THE EU IN SEARCH OF LEADERSHIP

1. The current EU crisis partly stems from the EU being an elite-led project which pays great respect to technocracy forgetting that the technocratic method was just a means to address politics, not an end in itself.
2. Europe needs more politics, more leaders, and more than leaders it needs committed European citizens who believe the EU is the place to find solutions to European problems, political representatives who make Europe a forum for their political battles, economic and social actors thinking about pan-European problems and solutions.  And it needs to re-engage in an ideological debate about the EU’s raison d’être.
3. There is a need for a consensus  over strategic goals and an appropriate metric for measuring progress toward their achievement. Unfortunately, leadership has been replaced by the politics of “muddling through.” So a better answer is probably “legitimate political leadership.” Legitimacy would afford European leadership the authority needed to make the sorts of value trade-offs that are a precondition for effective strategy. But since legitimacy ultimately derives from the consent of the governed, the prospects for legitimate political leadership hinge on redressing the European Union’s democratic deficit.
4. While the challenges facing many countries in Europe are enormously complicated economic and political puzzles, the leadership of each country is facing a crisis of credibility. Voters are increasingly uncertain about their individual future and about the ability of their leaders to deliver a convincing set of solutions with which they can identify and support. Governments face skepticism and anger, often generated by indecisive or opportunistic leaders but also by the impatience of citizens often unwilling to face hard choices. Europe needs leaders who can convey authenticity and honesty in portraying what is at stake while inspiring support for difficult decisions. Those leaders will not be found in the offices of the EU in Brussels, as much in the national capitals. They will be those men and women who can convincingly remind their own citizens and those of other countries why Europe still remains a shared goal with shared benefits and sacrifices. Europe has created a large set of institutions. It still remains necessary to create Europeans willing to invest their interests and future in them. Europe needs those who can show leadership in reforging a convincing narrative for that purpose.
5. Europe needs bottom up, consensual leadership.  Consensual, because Europe only works if the Member States are pulling in the same direction. Leadership requires followership. Even leadership by the “bigs” imposed on the smalls (assuming the former themselves manage to agree) will result ultimately only in resentment and non-compliance. Clearly, this places limits on the possible.
6. Europe needs a robust, far-sighted, and crisis-solving leadership. Political leaders aren't providing an overall framework for how they see the crisis and how it should be solved. Europe lacks leaders that can frame solutions, which are convincing beyond their borders, about a joint European future.

Bottom Line

1. Europe needs better leaders—ones who are true to core values of freedom, democracy, market economics, the rule of law, and human rights.
2. Europe needs leaders who can listen to those with whom they disagree, and find compromises and solutions.
3. Europe needs leaders who worry more about governing than about sound bites and elections.
4. Europe needs leaders who truly mean it when they say they are “serving,” rather than ruling for the pleasure of exercising power in pursuit of their own agendas.

The message is clear: if mainstream parties do not get positive economic results, anti-EU parties will increasingly gain power across Europe