AMERICA MOVING FORWARD… EUROPE SITS IDLE

The political reality is that the EU will be unable to redefine its mission before 2018–2019. After the blow of Brexit, there is no going back to business as usual; yet the electoral timetable and divisions across Europe make major decisions impossible for at least two years. The sense of drift is heightened by traditional forms of leadership becoming dysfunctional. The Franco-German couple is not producing solutions.

For François Fillon,” Europe is in crisis and the Brexit is the direct consequence of an absence of initiative of the European leaders. Europe today appears at best to be inefficient, useless, outdated and at worst an obstacle to development and freedom. Today, the federal European project has come to an end. We need to rebuild a new, more political Europe that will attract the support of peoples and nations.  For this, Europe will have to concentrate its action on a few well-defined areas and leave the freedom to the nation states to govern as they see fit on a majority of subjects, respecting the principle of subsidiarity. To change Europe, it will be necessary to reform the institutions so that their power is more framed by the States and that the principle of subsidiarity becomes the rule again."

While the authority of the Brussels institutions is in decline, most prime ministers and presidents today think in national terms. Yet leadership of the common EU project has to come from national politicians in this era of renationalization.

The next window of opportunity to find durable solutions could open after the French and German elections in 2017 and in the run-up to the new terms of the European Commission and Parliament in 2019. Leaders need to start working now to overcome their divisions through substantive debate, so that by 2018–2019 they have a credible plan for the EU’s future for broad public discussion. By 2019, EU leaders need to be ready with a widely supported plan for moving the union’s core projects forward.