Political Europe in balance between Athens and the Mediterranean

“On May 25 citizens conveyed their expectations and anguishes”. Now “let’s put aside sterile ideological clashes and nationalistic drives”, “let take pragmatism as a method and produce concrete results for all citizens”. On July 15 2014 Jean-Claude Juncker was to become the next president-elect of the Commission (due to take office on November 1st, succeeding Portuguese statesman José Manuel Barroso). Juncker, from Luxembourg, member of the EPP group, premier of the Grand-Duchy for many years, former president of the Eurogroup, as envisaged in Lisbon Treaty reached the pole position to lead the Executive: the EPP had been the most voted party by citizens of EU 28 at the EU Parliament elections of May 22-25. In his keynote speech, after having called upon the European Parliament and EU Member Countries to deliver results for the good of citizens, combining a good dose of idealism and realism, he added: “The single currency doesn’t divide, it protects Europe, its economy and its citizens”. “I want a political, a more political Commission”. He went on: “Europe cannot be built against States but with States”. Who knows whether today, one year since the beginning of his mandate, a convinced Europeanist like Juncker would have delivered the same speech. In the past 12 months the College could not focus fully on the five-year plan presented at the Council of the heads of Government and State and at the European Parliament when they took office in Brussels. That program envisaged three major points. “Employment, growth and investments”, was the first title, with the purpose of responding to the serious crisis that since 2008 put European economy on its knees. The proposal of the 315 bln investment plan, yet to be implemented, emerged within that framework. The second “pillar” was the “Digital Single Market”, to make Europe modern and interconnected. Then the ‘”Climate and energy union”. The Commission’s other key points included: the completion of economic and monetary union (including Banking Union), the EU-US free trade treaty known as the TTIP, justice and fundamental rights, migration and asylum, the role of ‘EU in the international arena. The second semester of 2014 largely focused on the renewal and the full implementation of the various EU institutions: the newly elected Parliament, the Commission (with the choice of the other 27 commissioners), the identification of the High Representative for Foreign Policy (Federica Mogherini was eventually elected to this post) and of the President of the European Council (Donald Tusk, Polish politician). In the meantime, Europe had to face the outbreak of two emergencies, due to become, in the course of the year, the main themes of EU debate, namely, Greece and migrations. These are equally complex and tragic aspects. On the one side a country on its last legs, pressed by foreign debts, social crisis and confidence in politics in free fall; on the other the landings of migrants in the Mediterranean, with tens of thousands of people fleeing from Africa and the Middle East hopeful of finding the “promised land” in the Old Continent. Europe has had to discover its lack of unity and of specific legislation, thereby preventing the possibility of concrete action. Thus the Juncker Commission strived to achieve concerted action among EU28, while it had to confront the resurgence of nationalistic claims, demanding to turn our backs to Athens and leave Mediterranean countries alone to face the mass landings of refugees, not to mention additional hurdles such as the weakening of the traditional European Berlin-Paris axis coupled by the decision of London’s government to call a referendum in 2017 to decide whether to leave or to remain inside the “common home”. In the meantime, further obstacles loomed on the Eastern (Ukraine-Russia) and Western horizons (increasing TTIP negotiations). Juncker and his team tried to retain the helm to provide a response of the European Parliament with a continental bearing, with a greater amount of diplomacy rather than authentic long-term strategies, with an initial core of migration policy and additional, new “bailout” plans for Greece. The balance of the first year of Juncker has lights and shadows: maybe it could have been possible to do better, but given the ongoing anti-European pressures it would have been more likely to do worse.