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EUROPEAN UNION

Pleas for pragmatism as EU charts post-Brexit future

Senior European political figures appealed Sunday for the EU to set aside lofty debate as it struggles with Brexit-style populism, and instead to focus on measures which clearly benefit citizens.

Published: 3 July 2016 16:42 CEST

Pleas for pragmatism as EU charts post-Brexit future

The EU has to do more to project its image, says IMF chief. Photo: AFP

Leading the charge, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble — a linchpin of the Berlin coalition government — scorned “political sermons,” institutional reform and changes to EU treaties as proposed fixes for Europe's faultlines.

“This is not a time for grand visions,” the 73-year-old veteran minister, long a passionate supporter of the European project, told Welt am Sonntag weekly.

“The situation is so serious that we have to stop playing the usual European and Brussels games,” Schaeuble said.

Schaeuble, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), said the EU had to work “with speed and pragmatism” to unlock growth and thus create jobs.

He sketched initiatives from a common energy policy to job training to harmonising national defence procurements.

The CDU's coalition partners, the Social Democrats, meanwhile stressed strengthening the safety net for the poor or unemployed — two big factors in the perceived collapse of confidence in the EU.

The goal must be to “not only create competition but also social security,” said Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, describing the crisis in Greece as a pointer of a possible north-south split in Europe.

In the southern French town of Aix-en-Provence, the European commissioner for economic policy, Pierre Moscovici, called for “strong initiatives… to reinvent Europe.”

“Status quo cannot be a reply to Brexit,” he said, referring to the June 23rd referendum in which a majority of Britons voted to leave the EU.

The vote dealt a body-blow to European federalists, who want the bloc's states to come into an ever-tighter embrace.

Critics of federalism argue many citizens are hostile to Euro-centralism. They contend Brussels is not addressing concerns about jobs, living standards and migration.

Moscovici threw his weight behind widening and extending the so-called Juncker Plan — a scheme named after European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker which uses EU funds as a lever for investment in areas such as energy, infrastructure and research.

The three-year plan, running from 2015 to 2018, has funds of 21 billion euros ($23.39 billion) from the EU budget and the European Investment Bank (EIB), with the hope that this will leverage private investment of 315 billion euros.

In its current form, the Juncker Plan “is probably insufficient, both in scale and timeframe,” Moscovici told journalists at a business meeting in Aix.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Christine Lagarde, who also attended the meeting, said the EU had to do more to project its image so that citizens were more aware of some of the benefits of membership.

“When for instance the European Investment Bank makes very big investments in areas but doesn't say very much and people aren't aware of it, without there being a measure of Europe's economic effectiveness, that's incredible,” Lagarde said.

“It means that the talk will continue to be about 'excessive regulation, bureaucracy, it's all Brussels' fault',” Lagarde said.

Pollsters say regions of Britain such as Cornwall, Wales and Yorkshire which have been huge beneficiaries of EU funds were also those that voted hugely in favour of leaving the Union.

Lagarde said laconically that Britain's exit should simplify decision-making in the EU.

“Now that the English have, in inverted commas, left… at least there are a number of things that I've heard European commissioners say, one after another, ''it's so complicated — we can't do it because of the British',” Lagarde said.

“Perhaps there are now things that should be envisaged, as the British won't be at the negotiating table,” she said.

Lagarde did not elaborate, but French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron said that the British departure could open the way to strengthening the eurozone.

“We have become a bit paralysed in thinking that there taboo geographical areas, and we have spent months and months not daring to meet as members of the eurozone, thinking it would upset the Poles and British.”

Moscovici reiterated ideas for boosting the 19-country eurozone, with a common budget and a “common economic policy.”

Faced with Russia’s war in Ukraine, the potential return of Donald Trump as US president and competition from China, the new commission will need to steward the EU at a time of global uncertainty.

To confront the challenges, von der Leyen handed powerful economic portfolios to France, Spain and Italy — with a hard-right candidate from Rome taking a top role in a commission seen shifting broadly rightward.

“It’s about strengthening our tech sovereignty, our security and our democracy,” the commission chief said as she announced the team at the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

France’s outgoing foreign minister Stephane Sejourne was handed an executive vice president role overseeing industrial strategy, after von der Leyen ousted Paris’s first nominee.

Spain’s Teresa Ribera, a socialist climate campaigner, was also made an executive vice president, tasked with overseeing competition and the bloc’s transition toward carbon neutrality.

As Russia’s war against Ukraine grinds on through a third year, security and defence assumed a new prominence.

Former Lithuanian prime minister Andrius Kubilius landed a new defence role overseeing the EU’s push to rearm, making him one of several hawkish Russia critics in eastern Europe to receive a prominent position.

Those also include Estonia’s ex-premier Kaja Kallas, already chosen by EU leaders as the bloc’s foreign policy chief.

And Finland, another country neighbouring Russia, saw its pick Henna Virkkunen given a weighty umbrella role including security and tech.

As part of the bloc’s careful balancing act, the German head of the EU executive had to choose the lineup for her second term from nominees put forward by the other 26 member states.

That has meant treading a political tightrope between the demands of competing national leaders — and putting some noses out of joint.

The highest-profile casualty was France’s first-choice candidate Thierry Breton, who quit suddenly as internal market commissioner on Monday accusing von der Leyen of pushing Paris to ditch him.

Von der Leyen fell short in her efforts at gender balance, ending up with 40 percent women after pressuring member states for female nominees.

But women obtained the lion’s share of executive VP roles, with four of six posts.

Controversial Italian pick

The choice of who gets which job is an indication of where Brussels wants to steer the European Union — and the weight commanded by member states and political groupings after EU Parliament elections in June.

Cementing its status as parliament’s biggest group, Von der Leyen’s centre-right European People’s Party commands 15 of 27 commission posts — to the chagrin of left-wing lawmakers like France’s Manon Aubry who warned of a lurch “far to the right” in terms of policies too.

Among the powerful vice presidents is Italy’s Raffaele Fitto, handed a cohesion brief in a nod to gains made by far-right parties in the June elections.

Giving a top role to a member of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s post-fascist Brothers of Italy party has raised hackles among centrist and leftist groups — while Meloni said it “confirms the newfound central role of our nation in the EU”.

After Green party losses at the June ballot, whether climate would remain high on the agenda and which commissioners would steer green policy was a subject of scrutiny.

As well as Ribera’s overarching role, the centre-right Dutchman Wopke Hoekstra will carry on in a position handling climate and the push to make the EU carbon neutral.

Among other eye-catching choices, Croatia’s Dubravka Suica obtained a new role overseeing the Mediterranean region, and the enlargement gig went to Slovenia’s Marta Kos — yet to be confirmed as her country’s candidate.

Other important figures going forward look set to be Slovakia’s Maros Sefcovic, handling trade, and Poland’s Piotr Serafin, who will steer negotiations over the bloc’s next budget.

All would-be commissioners still need to win approval from the European Parliament, with hearings to start in coming weeks.

Lawmakers could flex their muscles by rejecting some candidates — or at least dragging them over the coals, as expected with Italy’s Fitto.

Chief among those suspected for the chopping block are Hungary’s Oliver Varhelyi, nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s man in Brussels these past five years, who received a diminished portfolio covering health and animal welfare.

The stated target is to have a new commission in place by November 1st, but diplomats say that looks ambitious, with December 1 more likely.