Once again the 27 leaders of the European Union, meeting in Brussels on Monday September 1, showed their disunity.
Deliberating after Russia’s disproportional military response on the attack of South Ossetia by the Georgian army, hardliners like Poland, the Baltic countries, Sweden and the UK tried to urge economic sanctions against Russia. The idea did not appeal to France, Italy and Germany, reliant as they are on Russian energy supplies. ‘The German position is that we should not break off dialogue with Russia’, Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters before the meeting. The final result of the EU summit is some delay of negotiations on a new EU-Russia partnership to replace the 10 year agreement signed in 1997 which both sides have agreed to keep in force. Nobody in Brussels spoke about scrapping this agreement. The most remarkable quote came from Russia’s EU ambassador Vladimir Tsjizjov, who said on the eve of the summit, that he did not expect serious sanctions against his country… May be this EU watcher is one of the few human beings who understand ‘Europe’…
The most often heard worries of European politicians and officials is the non-interest of European citizens in ‘Europe’ (read the European Union). But what is Europe? No borders between the member states? Yes, except when you go to the UK or Ireland for instance. One European currency, the Euro? Yes, but not in the UK, Sweden, Denmark and many of the new member states. Partners in NATO? Yes, but not Ireland, Finland, Sweden and France only ‘with one leg’. Recognising the artificial new state called Kosovo? Many member states do but not all of them; Spain. Greece, Slovakia and some more do not.
Will the Lisbon Treaty design the future of the EU? Maybe, but it is blocked by a handful of no-voters who outranked the yes-vote in Ireland’s referendum. And by the President of Poland who doesn’t want to sign the Treaty in spite of decisions made by government and the parliament of his country. His Czech colleague, Vaclav Klaus, is also reluctant about the Lisbon Treaty that he once called ‘detrimental to freedom and democracy’.
It’s bizar! On January 1 the Czechs will take over the rotating Presidency of the EU, chairing all meetings and setting the agenda for the first half year of 2009 including what to decide about the Lisbon Treaty. Also Russia will be high on the agenda in that period. You can hear in Brussels that Czech leaders don’t believe in the EU common line on Russia and the country just signed a contract with Bush to take part in the US missile shield placement close to the Russian border.
How do we explain this all to the European citizen? Raise the communication budget? Even the Vice-President of the European Commission, Ms Margo Wallstrφm, tells us that money is not the solution. Just before the summer break, in her speech at the annual Paul-Henri Spaak Lecture, she told her audience that she would like to count on fair journalism to reach the European citizen. But the point is that journalists have a duty to write the truth. For instance that the number of staff working for the EU as a whole is not 32.000 as the Commission states on its website but closer to 170.00 according to Nick Grosgrove of ‘Open Europe’!
Let’s finish with the good news! At the Olympic Games in Beijing together the European Union won more medals than China and the US…
