France and Germany: two proposals for the EU” “

“It’s difficult to imagine a further growth of the European project, if it isn’t accompanied by a conscious contribution of civil society, by the informed support of a nascent European public opinion and by a lesser fragmentation of the national public debates”: so said Marco Demarie, director of the Giovanni Agnelli Foundation on opening the work of a seminar on “The new Europe”. “These are the conditions – Demarie stressed – to ensure that the reinforcement of the European project represents an authentically shared constituent phase”. A few days before the European summit scheduled to be held in Laeken in December, Martin Kremer, member of the “Policy planning staff” of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Laurent Toulouse, of the “Centre d’analyse et de prevision” of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, participated in the Turin meeting sponsored by the Agnelli Foundation to review the progress of integration in Europe. Both speakers emphasized how necessary it is, after the events of 11 September, to accelerate the process of integration and enlargement. According to Toulouse, it is more correct to speak of “European reunification than enlargement”. The distinction between the French and the German position is especially about how to proceed towards integration. Kremer insisted on the German federal model that “does not mean speaking of a superstate, but of a federalism aimed at guaranteeing the autonomy of the individual states. The efficiency of each member State – he explained – augments the efficiency of the Union. Reinforcing democracy in all the member States means reinforcing democracy in Europe as a whole”. Laurent Toulouse emphasized, on the other hand, how a demand for greater pragmatism had developed in France: it is being urged that not all the problems on the European agenda for the next few years be tackled simultaneously. We need – he said – “to speak more of content than of containers. To be able to think of Europe as an efficient regulatory instrument is fundamental”. According to Kremer, what is fundamental, on the other hand, is ” the common effort for security and the fight against terrorism. The European Union, also in view of the entry of new members, must have its own foreign policy”.