PES Manifesto

Yohann Abiven: The single market needs a shield

Published Tuesday, March 4, 2008 at 14:31
by yoan.abiven (844 views and 1 comments)

The hopes for a better European future are stalling. In that context, what are the urgent matters that need dealing with?

First and foremost, the European Union can measure its legitimacy by its usefulness. In order for Eurosceptics, starting with the French, to think of Europe as indispensable, Europe must become indispensable once again.

In the short term, if Europe wants to be 'desirable' again, it needs to tackle social insecurity. European citizens will renew their vows with the EU once the Union finds a coherent and effective answer to their present rightful claims to a protection of their way of life. This is not just a matter of communication or better explanation of its policies. The European construction suddenly stumbled precisely over the social dimension, at a time in which the century-old pillars of our social welfare were crumbling down in the apparent indifference of our political elites.

Today, in our search for a wide consensus over Europe, we should perhaps think that in order to deepen the Union, we should enlarge its mission to the social field as much as we should review its institutions.

This is all the more important that the European Union has a certain degree of legitimacy because it is such an example to others. The European Union is unique in its identity, which is not to be found anywhere else. Our old Europe is an added value to globalization because it aims at creating a model of society in which people live together in freedom and solidarity. At the heart of our "Europeanness" there are shared values combining sustainable economic growth and ever improving living and working conditions. The European project is a model, based first and foremost on individual and social rights, equal opportunities, social protection for all, social inclusion and the participation of citizens in the decisions affecting them.

On the other hand, it would be a mistake to think of Europe's future solely in the obsessive and deforming light of institutional reform. It would be just as mistaken to make of this institutional reform a prerequisite for firm community action:

- The referendum results in France and the Netherlands jammed up a treaty aimed at giving the Union a constitution. This constitution for Europe was supposed to be the antidote to free trade. Against a Europe of the market, the constitutional treaty was supposed to reinforce, invent and come up with a political Europe. The Berlin Wall had fallen, the continent was re-united, and the Union was moving away from the little steps that were so dear to its founding fathers. It was ready to take the decisive institutional step and this was worth a couple of hours of work from the Convention. Maybe it was the inadequate presentation of the method used that the voters of France and the Netherlands voted against. On top of it, they seemed to believe that the European Union had forsaken its ambition, with its lack of resources and of solidarity what seemed to be now a fragmented democratic space.

Today, like in former years, the European way remains paved with idealism and pragmatism. But the subtle original balance between the two seems to have disappeared.

- The Constitution did not mention or rather it remained silent on the increasing deterioration of the living conditions of the most vulnerable Europeans in a context of uncontrolled capitalism. These anguished voters were the ones who in their vast majority said no to this huge institutional treaty called constitution on 29 May 2005. And they would have probably voted the same for the Lisbon Treaty, had their government bothered to ask them.

This being said, what should be the priority? How can the EU be both an example and be useful? The truth is, the EU needs a social shield to free its citizens from a deregulated globalization. This social shield is fundamental if the Union wants to live up to its social ambition in a credible manner within the framework of a stronger single market. More generally, this social shield will be to the Union what the Beveridge plan was after the war: a wonderful opportunity to reform and prosper.

Even if this social shield is still to be formulated in a more complete and concrete manner, in the end, it would be the mere implementation of the mission of "high social protection" the Union has given itself and for which it relies all too often on the scrawny and very national 'open method of coordination'. Concretely, since the Charter of Fundamental Rights now defines a common social set for the Member States, the social shield means allocating a huge chunk of supranational regulatory powers to the Union or to a group of pioneers.

The social shield would encompass all fields of social policy that are presently covered by community interventions and in the longer run, also those areas that are presently excluded, starting with a common objective of converging minimum social standards.

Just like the currency snake in former times, the social shield would define acceptable margins of variation of incomes and fiscal rates, and all this, it is to be hoped, in a provisional manner.

It would be deployed in case of economic crises (delocalisations, restructurings of industrial areas, etc.) and would trigger a direct intervention from the Union. Above all, it would support and reinforce those mechanisms aimed at anticipating and responding to social crises resulting from the inevitable changes in production models, at a time in which the new international division of labour generates new exclusions. Europeans give too often the impression of being powerless. The social shield would be a horizontal set of reference in order to assess the impact and quality of other Union policies.

Lastly, the social shield should be represented very specifically by a body within the European executive power.

Whereas the European Central Bank evaluates the risks of monetary inflation in the light of ad hoc criteria, the social shield would keep an eye on social deflation. Thus it would contribute to improving the European quality of life by re-balancing financial, economic and social constraints. In fact, it would embody the political will to end the downward spiral of social dumping and delocalisations that are breaking down, rather than liberalising, the single market at present.

A Europe of protection is not a protectionist Europe nor a France extended to the limits of the Union. Such a shield would fortunately not bring about a fortress Europe.

Yohann Abiven

Tags: blogger of the week, economy, left-wing, programme, shield, social europe, Socialist Party