Six months with Putin

“The bad pupil in command”: a headline published in the Strasbourg daily, the DNA, in recent days sums up the deep concerns aroused by the start of the new semester of the revolving Presidency of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe: since Saturday 20 May it has been in the hands of the Russia of Vladimir Putin. COUNCIL OF EUROPE, TEST-BED. For the next six months, therefore, Moscow will pull the strings of the most ancient supranational organization in the continent: founded in 1949, the Council of Europe (COE) now comprises 46 member countries. Its main tasks are promoting democracy and the rule of law, defending human rights, and reinforcing links between the European peoples at the cultural level. The fact is, however, that Russia often appears in COE dossiers as a defaulter: she is reminded of the need to respect democratic rules, and the rights of individuals and minorities. It is no accident that the President of the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe, RENÉ VAN DER LINDEN , declared that Moscow now has “the opportunity to demonstrate that it fully forms part of democratic Europe”. So the COE Presidency is a test-bed for Russia. EXAMINATION OF CONSCIENCE. The case of Russia attests however that an “examination of conscience” is underway in Europe. Confirmation of this came on various occasions within the European Union in recent days. Last week a decision on the date for the entry of Romania and Bulgaria into the EU was deferred; it had been provisionally fixed for 1st January 2007 but has now been put on hold pending final confirmation. The two Balkan countries are accused of delays in judicial reforms, widespread government corruption, and a poor record in the protection of human rights and of minorities. More or less the same doubts are raised in reviewing the status of other candidate countries (Turkey, Croatia, Macedonia), or the several other countries that aspire to enter the EU (the other Balkan States, Ukraine, Moldavia). And it is not only in Eastern Europe that the EU is faced by problems. The failed ratification of the Constitution by France and Holland is still giving “pause for reflection” on the “future of Europe”: the question was debated at the inter-parliamentary Forum (8-9 May), the Forum of civil society (24-25 April), the European Council (at the most recent summits), extraordinary summits (Hampton Court) and parliamentary sessions, and in documents of the Commission (apart from Plan D in 2005, the White Paper on communication and, most recently, the document with the title “Citizen’s Agenda”). THE “NEW FRONTIERS”. Probably there is now a widespread recognition that, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the European Community has undergone a brusque acceleration which has brought with it appreciable results, but now seems not fully under control. Community Europe has profoundly changed as a result of the provisions of the successive Treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice, the introduction of the single currency (the euro), the enlargement in 1995 and, more especially, that in 2004, the publication of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and the work of the Convention, culminating in the approval of the Constitution, already ratified by 16 member countries but blocked by the double rejection by France and Holland a year ago. More profoundly, the “conscience of Europe” is perhaps changing, not so much because it is distancing itself from the designs of the “founding fathers” (Schuman, De Gasperi, Monnet, Adenauer, Spaak, Spinelli…), but because it is still unable to close ranks in response to the mounting challenges and pressures of “globalization”. What is for sure is that the “new frontiers” of the EU are predicated on the realization of a single, dynamic and competitive market; so Europe needs to invest in the Lisbon Strategy (competitiveness based on knowledge), with its ambitious objective of greater social cohesion and the realization of a “European model” able to secure greater prosperity and effective welfare for the population of Europe. Another sore point that still remains open is the whole question of democratic participation, to bring citizens closer to the European process and make them protagonists of the “common home”. WHAT ARE THE FOUNDING VALUES OF THE EU? Equally delicate challenges are being posed in terms of the sum of values that the European Union wishes to protect through its legislative and political action. Is peace, for example, still a priority, as it was for the founding fathers of Europe? Are subsidiarity and solidarity the key principles of EU provisions? Is the family at the centre of the concerns of the political leaders and of the bureaucracy in Brussels and Strasbourg? Is support for the most vulnerable sections of the population and for the less developed regions an integral part of each EU decision? Is the “international vocation” of the Union based on the promotion of democracy, peaceful co-existence and cooperation? Only a Europe that seriously questions itself about its own identity and its future, and that is able to look beyond its own geographical frontiers, can play the role as a world protagonist to which it sometimes aspires and which it is responsibly called to assume.