“We need more European Union” | EUROtoday

“Euroscepticism can appeal to the realistic perception that monetary union no longer represents a win-win solution for all members »wrote Jürgen Habermas in 2018 in a powerful text, which drew an unflattering assessment of the action of the European Union (EU) and underlined its democratic incompleteness.

The most recent research allows us to confirm and clarify the philosopher's concerns. Political scientist Roland Erne and his colleagues highlight several essential features of the policies pursued by the EU between 2010 and 2020 (Politicizing Commodification: European Governance and Labor Politics from the Financial Crisis to the Covid Emergency, Cambridge University Press). The new economic governance put in place by the European Commission in November 2011, described at the time as “silent revolution” by its president, Manuel Barosso, made it doable not solely to train shut surveillance over the general public accounts of the Member States, but in addition to prescribe political adjustments in areas which had till then remained excluded from EU interventions.

The authors present that wages, theoretically exterior the competence of the EU, have been the topic of direct suggestions geared toward slowing down their improve – besides in Germany – and suffered from these. In the fields of transport, water and well being, extra notably studied, the prescriptions of the European authorities have systematically gone in the identical route: that of marketization, the promotion of public-private partnerships, privatization and discount in public providers.

Unraveling the acquired data

When the monetary sanctions of the Stability and Growth Pact have been suspended in 2020, the Commission used entry to funding from the “Recovery and Resilience Facility” as a method of blackmail to impose its views on international locations. Finally, the authors spotlight that, removed from establishing a clearly transnational coverage able to being fought by an alliance of European unions, the brand new financial governance has led to a renationalization of points and competitors between member states, stopping the structure of a convincing oppositional drive.

Despite these very unlucky penalties, a reform of budgetary guidelines which adjustments little or no the overall framework of financial governance was just lately validated by the European Parliament. The textual content continues to provide intensive powers to the European Commission and dangers accelerating the pattern in the direction of reductions in public providers and social rights, as illustrated by the want just lately expressed by the French Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire. , to place an finish to a welfare state that’s too pricey and the bulletins by Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, regarding new measures to scale back unemployment compensation. Such a method can solely gasoline the despair of the inhabitants and the vote for far-right events which, in the event that they have been extra quite a few within the European Parliament, may block the functioning of the EU and unravel its achievements.

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