In a Commentary for the Official Monetary Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF) Marsh rejected the sneers of the German minister of foreign affairs Guido Westerwelle and his French colleague Laurent Fabius, who both saw the speech primarily as anti-European. Marsh, not a Cameron fan by birth, nonetheless felt the need to defend his prime minister: “To put forward a plan to make Europe more attuned to the needs of today’s ultra-competitive world and more in line with the wishes of its citizens is not anti-European. It’s precisely the opposite.”
Marsh also appreciated the five themes that Cameron identified as playing a key role in his Europe of the 21st century: “competitiveness, flexibility, subsidiarity, democratic accountability, fairness.” He pointed out that Angela Merkel in fact did not think differently about these matters and suggested that she for this reason had been less dismissive of the speech than many other European leaders.
In this context we like to point to three special aspects of the Cameron speech:
1. Marsh called Cameron’s third theme “subsidiarity”. Cameron himself however described that theme while carefully avoiding this word. There was a time that a predecessor of Cameron, Margaret Thatcher, based her criticism of Brussels explicitly on the subsidiarity principle. Cameron would do well to make the rich tradition of this principle part of his plans.
2. It was clearly Cameron’s ambition to play a serious role in the debate about the future of Europe. However, he did not refer at all to the recent Plan of the president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy. The five central themes of the Cameron speech are all highly relevant for the various parts of the Van Rompuy Plan. For that reason, Cameron should clarify what his position is with respect to this Plan.
3. The original goal of the European Union was “to secure peace”. Now that this goal, after a half century, has been achieved and firmly secured, Cameron argues that there is an urgent need to recognize a new goal for the EU, viz. “to secure welfare”. So this is the principal criterion by which to assess his ideas. But precisely on this point his speech failed to become concrete.
What we miss in particular is (a) a convincing analysis of the conditions that most immediately threaten the welfare of Europe in the 21st century and (b) an inspiring story about the appropriate response to that threat. Economic stagnation is the name of the specter that is now haunting Europe. The only way to escape is by investing in a new, more sustainable mode of economic growth: green growth. Because that creates jobs and builds on what motivates firms and citizens.
There was a time, not that long ago, that the “common market” was necessary for a strong Europe; nowadays a “low carbon economy” is needed for that. Cameron pays attention only to the former. But he should be much more serious about the latter. The shale oil revolution is turning global energy markets on their head. Cheap coal is streaming from the United States toward Europe. New technology should make this into “clean coal” and thus contribute to the transition to a carbon low economy. Everything that serves that goal is “sustainable”.
This is true not only for Brussels, where a substantive part of the budget 2014–2020 is earmarked for green growth, but also for the separate member states that do not have to wait for Brussels to start cooperating with each other.
The United Kingdom, Germany, and the Netherlands share the same problems; hence they have a common interest in finding ways to resolve them. In many areas these three countries could jointly stimulate a carbon low technology and a carbon low economy. The irony is that these forms of collaboration would be the building blocks of the new Europe that Cameron is dreaming of, but that in his recent speech he tells so little about.
And one more thing. Margaret Thatcher came out of the Cold War with an excellent relationship with Mikhail Gorbachev. David Cameron would impress Europe if he would sit down with Vladimir Putin to arrange a no fly zone over Syria. – Paul van Seters, Tilburg University, and Ruud Lubbers, former prime minister of The Netherlands. To comment pse contact: P.C.M.vSeters@tiasnimbas.edu
Post published in: Analysis