Europe: what we really, really want

The Commission may be in trouble, but the EU dream can survive

How can we make Europe cool? the editor asked me last weekend. I guess he has never been to Brussels, never wandered through the dusty corridors of the Breydel, never talked milk quotas with a dandruff-ridden commission official in a badly fitting suit. Cool? The very idea is preposterous – Mr Bean will be cool before the EU.

But Europe doesn’t need to be cool, it just needs to be alive – and, above all, to have the will to live. The real crisis of last week was not one of democracy, it was a cry for help from a project that is running out of breath.

The problem is not failure, but living with success. The Treaty of Rome is without doubt the most successful treaty ever signed. Against all the odds it has transformed the EU into an oasis of peace, spread democracy to countries used to totalitarian regimes and created prosperity out of war-torn economies. But today the trinity of peace, prosperity and democracy has become so entrenched that it no longer gives the EU the sense of direction or public support that it needs to survive.

The corruption and inefficiency are all part of something bigger. The Commissioners sat back enjoying the trappings of power because they had no clear mandate. When you have power without purpose, the mission becomes to serve yourself, your friends and your dentist-cum-flatmate-cum-faith-healer. When Europe works, the Commission is at the heart of its success. But when Europe fails, it becomes an excellent alibi for the real culprits, who live closer to home. The Commission is supposed to be the keeper of the European flame, ensuring that the projects signed by statesmen in front of the cameras are not forgotten in the daily grind of negotiations between governments.

The bogeyman Jacques Delors couldn’t run Europe or seek to impose a superstate on national politicians like Thatcher, Mitterrand and Kohl. But he did exercise leadership so that the common commitment to making the single market work became a reality. Jacques Santer’s rudderless government – by the weak, for the weak – was the direct product of John Major’s wish to paralyse Europe. The governments of Europe had let the lights of European reform go out.

So how can we rekindle the flame? Commentators want us to learn from America. They call for a “constitutional convention” and an elected president. But this is begging the question. We can’t decide what Europe will look like at the end until we are clear what Europe is for. The federalist vision ran out of steam because people realised that they could have all the things it promised – peace, prosperity and democracy – without creating the superstate they didn’t want.

In fact, the real lesson to learn from America has nothing to do with its federal structure or its constitutional obsessions. The one thing that America has – that we need – is a dream. The American Dream has inspired successive generations to improve their lot, held together a mongrel country and always given Americans a clear sense of the future.

What Tony Blair and his fellow leaders need to do now is to find a European Dream, a story that makes sense of what the EU stands for. In Helsinki last December the heads of government pledged to produce a “Millennial Declaration”, setting out a programme for the next five years.

What should be in it? At its heart should be European values. While Americans glory in the melting-pot culture that salutes the flag and sings “The Star-spangled Banner”, Europe’s greatest strength is its cultural diversity. The EU must pledge to respect national idiosyncracies wherever possible – from double-decker buses to Portuguese carrot jam. It must also ensure that all Europeans, whether Greek office-workers or German Gastarbeiter, have their rights and identities protected. Europe must be a beacon showing how people can live together in peace, not just between nations, but in the richest and most diverse cities the world has ever seen.

Europe also has to project a vision of the good life. While Americans shop till they drop, Europeans know that rampant consumerism is not enough. The EU must pledge to help us protect the balances we want to strike in our lives: between work and family; between economic growth and environmental well-being. For most European citizens, “Europe” already means the good life – sun, sea, olive oil, wine, fashion, films and football.

Our commitment to quality of life is based on solidarity. Where the US extols the virtues of individualism, European countries do not accept the vast inequalities it can produce. Europe’s unique achievement has been to marry economic growth with social cohesion. Now we must help our eastern neighbours achieve prosperity while strengthening their communities, and show that free trade across the world can be made to work for people.

The EU must also show how nations can come together to fight the common threats to the good life: they must organise a credible defence identity; develop common measures to tackle international crime and drugs; lead the search for international commitments to protect our planet.

The European Dream cannot be constructed out of thin air. It must build on the things that Europeans value. By imagining a 21st-century Europe in which we want to work and play, we show how Europe can bring us closer to that dream. We can also forget the European nightmares, not just of war and federal superstates, but of a continent too weak to deliver the things we want. Now that would be cool.

Mark Leonard is director of the Foreign Policy Centre