Vivid Politics April 2005

Regulars
POLITICS
Let them die

by Andrei Postelnicu
April 2005

About the same time that Americans were choosing their president, European Union leaders were listening to the final version of the epitaph of that pipe dream better known as the ‘Lisbon Agenda’ – a set of policy targets aimed at making the EU the world’s most competitive economy (read: more competitive than the US’s) by 2010.

In its original form, the Lisbon Agenda was a collection of goals exhibiting the sort of idealism that is hard to find even in the heart of a 17-year-old. By 2010, the EU will have reformed its labour markets and pension systems, and will have invested in research. All in all, the EU was going to do all that is necessary to make a dynamic economy out of a sclerotic one.

Halfway to 2010, the sad conclusion was reached that abysmal lack of political will among the EU’s member countries did not allow even a fraction of the Lisbon Agenda to be accomplished. In reviewing the progress made, Wim Kok, the former Dutch premier, even went so far as to propose shaming the laggards in implementing the Lisbon Agenda, in apparent frustration at the EU’s glacial speed.

The EU’s acceptance that the Lisbon Agenda is unachievable has both positive and negative connotations. The gesture represents, more than anything, facing a stark reality that does not fit into nicely formulated ideals on a piece of paper. Accepting reality is in itself a good thing because it thus prevents further denial and – in theory, at least – opens the way to a cure.

The bad part is that this acceptance of a tough reality was not accompanied by a firm decision to remove barriers to structural economic reform of the EU. Prime minister Kok, who headed the progress review of the Lisbon Agenda, admitted there is little eurocrats can do to force member countries to adopt reforms they would rather not adopt.

The EU’s resignation with the Lisbon Agenda comes at the midway point on a road not unlike Romania’s European highways – ridden with potholes and manure. Revising the Lisbon Agenda is above all a tacit acceptance of the EU’s collective impotence in implementing some policies that are universally accepted as beneficial for all EU citizens. Following this revision, the Agenda becomes more timid, and, hopefully, more achievable.

The fate of the Lisbon Agenda gives us the dimension of the chasm existing between what the EU is on paper and what it is in reality. Let’s not forget that it was conceived when the EU did not have 25 members but only 15, the Stability Pact had not yet been made a mess of by Germany, Italy and France and the EU economy was functioning substantially better than it is now.

At present, the first wave of EU expansion is not fully digested and there are haunting questions about what the EU is and what its rules are for. The fate of the Lisbon Agenda threatens to foretell a more profound transformation of the EU’s mission. Just as the Agenda had to be less bold, so other EU goals will probably have to undergo some reality checks. We have, after all, seen what happened to the first European Commission team presented by Jose Manuel Barroso when an Italian bigot, Rocco Buttiglione, mouthed off his views on women and gays.

This entire discussion is pointless if we do not ask the significance of these events for Romania. On the eve of a general election and not long before it is slated to conclude EU accession talks, what could Romania learn from what is happening to the Union it so dearly wants to join?

The stillborn’s destiny of the Lisbon Agenda and, to a certain degree, the fate of Barroso’s first team of commissioners, revealed the EU’s underbelly, the dirt under its carpets. All of a sudden, the EU is not nearly as cohesive as its very members present it, and certainly not nearly as wonderful as Romanian politicians describe it. While it forces candidate countries to conform to a series of rules, the EU offers them loopholes to circumvent them and break them without remorse.

As a result, the EU’s failures offer Bucharest politicians a new way to disappoint Romanians, excusing their own failures by pointing their fat fingers to the EU where, just like Bucharest, there is no consistency and goals are not accomplished.

This situation won’t change until Romania decides to take charge of its destiny and sets its house in order because that’s in the best interest of its citizens, and not because that’s what the EU required.

Andrei Postelnicu writes for the Financial Times from its New York bureau and for Vivid in a personal capacity.