripes rather than U.S. Army fatigues. After the fall of Soviet communism, conservative U.S. thinkers feared a united Germany vying with Russia for hegemony in Central Europe. Yet, by brandishing only a slick portfolio of economic incentives, the EU has incorporated many of the former Soviet republics and satellites in the Baltics and Eastern Europe. Even Turkey is freshening up with eau d'Europe. Ankara resisted Washington's pressure to provide base rights for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. But to get backstage in Brussels, it has had to smooth out its more unseemly blemishes—abolishing the death penalty, taking steps to resolve the Cyprus dispute, and introducing laws to protect its Kurdish minority.

 

Metrosexuals may spend a long time standing in front of the mirror, but they never shop alone. Stripping off stale national sovereignty (that's so last century), Europeans now parade their “pooled power,” the new look for this geopolitical season. As a political, economic, and military union with some 450 million citizens, a $9 trillion economy, and armies surpassing 1.6 million soldiers, Europe is now a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

 

Indeed, Europe actually contributes more to U.S. foreign policy goals than the U.S. government—and does so far more fashionably. Robert Cooper, one of Britain's former defense gurus now shaping Europe's common foreign policy, argues that Europe's “magnetic allure” compels countries to rewrite their laws and constitutions to meet European standards. The United States conceives of power primarily in military terms, thus confusing presence with influence. By contrast, Europeans understand power as overall leverage. As a result, the EU is the world's largest bilateral aid donor, providing more than twice as much aid to poor countries as the United States, and it is also the largest importer of agricultural goods from the developing world, enhancing its influence in key regions of instability. Through massive deployments of “soft power” (such as economic clout and cultural appeal) Europe has made hard power less necessary. After expanding to 25 members, the EU accounts for nearly half of the world's outward foreign direct investment and exerts greater leverage than the United States over pivotal countries such as Brazil and Russia. As more oil-producing nations consider trading in euros, Europe will gain greater influence in the international marketplace. Even rogue states swoon over Europe's allure; just recall how Libya's Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi greeted British Prime Minister Tony Blair during a recent meeting in Tripoli. “You are looking good,” gushed Libya's strongman. “You are still young.”

 

Brand Europe is taking over. From environmental sustainability and international law to economic development and social welfare, European views are more congenial to international tastes and more easily exported than their U.S. variants. Even the Bush administration's new strategy toward the “Greater Middle East” is based on the Helsinki model, which was Europe's way of integrating human rights standards into collective security institutions. Furthermore, regional organizations such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Mercosur, and the African Union are redesigning their institutions to look more like the EU. Europe's flashy new symbol of power, the Airbus 380, will soon strut on runways all over Asia. And the euro is accepted even where they don't take American Express.

 

But don't be deceived by the metrosexual superpower's pleatless pants—Europe hasn't lost touch with its hard assets. Even without a centralized military command structure, the EU has recently led military operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Macedonia, and it will increase troop deployments to support German and British forces in stabilizing Afghanistan. European countries already provide 10 times more peacekeepers to U.N. operations than the United States. In late 2004, the EU will take over all peacekeeping and policing operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina from NATO, and Europe's 60,000-troop Rapid Reaction Force will soon be ready to deploy around the world.

 

In the fight against terrorism, Europe also displays the right ensemble of strengths. Europeans excel at human intelligence, which requires expert linguists and cultural awareness. French espionage agencies have reportedly infiltrated al Qaeda cells, and German and Spanish law enforcement efforts have led to the capture of numerous al Qaeda operatives. After the March 2004 terrorist attack in Madrid, Spain's incoming prime minister immediately declared his country would “return to Europe,” signaling his opposition to the Bush administration's war on terror. Indeed, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's “New Europe” is already passé, shorter lived than the bellbottom revival.

 

To some observers, the EU may always be little more than a cheap superpower knockoff with little substance to show but a common multilingual passport. But after 60 years of dressing up, Europe has revealed its true 21st-century orientation. Just as metrosexuals are redefining masculinity, Europe is redefining old notions of power and influence. Expect Bend It Like Brussels to play soon in capital cities worldwide.

 

Parag Khanna is a fellow in global governance at the Brookings Institution.

Edited August 12, 2004 by ArmenSarg

[THOTH]

Where Europeans are better off, perhaps, is in terms of leisure -- they have a lot of it. According to the Union Bank of Switzerland, the typical European has 2 to 3 times as many paid days off per year as Americans.

...and who is lagging behind who?

[Armen]

...and who is lagging behind who?

Thoth if you're asking me, I would say nighter U.S. nor EU are lagging behind. They're just fine. I know some countries, which really lag behind. Everything is congnised in comparison

[THOTH]

Thoth if you're asking me, I would say nighter U.S. nor EU are lagging behind. They're just fine. I know some countries, which really lag behind. Everything is congnised in comparison

agreed...but I personally value my free time more then my concern about national productivity and growth. Unlike many I am blessed with ample leave and take advantage of it - and I even take leave without pay on occasion because travel and free time are of great value to me. I think Europeans - in general - are better off for this - but perhaps their economies taking a toll and unemployment resulting are a price that they are paying....nothign is perfect I guess...and I hear you about other places being worse off and things being relative...

[gamavor]

I think Europeans - in general - are better off for this - but perhaps their economies taking a toll and unemployment resulting are a price that they are paying....nothign is perfect I guess...and I hear you about other places being worse off and things being relative...

 

None of these... The only toll Europeans have to pay is TAXES. And believe me, Europeans have much better lifestyle than any average American.

 

PS: Well, of course this is also relative, since in order to make objective comparisons one need to have both experiences...

Edited August 12, 2004 by gamavor

[Armen]

July 5, 2003

http://www.cato.org/dailys/07-05-03.html

 

US-EU: The Constitutional Divide

by Marian Tupy and Patrick Basham

 

Marian Tupy is assistant director of the Project on Global Economic Liberty and Patrick Basham is senior fellow in the Center for Representative Government at the Cato Institute.

 

All written constitutions are products of their time. They reflect a specific political culture, the strength of different political interests, and the particular historical concerns of the authors themselves. As President Bush, sworn to defend a constitution written over 200 years ago, meets in Washington with EU leaders finalizing a constitution of their own, the respective documents reflect the differences between American and European political cultures.

 

The American Constitution is a product of the 18th century Enlightenment. Its overriding concern is the relationship between individual freedom and coercive government power. Hence, the government's powers are delegated, enumerated, and thus limited. The authority that government enjoys is derived from the people, who can, in theory, reclaim that authority.

 

In contrast, the recently drafted EU constitution is a product of 20th century welfare-state socialism. The official goal was to design a simpler, more efficient, more democratic Europe that is "closer to its citizens." However, the goal was never seriously pursued and, consequently, never achieved. As a result, the new constitution will have serious negative implications for liberal parliamentary democracy and the principles of self-government.

 

The EU constitution makes European government more, not less, remote from the citizenry. The EU's operations are expanded, not streamlined, and its bureaucracy is made more complex, not simpler. There are no cuts to the EU's 97,000 pages of accumulated laws and regulations. The EU's powers are supposedly limited in this document but there is an escape clause in case the Brussels-based bureaucracy ever feels boxed in by popular sentiment. The decisions in Brussels are final and EU laws supersede laws made by national parliaments.

 

The EU constitution ignores the delineation of government powers for both ideological and practical reasons. Ideologically, the federalist European Left views government as the initiator of action, which is why it favors a government uninhibited by individual freedom. By contrast, most Americans view government as a facilitator of actions initiated by private individuals. That is why individualism is incompatible with the welfare state and that is why it is rejected by European elites as alien to the European political system.

 

In practical terms, the drafters of the EU constitution made a conscious decision to leave the exact parameters of federal government power as ambiguous as possible. This is in order to provide for the expansion of EU power held centrally in Brussels. If the EU is ever to approximate the stature of the United States in international affairs and global economics, the Brussels-led reasoning goes, centralized decision-making must increase. Hence, the pessimism of those seeking to overturn the EU's longstanding "democratic deficit."

 

The EU constitution is also full of dangerously vague, politically correct phraseology, including references to "sustainable development," "solidarity between generations," and "the social market economy." Moreover, the EU constitution is also preoccupied with the codification of welfare entitlements, i.e., redistributive claims that individuals and/or groups make against one another. For example, some of the provisions in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, such as the right to a job, can only be guaranteed through the transfer of vast resources from some citizens to others.

 

When the original Charter was signed, it was considered a non-binding statement of intent. That is why the British, whose political system most closely resembles the American, were willing to consent to it. The EU constitution makes the Charter provisions compulsory in the manner of the American Bill of Rights. However, the two are fundamentally different. With the exception of the 7th Amendment, which provides Americans with the right to a trial by jury, the Bill of Rights stipulates only those rights individuals possess vis-à-vis the state. It says nothing about entitlements that some people may receive at others' expense.

 

The formal adoption of the EU constitution will result in one of two possible outcomes. Either the constitutional welfare provisions will be discretely ignored, because of their prohibitive cost and negative effect on European economic growth, or their enforcement will lead to even greater central government regulation of European social and economic life.

 

In the former outcome, the entire EU constitution will be devalued by overtly broken promises. The latter outcome will relegate the European economy to permanent second-class socio-economic status and thus postpone, perhaps indefinitely, the European dream of eventually rivaling American financial wealth, cultural influence, and political power.

 

Alain Lamassoure, a French delegate to the EU Constitutional Convention, states, "Our work compares favorably with that of the Philadelphia Convention." On the contrary, the EU's technocratic social engineers confused their overly elaborate constitutional designs with the simple yet enlightened principles that anchor the American Constitution and underpin the very success that the EU exists to emulate.

 

This article was published in the Washington Times, June 25, 2003.

[gamavor]

http://europa.eu.int/futurum/index_en.htm

[Armen]

Wow, thanks for the link Gams. I like these "all in one" things.