International

The European Union staggers from crisis to crisis, but the European Parliament continues to dream of a federal Europe. During next year’s Dutch presidency, a report will arrive from the Liberal group leader Guy Verhofstadt advocating the transformation of the European Commission into a European government and the abolition of the Council of Ministers, which would be replaced by a sort of Senate. The message from a very large slice of the European public has rung loud and clear for years: could ‘Europe’ be a bit less? This message is seen by federalist primarily as awkward, and despite all the fine talk, the Brussels ‘bubble’ simply doesn’t give a hoot for what ordinary people think.

A working document is currently circulating in the EP from a Euro-MP of the centre-right European People’s Party (to which the CDA belongs) on the better functioning of the EU. It is nothing more nor less than a listing of ideas for a federal Europe. This working document serves in part as preparation for the all-embracing report from Verhofstadt, who heads the smaller centre-right liberal ALDE group. If the three biggest political groups – these two, along with the social democrats – stick to the ideas in this working document, and the chances of that are great, the Dutch government will be confronted during its presidency with an EP that wants nothing less than a federal Europe.

Against this background it’s all the more appalling that the Dutch government sees its role as smoothing the path for as many of the European Commission’s proposals as possible. Both governing coalition parties, the centre-right liberal VVD and the centre-left PvdA (Labour Party), belong to the EP establishment, which has long been run by federalists. So I also think that the Dutch government would rather duck any confrontation with the EP than face such a conflict.

Tomorrow sees the State of the (European) Union debate take place in the national parliament in The Hague, and Dutch Euro-MPs are invited to take part. I’ll be telling the government that the current crisis in the EU is happening primarily because of the endless series of lies and half-truths people are being told about the real aims of Brussels. The advantage of Verhofstadt is that he is at least clear. But that deserves to receive an equally clear response from the Prime Minister’s office: Mr Verhofstadt, you can forget it. But I haven’t yet heard our PM saying such a thing to his kindred Liberal spirit. He isn’t, after all, a man of vision.