The Present and Future of the European Union
The Chairperson: The future of the EU is hard to predict. Over the next decade or so it could undergo a burst of further integration; it could fall apart into opposing camps of those who would go forward and those who would go back; or, perhaps most likely, it could just muddle through. So how might it look in 50 years' time?
There are some factors that can deter the further development of the EU:
1)its draft constitution, which was signed in October 2004 in the very room that witnessed the signing of the Treaty of Rome, but because it was turned down in the French and Dutch referendums, the treaty has not been ratified.
2)popular disenchantment with the “European project”.
3)poor performance of its economies in recent years.
4)migration, adding to the instability and uncertainty in the EU.
Edmund Phelps, last year's Nobel prize-winner for economics, of ColumbiaUniversity: Europe will continue to lag in productivity and innovation because it has stuck to a corporate model of capitalism that takes the wishes of government and workers into consideration. Changes in Europe have not gone far enough and America will always lead because its open economy provides the best example of what the (European) economist Joseph Schumpeter famously called “creative destruction”.
Katsuaki Watanabe, chief executive of Toyota, the world's best car company: Europe is becoming ever more integrated into the global economy, with emerging countries such as Brazil and India adding to the inward investment into the continent that has traditionally come from America and Japan. Next it will be the Chinese investing in Europe as they set up distribution and marketing networks for their own products. European manufacturing companies have begun to overhaul themselves. In addition to the radical reshaping at companies such as Philips and Siemens, the car industry has recast itself from a regional into a global mould, led by BMW, Mercedes and Audi. Renault became global through its partnership with Nissan and might yet be the saviour of Ford. Volkswagen is a leader in the Chinese market. Japanese and South Korean investment in Europe is forcing local firms to match the incomers' productivity and quality. Toyota has acknowledged that even it has to try harder to keep up with these new rivals. It is globalisation in action.
Patric Welch, a businessman: he Arcelor-Mittal deal demonstrates Europe's deepening integration into the global economy. A series of mergers and takeovers in the 1990s—of which Arcelor itself was an example—was meant to convert national champions into wider European champions. Now these continent-wide companies are going global, either by expanding on their own or by being absorbed into new global businesses.
Brin Cracow, a EU official from Brussels: Claims that this club has been unable to function since 2005 seem overblown. In the past two years the EU has agreed on a seven-year budget and set out ambitious plans for an energy policy and for tackling climate change. It has sent troops as far afield as Aceh and Congo and co-ordinated big national deployments in Lebanon. It has started membership negotiations with Croatia and, most momentously, with Turkey.
It was the roaring economic growth of the EEC, above all else, that made it such a success in its early days. It was this economic dynamism, too, that lured first Britain and then all the others to apply for membership. Conversely, it was gloom about the economy, and particularly over persistent high unemployment, that played the biggest part in the rejection of the constitution and in the spread of Euroscepticism across the continent. If the EU is to flourish far beyond its 50th birthday, it is its economy that most needs attention.
Many European politicians are fearful about the effects of globalisation and the rise of China and India. France's vote against the European constitution in 2005 was partly a protest against globalisation, which is blamed for persistently high unemployment there.
German Makowsky, a politician from Eastern Europe: there are certain benefits of immigration. Immigrants themselves clearly gain, since they move usually in order to work for higher pay than they can get at home. But there is some evidence that European economies that have taken in many migrant workers have also benefited, not only in total output but also in terms of GDP per head. In most of Europe there is another big reason for accepting more immigration: demography. Most countries, in western and eastern Europe alike, face the prospect of populations that will both age and shrink over the next 50 years. One obvious answer is to boost the working-age population by admitting more immigrants.
It would be better if politicians explained patiently why the influx of Polish workers in Britain in the past few years has, on balance, done much good. As Britain's strong employment figures show, far from stealing British jobs, they have helped to create more, a point political leaders make all too seldom. Another thing they fail to say is that many immigrants from Eastern Europe stay only for a short time. Already many construction workers from Poland and elsewhere are returning, partly because hot housing markets are cooling fast, partly because wages at home have risen in response to labour shortages.
The ebb and flow of EU migrants seems likely to be driven more by economics than by politicians. In the short run the rate of migration within the EU is likely to slow. Demand for foreign labour in western Europe may drop as housing markets slow and construction falls off. Years of strong growth in the east, combined with a steady outflow of workers, have led to serious labour shortages that are driving up wages. That reduces the incentive to leave, and increases the incentive to return.
Gordon Brown, the British prime minister:Britain, Ireland and Sweden were wrong to open their labour markets to east Europeans in 2004. Rates of immigration, from inside and outside the EU, are high, and have been rising for years. Reports conclude that immigration in Europe has outstripped even inflows to America. In many European countries the stock of the foreign-born population has never been higher. (As much as 24% of the Swiss population was born elsewhere, as was 12% of Belgium's.) Some native workers, such as fruit-pickers, builders and waiters, obviously lose because immigration holds down their wages. We stand for British jobs for British workers.
Mike Brown, a British sociologist: There is a strong public opposition to any further expansion of the European Union. Until recently most opinion polls were on balance favourable to the notion of further unifying the European continent by admitting the western Balkan countries, at least. But if enlargement is sullied in people's minds by their concerns about immigration, that balance could soon turn negative. One answer may be to promise voters long transition periods before the EU's full freedom of movement of labour is permitted for the poorest Balkan countries (let alone Turkey). On top of this, however, practical steps are needed to answer the valid concerns people have about immigration from the east. More language tuition should be offered to help immigrants to integrate. More money should be spent to improve infrastructure, such as schools, hospitals and roads, that is being put under extra pressure by an upsurge of immigrants. More work must go into improving education and training so that native workers can move more easily into higher-skilled jobs.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish recently re-electedprime minister (announcing on November 22nd another referendum): Voters would have their say—during the life of the new parliament—on whether to join the euro and cancel three other EU opt-outs on defence, justice and home affairs, and EU citizenship that were negotiated in 1992 in a second attempt to win over public support for the EU's Maastricht treaty. On the face of it, the prospects of winning broader public support seem encouraging. There's a strong party-political consensus in favour of closer EU integration among the mainstream parties—Liberals, Conservatives, Social Democrats, Social Liberals and the New Alliance—which comprise a comfortable majority in parliament. Even the two eurosceptic parties, the Danish People's Party and the Socialist People's Party no longer call for Denmark to withdraw from the EU.
Voters are also warming to the EU. A recent Eurobarometer poll suggests that Danes' reputation for euroscepticism is unjustified: 74% said that the country has benefited from EU membership (among the highest in the EU and well above the EU average of 54%).A majority, albeit slightly smaller, is in favour of joining the euro, as consumers have become familiar with the euro notes and coins circulating successfully in the eurozone since 2002.
Dr. Reva Bonds, an economist: Yet even though European business has to operate in a difficult political, social and economic environment, it has produced an impressive crop of world-class companies. An analysis by McKinsey, a management consultancy, shows that Europe has 29% of the world's leading 2,000 or so companies, broadly in line with its 30% share of world GDP. It punches its weight in most global industries except IT, where America is leagues ahead
Angel Campbell, a historian: Yet today's difficulties should not be allowed to obscure Europe's achievements of the past 50 years. True federalists actually saw the Treaty of Rome as a move away from the building of a European superstate that they had hoped would develop from the European Coal and Steel Community, set up in 1951. But in fact the EEC grew out of two other events: the French National Assembly's rejection of the proposed European Defence Community in 1954 and the Suez crisis of 1956. The first pointed to a reassertion of nation-states at the heart of Europe; the second led France to conclude that a European community was in its vital interest.
Several waves of further expansion followed, including Spain and Portugal in 1986. The biggest of all saw the admission of ten new members, including many ex-communist central European countries, on May 1st 2004. At the start of this year Romania and Bulgaria became the EU's 26th and 27th members. Plenty of others are clamouring to be let in. The only countries that have chosen to stay out even though they would instantly qualify for membership are Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.
The European Union has also moved far beyond the economic sphere. The completion of the single market was set in train only in the 1980s and remains a work in progress. But just as the American government used the constitution's interstate commerce clause to expand its powers, so the European institutions have exploited single-market rules to extend their responsibilities into such areas as social policy, welfare and the environment. Along the way the EU has acquired a single currency, a common foreign policy, a passport-free travel zone and policies on justice and home affairs, plus a nascent defence alliance with its own military-planning staff.
Jacques Delors, former president of the European Commission from 1985 to 1994: There is no dream, no vision that strikes a chord with today's European citizens in the way that reconciliation and an end to war did 50 years ago. Most of today's leaders devote their time to attacking Brussels and all its works, not to spreading the word about the EU's achievements. The mistrust of the union is perhaps most pronounced in Britain, but the regular opinion polls taken by Eurobarometer reveal high dissatisfaction with the union in other countries as well. In many of them, voters seem strongly opposed to further enlargement. The new members are more enthusiastic about the union than the old ones, but even in them it is not hard to discover Eurosceptics.