There is merit in the EU fulfilling limited ambitions
A look at the Union’s important achievements in recent days.
This is as good as it gets. The eurozone is wobbling again, destabilised by a political crisis in Portugal. Political melodrama is also the order of the day in the Czech Republic and Bulgaria. Beyond the European Union, a full-blown crisis in Egypt has surpassed even the mass demonstrations in Brazil and Turkey. Diplomatic relations with the EU’s closest strategic and economic ally, the United States, are being strained by revelations over espionage and surveillance. An innocent observer might not notice that, for the EU, things have taken a turn for the better.
The Union has notched up various important achievements in recent days, even if their importance is best measured by the counterfactual question: what if they had not happened?
The admission of Croatia to the EU is an important step. The first accession in six and a half years, it keeps the flickering flame of EU enlargement alive. Symbolically – because Slovenia’s membership has long ago been taken for granted and discounted – it sends an important signal to the rest of the Balkans. In that same spirit, the decisions to give a start date for membership talks with Serbia and a signal of intent to Kosovo are also to be welcomed. They are an indication of the importance of what preceded them – the EU-brokered talks on the future of northern Kosovo. Disaster and self-harm appear to have been averted.
Click Here: New Zealand rugby store
The launch of trade talks with the US is also a considerable achievement, and one that could have valuable economic consequences for both trading blocs. Fortunately, conduct of the talks at this stage now rests firmly with the European Commission rather than the member states. The revelations about US surveillance are bound to engender antipathy to the US, and it rests for the US authorities to answer the concerns of their political and economic allies. But the talks can go ahead.
The agreement on the EU’s budget for 2014-20, sealed by a vote in the Parliament yesterday (3 July), must also count as disaster averted. If the stand-off between MEPs and the national governments had continued, it would have damaged the EU’s operations, both in Brussels and the member states.
In a similar vein, negotiations on reforming the Common Agricultural Policy were running so far behind schedule that almost any deal was better than no deal. The policy arrived at still bears many of the deficiencies of earlier versions of the CAP. Sadly, progress towards a greener CAP was over-hyped and over-promised and has been thwarted by some of the farming lobbies.
The European Union has been fortunate in the timing of Ireland’s presidency of the Council of Ministers. For reasons that are explored elsewhere in this newspaper (see page 10), Ireland was well placed to resolve problems on many legislative dossiers. Those results are very welcome. Not withstanding the eurozone crisis and other sources of instability, what the EU needed was something approximating to business-as-usual. A period of low-key achievement is the best way to restore the credibility of the EU and its institutions. In recent years, the EU has failed to deliver on its promises. Less hype and more delivery is a welcome change.