International

On 13th and 14th December the heads of state and government will meet once again at the European Council in a context in which everything and everyone, including the EU institutions, is in a complete mess. Fortunately the Dutch national Parliament will this week be meeting to discuss this summit, because in the midst of all the confusion and quarrelling, it could turn out that far from Commission president Jose Barroso, Council chair Herman Van Rompuy or European Parliament president Martin Schulz having to take a step back, it will be the national parliaments which will be required to do. Their budget rights are under threat.

At the beginning of last week we voted in Strasbourg on a report on the European Monetary Union. The report contained a passage which called for a drive towards a ‘federal Europe’. If you listen to Dutch Prime minister Mark Rutte, you would imagine that the two ruling parties, his own centre-right VVD and the PvdA, the Dutch Labour Party, would have immediately voted against this report. The government wants to move slowly with regard to Europe, doesn’t it? Yet the opposite turns out to be the case. Two of Labour’s three MEPs voted in favour, while the third abstained. The VVD delegation was even more divided, with one in favour, one against and one abstaining. So it’s impossible to get a handle on just where these parties really stand. That’s not good for the confidence of the Dutch voter and demonstrates once more what a mess the present coalition is.

EU finance ministers last week failed to reach agreement on the closure of the 2012 budget shortfall of at least €9 billion. There is also no agreement on the budget for next year or the multi-annual budget for 2014-2020. The European Commission and the European Parliament find this shameful. There is nevertheless a great deal to be said for maintaining an extremely critical attitude. While the member states are subject to a straitjacket of strict criteria governing budget deficits and national debts, here in Brussels we carry on writing a cheque for seven years’ money. Imagine that happening in the Netherlands. The national authorities would then have at their guaranteed disposal a fixed budget for the duration of two (or more) governments. Everyone would find that bizarre, but for the EU it’s the most normal thing in the world. Time for thoroughgoing change.

This week during his speech in Strasbourg Herman van Rompuy showed his ‘social face’, or muttered at any rate at the end a few words on the need to combat unemployment and poverty, adding at the same time that these were wholly the responsibility of the member states. Because of the imposed austerity measures, the member states have, however, ever increasing problems in maintaining their national systems of social support, let alone strengthening them. If Van Rompuy were really socially minded, he would be arguing for the adoption by member state governments of tough agreements on social policy, even if that meant the 3% norm for budgetary policy becoming more nuanced.