Brussels
lacks stomach for a fight
The
decision not to confront Spain and Portugal may not be a return to
normalcy, but a symptom of some new normal, one in which the center
is weak and leniency is the less dangerous course.
If
no one sticks up for the rule of EU law, what will hold the bloc
together?
By
Tim King
8/16/16, 4:32 PM CET
The turbulence
created by the vote for Brexit and the rise of Donald Trump has left
many craving a bit of predictability. And while Russian President’s
Vladimir Putin’s military maneuvers may be familiar, they’re
hardly reassuring.
So there is
something comforting about the European Union choosing not to punish
Portugal or Spain for breaching its rules on budgetary discipline.
A decision to give
the two countries more time to bring their deficits down was waved
through by the Council of Ministers last week, on a proposal from the
European Commission.
In refraining from
punishment, the EU treads a familiar path. Most famously and
formatively, France and Germany were spared penalties in 2003, in the
early years of the Stability and Growth Pact. Since then, the
Commission has occasionally threatened retribution, but the Council
has routinely supplied mercy.
The treatment meted
out to Spain and Portugal amounts, at least on the surface, to a
return to normalcy — in the European context, a détente between
the EU institutions in Brussels and national governments.
Broadly speaking,
the most serious clashes between the EU and the national governments
that make up its membership take one of two forms. A country can find
itself outvoted when legislation is being created. Or it can be
punished for failing to comply after the legislation has been passed.
Institutional
reforms have also introduced ways for dissenting minorities to be
left behind — or at least for majorities to forge ahead without
necessarily obliging grumblers to follow.
Over the years, the
EU has gone to surprising lengths to avoid forcing the will of a
majority on the minority. It is deeply engrained in the collective
psyche of the European Council that the EU should respect the special
interests of a particular state.
During the
increasingly frantic attempts to avert Brexit, the EU’s theologians
made reference to the Ioannina Compromise of 1994 (restraining the
majority’s rights to outvote the minority), the opt-outs of the
Maastricht treaty of 1992, the Luxembourg Compromise of 1966 (where a
majority vote is possible, still a unanimous vote is worth waiting
for) — itself a response to the “empty chair” crisis of the
1960s when Charles De Gaulle withdrew the French government from
participation in the Council of Ministers.
Institutional
reforms have also introduced ways for dissenting minorities to be
left behind — or at least for majorities to forge ahead without
necessarily obliging grumblers to follow.
But once legislation
has been passed, the EU has been much readier to resort to
confrontation. The question of what to do about a state that fails or
refuses to comply with the EU’s rules puts particular pressure on
the European Commission, which is supposed to be guardian, watchdog
and enforcer — with the option of resorting to the European Court
of Justice.
The bulk of
enforcement disputes pass unnoticed outside Brussels, but some policy
areas are by their nature highly politically charged. The rules on
fiscal discipline are among the most sensitive.
* * *
Some critics of the
leniency shown to Spain and Portugal accuse the Commission of
shirking its duties. Whether or not fines are desirable, they argue,
the Commission should not have ignored its treaty-imposed obligation
to present the case against Spain and Portugal.
The architects of
the Stability and Growth Pact had hoped that enshrining fiscal
propriety as routine law would prevent government deficits and debts
from becoming headline-grabbing confrontations. Enforcing budgetary
discipline was intended to become as routine as fining national
administrations that do not comply with the rules of the Common
Agricultural Policy or suspending payments from the Structural Funds.
In practice,
management of national budgets is too important and too sensitive to
be delegated by national leaders to the technocrats.
Once France and
Germany had refused to take their medicine in 2003, the Stability and
Growth Pact was holed below the waterline. Yet the interconnected
nature of the eurozone — in which one country’s free-riding harms
the credibility of the whole — obliged the EU to reinforce its
mechanisms for exerting peer pressure.
The limits of such
pressure were tested in July 2015 in one of the most serious
confrontations ever between the EU and a national government, when
Alexis Tsipras’ government fought with the European Council over
the terms of an international bail-out.
The lesson of that
showdown was an old one: For EU institutions, victories are almost
always Pyrrhic and damage to the EU’s reputation is guaranteed. The
institutions embark on any such trial of strength with a national
government at a disadvantage because the latter is generally
perceived — at least by its national electorate — as having the
greater democratic legitimacy. When a confrontation occurs, citizens
side instinctively with their own government. Rare is the national
leader who is prepared to submit to the EU without railing against
injustice.
* * *
Other confrontations
are looming. Just as sensitive may be one over human rights and the
rule of law in Poland. Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union
allows action against a national government in the case of a serious
breach of the EU’s democratic values. But an Article 7 procedure is
so serious, it is almost unusable. Instead, the Commission is
pursuing a more technocratic, relatively low-key procedure.
What is in doubt is
whether Polish politicians will cooperate in keeping the dispute
toned down. Will they treat this as a procedural matter, the
equivalent of an argument over state aid, or will they ratchet it up
into a slanging-match over their fitness to be in the EU?
The Commission will
be uncomfortably aware that such disputes might get entangled in the
already contentious agreement made with Turkey to restrict the flow
of migrants reaching the EU. How does the Commission’s defense of
democratic values square with its readiness to cut a deal with
Turkey, whose record on human rights and freedom of speech was
already shaky before July’s attempted coup triggered further
repression?
The decision not
to confront Spain and Portugal may not be a return to normalcy, but a
symptom of some new normal.
Another flashpoint
may be a dispute over state aid to rescue the Italian bank Monte dei
Paschi di Siena. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has shown no
sign of shrinking from confrontation. France too is readying itself
for a fight with the Commission over proposals to reform copyright
rules.
Old Brussels hands
might be reassured by the prospects of such contests. After all,
previous Commission administrations fought bruising battles with
Germany and France over the restructuring of their banking sectors,
and France has been arguing the importance of its cultural exception
since the earliest days of the EU.
The notes of
familiarity may, however, be deceptive.
Previous showdowns
took place when the EU’s future was not in doubt, its membership
was growing, and its market was broadening. Nor were Euroskeptic
parties the electoral threat that they now are in France, Germany and
elsewhere. The vote for Brexit has also changed the context, in ways
that we are only beginning to glimpse. Will it push the remaining 27
states closer together, or will it open up new fissures in the EU?
The decision not to
confront Spain and Portugal may not be a return to normalcy, but a
symptom of some new normal, one in which the center is weak and
leniency is the less dangerous course. Yet if the center does not
stick up for the rule of EU law, and is not prepared to bring errant
governments back into line, what will hold the EU together? The hard
lesson that the national governments will have to re-learn is that
what gives the EU its special character is general compliance with
mutually agreed law.
Tim King writes
POLITICO‘s Brussels Sketch.
.webp)
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário