The “architects” of Europe

The newly elected European Parliament has for the first time elected a President who comes from a reformed state: Jerzy Buzek, a Polish politician who – an interesting detail – is a practising evangelical Christian. Buzek’s election has a high symbolic character, but it also shows that the “common European home” is placed on firmer ground than many eurosceptics maintain.The 1st September marks the 70th anniversary of the Second World War, begun with the Nazi attack on Poland. Against this background, the very existence of the European Union – 27 member states, almost 500 million inhabitants, and a parliament with 736 members – can only be called a miracle. No one, after the 1st September 1939, still less after 8 May 1945 (end of the war in Europe) would ever have believed it possible that a continent reduced to rubble could ever rise again from its ashes. No one would have thought that one day it would be possible to travel again – as it was before 1914 – without any frontier controls all the way from Lisbon to Riga. In all the discussion on Europe, we need to keep these dates in mind, so that as a result of sordid disputes we don’t lose sight of the great project which is in large part attributable to such convinced Catholic politicians as Alcide De Gasperi, Konrad Adenauer and Robert Schuman. Is it not strange that people so often speculate on the EU’s presumed lack of democratic legitimacy and that “Brussels” is often represented simultaneously as the sinister capital of an “empire”? The European Parliament plays an active role in the drafting of laws that have an effect on the daily life of citizens, as in the sectors of the environment, consumer rights, traffic, and the free circulation of workers, capital, goods and services. The Parliament is also responsible, together with the European Council, for the budget of the European Union. This latter aspect is an important point, if we bear in mind the main slogan of the American Revolution in 1776: “No taxation without representation”. To complete the “European architecture”, it is essential however that the Lisbon Treaty should come into force. For thanks to the provisions of this treaty, the European Parliament will obtain new fields of competence and responsibilities, new powers in terms of co-decision, budget, control and rights of initiative. But especially the Lisbon Treaty guarantees the binding character of the “Charter of Fundamental Rights” and the recognition of the rights and liberties of all persons who live in the area of the European Union. At the same time, the term “enlargement” will have to be taken seriously in the EP’s new legislation. The question of enlargement involves not only Iceland, but also Croatia, Serbia and the other countries that emerged from the ruins of the “Yugoslav catastrophe” in the 1990s. It also involves Turkey, and if Turkey is eligible to join, why not also Ukraine (though this country is being precipitated into a dramatic political situation at the present time)?And, lastly, the question is posed of how the new Europe wishes to relate to the rest of the world in an era of globalization. The limited perspective of “Mitteleuropa” no longer holds good. We should never forget that a Spaniard feels more at home in Bogotà, Lima or Buenos Aires than in Berlin or Vienna, that a Portuguese feels at home practically everywhere, and that a “Francophone community” is present in all continents. Europe cannot be a fortress of limited views: that would be tantamount to betraying its own history and its future…