This Saturday, the 25th of March, Europe celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. Let us take a brief tour of this recent history and then a brief journey into the near future of European construction.
I. The recent past of European construction, four phases:
In a synthetic way, the European construction went through four phases. The first phase, between 1947 and 1957, is the heroic phase, of federal inspiration, which culminated in the construction of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in the early 50s.
The second phase, between 1957 (Treaty of Rome) and 1989 (the fall of the Berlin wall), is the phase of the cold war and the bipolar world, of functionalist and technocratic integration, essentially juridical-economic.
The third phase, between 1989 and 2005 (Constitutional Treaty), is the most voluntarist and political-institutional phase, aiming to absorb the great expansion to the East, which ends with the lead of the Constitutional Treaty project.
The fourth phase between 2005 and 2017 is the phase of the Lisbon Treaty, the great crisis of 2008, the Arab Springs, the refugee crisis, the rescue programs and international terrorism, an unusual accumulation of fault lines that led to the crisis that we live today and that calls for an urgent reform of the European project.
II. A Single European Act for a “government of the European commons”
Let's take a brief trip into the future of the European project. Here is the decalogue of the 3rd Unionist way of European construction for a “government of the European commons”:
– A European Public Prosecutor's Office, especially for major financial crime,
– A proposal to simplify the “European institutional labyrinth” with greater involvement of national parliaments,
– A European mechanism for major risks and combating climate change,
– A new architecture for the eurozone: the functions of the ECB, the functions of the budget, the functions of the ESM (European stabilization mechanism),
– An architecture for a Europe of European Security and Defense,
– A European mechanism for sovereign debt management,
– A European mechanism for the promotion of networks of European regions and cities,
– A European mechanism for promoting the digital society and the collaborative economy,
– A European proposal for the revision of cooperation and development instruments,
– A European proposal for a comprehensive review of the Union's financial support instruments.
III. Final Notes
– The Union will be under constant pressure between the increasingly demanding Foreign and Security Policy (ESDP) and the increasingly radicalized domestic policies;
– The reform of the ESDP, in all its dimensions, which includes refugees and energy policy, will be an urgent requirement;
– The reform of the eurozone architecture is also an urgent requirement;
– Brexit should avoid a “Hard Brexit” negotiating approach and a “theory of precedent” that is poorly perceived by some Eastern countries (Visegrad countries);
– It is also necessary that the “theory of various speeds” is not perceived as a “theory of clubs” and a kind of Balkanization of the European project.
Finally, between an approach to refounding the European project and a minimalist approach to the same project, it is convenient, at this juncture, to use the instruments of the European treaties themselves, namely, the simplified revision of article 48, paragraph 2 of the TEU and the enhanced cooperation of Articles 20 and 42 to 46 of the TEU and Articles 326 to 334 of the TFEU, not to mention the intergovernmental agreements made outside the treaties and which have been a constant practice in recent years.
A single European Act could accommodate all these proposals.
Author António Covas is a full professor at the University of Algarve and a PhD in European Affairs from the Free University of Brussels
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