Europa auf den Kopf gestellt

Während des jüngsten EU-Gipfels boten die neuen Mitgliedstaaten in einem Versuch, die Budgetverhandlungen zu retten, an, auf EU-Mittel zu verzichten. Hierüber schreibt Wojciech Kosc in Transitions Online.

Poland and the other post-communist states of the EU were supposedly only interested in membership for the money. That frequently aired accusation may now have to be ditched as, in a last-gasp – and ultimately futile – bid to save the EU from a “deep crisis,” Poland’s Prime Minister Marek Belka and the leaders of the other nine newest members of the EU offered on 17 June to forgo some of the money they can expect from the EU. 

The move was seized on by French President Jacques Chirac, a man hardly famous in these parts for his enthusiasm for enlargement into Central Europe. “I ask myself what will be the dignity of those that have said ’no‘ when the poor member states say at the same time that they want to make sacrifices,“ he reportedly told Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair, the man held principally responsible for vetoing a budget agreement for 2007 to 2013 

In Poland itself, Belka’s gesture received some praise and next to no criticism. Above all, it is been treated as a symptom of Europe’s broader problems.

For Jacek Pawlicki, a commentator with Gazeta Wyborcza*, Poland’s leading newspaper, “this summit will go down in history. Not because when the EU needed a success, its leaders achieved a failure [but because] Europe turned upside down on Friday night. The poorer countries wanted to resign from their money to the advantage of the rich, in order to save the common budget.” 

“EU leaders only strengthened their citizens in the conviction that Europe has stopped functioning,” he wrote. “They did that at the expense of the common Europe. And a weaker EU means a weaker Great Britain, France, The Netherlands.”

A similar sense that Europe has suffered a big blow was evident in statements by Poland’s leaders, though their tone was more upbeat. While saying he was “obviously disappointed,” Belka claimed that Poland was still “in a good position for further negotiations, given Luxembourg’s latest compromise proposals.” 

With typical optimism, President Aleksander Kwasniewski defied the view of Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Jean Claude Juncker, the chair of the summit, that Europe is in a “deep crisis.” “The more ‘European determination’ there is, the greater the chance to overcome this current trouble. I wouldn’t call it a crisis,” he declared.

For Kwasniewski, ‘European determination’ implicitly means leaving aside “national egoisms,” a phrase that he used and that echoes criticisms by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder before and after the summit. 

Kwasniewski also indicated that Poland – and other new members – will not resign from promoting European solidarity, an indication perhaps that he will push the next Polish government to be as willing as Belka to cede money. Poles go to the polls in September. A decision on the 2007-2013 budget is not expected to be reached by then. 

To read the article in full, visit the Transitions Online website.