International

These days, the leading players in Brussels are inclined to see themselves as victims. The world beyond Europe is hostile, or at least complicated. Within the EU member states, the public doesn’t understand, however much Brussels does its best to look after them. Merkel’s facial expression at this week’s European Council summit spoke volumes: don’t you see how much I’m battling for Europe? In my view we can turn this on its head: people throughout Europe are heartily sick of government leaders and europhiles who are determined to keep their own project on its feet whatever the cost, and who refuse to really listen. If they’d only do that, the crises would quickly be brought under control.

The refugee crisis, disquiet about the Polish and Hungarian governments’ completely idiosyncratic interpretation of human rights, a possible ‘no’ from the British to continued membership of the EU and from the Dutch to the Association Agreement with Ukraine, and a huge anti-austerity strike in Greece: things in Europe aren’t exactly tranquil. That was also true this week, by the way, of the European Parliament which gathered at Strasbourg for its monthly plenary. There, however, pressure came principally from running from one internal meeting to another. It is slowly beginning to seem like dancing on the edge of a volcano, only no-one seems to be aware of that.

Last week the Prime Minister Mark Rutte presented the plans for the Dutch EU Presidency. To my request for him to show a little bit of vision, he dragged his old joke out of mothballs: anyone who doesn't have vision needs to visit the doctor. This is a superannuated gag from former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, the intention of which he moreover repudiated himself later. The reason that even the Dutch media showed hardly any interest in Rutte's speech was precisely this lack of vision. Our Prime Minister can think in no terms other than market, market, market, and openly represents the interests of big corporations. That's gelled with the Brussels of the last thirty years, but with all of these crises this era is drawing to a close. Only a Europe in which the interests of ordinary people take centre stage will be capable of putting a stop to these crises. I'm afraid that Rutte still has to learn this lesson.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte said today on television that the only reason he was in favour of the European Union’s Association Agreement with Ukraine is trade. He’s not alone in this. The whole of Brussels is peppered with economic considerations. Short-term advantages are raked in with no thought for the longer term consequences, either within the EU or, most importantly, in the world as a whole. For the SP, international solidarity is the priority. We too want to see a healthy economy, but not at the cost of people in other countries. If the EU sees the rest of the world as merely an export market or as competition, we fear the worst. A human being is more than a consumer. Trade? Great, but only if it offers mutual advantage which benefits ordinary people in all of the countries involved. And in the case of the Association Agreement with Ukraine, that criterion is not met.