“” Europe ? Which phone number ? “, Formerly laughed at the US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Since then, one or two things have happened in Europe: the old “ community “, Passed from 6 to 27 countries, has become” union And has a common currency (for 13 of them), it has erected in the competition gendarme in the face of the largest companies, it is probably the only one who can save multilateralism which has made it possible to reach the degree of economic globalization that we know, and finally it is now militarily present in peacekeeping operations outside its borders. Europe therefore exists infinitely more than thirty years ago and yet the question of Kissinger remains topical.
Europe does not have one but external representations. She does not have one but external policies. It is, as the authors of the recent work of the European Center for Reflection Bruegel write, a “ fragmented power ». The first line of fragmentation is horizontal. It separates the political, economic and monetary dimensions of its action, and is explained by the incremental construction, treated after treaty, of the Union, by its structure in pillars instituted by the Maastricht Treaty and which makes the executive power oscillate between the Council of Ministers (for the second and third pillars) and the Commission (for the first pillar). Finally fragmented due to the lack of unity of the European Commission, its executive body, and the difficulties inherent in the coexistence of various administrative and political springs within the executive which, for the time being, is not specific due to European ; The perils of inter -ministerial coordination in France show it enough. Fragmented, European power is also on a vertical axis, torn that it is between national and European levels.
In 2009, if the preparation treaty came into force, the European Union will in principle have a ‘almost’ Minister of Foreign Affairs who will combine the functions of the current high representative of the European Union for Foreign Security and the European Commissioner in charge of external relations, Benita Ferrero-Waldner. We bet that this “ ministry », Endowed with a European diplomatic corps, will appear at the top of the merits to be consented to the future new treaty. Will it be enough to guarantee European unity vis-à-vis the outside ? No, but it should make it possible to progress provided that its mandate, skills and means are clearer. THE “ High representative “, Javier Solana,” grid “, According to the word of an observer of Brussels life, illustrates until caricature the dead end of a certain Candide formalistic approach. No more in Brussels than elsewhere the organ creates the function.
It is all the merit of André Sapir, professor of economics at the Free University of Brussels and associate researcher in Bruegel, to bring depth to this throbbing debate of the Union’s foreign policy. “” Frameted Power. Europe and the Global Economy », Published under his direction, disentangles the why of the how of this« fragmentation ». The material was complex enough for one to spare the luxury of a sophisticated plan. The book is organized in thematic chapters (trade, development, competition, migration, energy, financial markets, monetary policy) each entrusted to different and specialized authors, all economists, European or American. These sectoral analyzes are preceded by a study of the “ European Economic Relations Governance of the European Union »Costed by the director of Bruegel, Jean Pisani-Ferry, and Benoît Coeuré, professor at the École Polytechnique and director of the France Trésor agency, which serves as their methodological framework. (We regret that the environment, treated in this first synthetic part, does not find its counterpart in the sectoral chapters that follow.)
This methodological effort was all the more necessary since situations vary deep from one area of action to the other, between, on the one hand, monetary policy, managed exclusively by the European Central Bank, and on the other, the development or migration policy, which are skills shared between the Union and the Member States. Between these two poles, there is a series of normative policies, such as financial regulation or environmental protection, where the Union plays a fundamental role in the production of standards but where the control of compliance with the latter, even the details of their implementation, is decentralized at the level of national authorities. Pisani-Ferry and Coeur distinguish between three types of governance: “ Unconditional delegation (competence) “(Monetary or competition policy),” supervised delegation »(In the case of commercial policy, the competent commissioner acting within the framework of a mandate) or finally simple coordination (as for the representation in major international institutions such as the IMF).
The authors are careful not to sing an ode to the “ integration “Or” communitation »Systematic of these policies. They do not prophesy an inevitable walk any more towards an unconditional delegation model. On the contrary, they start from the postulate according to which any political union results from a “ Arbitration between economies of scale (expected from a common policy) and the heterogeneity of preferences »Collective. However, whatever the field examined, they note that the current fragmentation, between European institutions or between Union and Member States, and significantly the ineffective of the coordination model, prevents Europeans from deploying their power in the international sphere. A margin of improvement in the governance of external relations of the European Union therefore exists, which passes, according to the director of Bruegel, through the convergence of the various forms of current governance towards a model of conditional and supervised delegation.
For those who want to access an advanced reflection on the governance of the Union and to an in -depth knowledge of the political areas studied, the reading of “ Frameted Power Is particularly recommended. On a point, however, we will be hungry. The question of “ Why »Historical of this or that model of governance remains subsidiary. So much so that over the pages, the desire to know the causes of these ineffective people, the rationality behind this apparent irrationality is only growing. We rest “ Frameted Power Without having satisfied it. Why the Court of Justice, one day in 1971, decides that external skills implicitly deduce from internal skills, inventing this incredible theory of the “ implicit competence »» ? Why, when the first community was that of coal and steel, did Europe not implement a common energy policy in the 1970s ? Why, conversely, the common commercial policy held ? Why and how, while until the 1990s the European Commission had managed to establish its power only in new fields of action where competition from national authorities was low (trade and competition), it was suddenly possible to do the most fundamental of the sovereign functions, the currency, a common policy ? If, as the Court of Justice had understood and as Bruegel verifies, an external competence can only be built on a common policy, then what is the proper method of integration ?
But Bruegel’s words is not an answer to these questions. Without departing from its academic bias, the reflection center led by Jean Pisani-Ferry assumes its vocation as a vector of influence. In doing so, he brings to political debate a finesse and rigor which too often lacks him. It’s already a lot.
To go further:
The first chapter of the online work on the site of
Bruegel
A point of view of the page “ Charlemagne »From the weekly The Economist