Europe’s crisis of leadership
If the political and economic union is going to quell the revolt against globalisation, free trade, and open societies, it will need more leaders and fewer managers
preserve their domestic poll ratings, when they should be showing genuine leadership and fighting for the common good.
Upcoming national elections in France and Germany will be bellwethers for the future of European leadership. In recent German state elections, Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and its government partner, the Social Democratic Party, experienced notable losses, which could mean that Germany’s grand coalition is at risk ahead of next year’s election. Meanwhile, support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) continues to grow.
Merkel has two choices: She can move to the right, as former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has done in his latest bid for the French presidency, or she can fight to hold the centre by addressing the AfD’s simplistic arguments head on. The choice is clear: Merkel should stand and fight, while also advancing an alternative vision for modernising the EU.
Dangers of protectionism
Defeating populism will require leaders to acknowledge the people left behind as a result of globalisation, but also to dispel the myth that there is a quick fix, or that globalisation can simply be reversed. Contrary to populist arguments, protectionism will not reduce youth unemployment or income inequality.
If EU countries reject trade deals currently under discussion, including the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, the EU’s share of world trade will decrease, and the European economy will suffer for it.
Likewise, if the Eurozone fails to integrate further by strengthening its economic-governance structures, Europe’s ongoing financial crisis will only continue, impeding social mobility and undermining social justice. It is time for EU leaders to make these arguments more effectively.
Across the West, the 2008 financial crisis triggered a political fight that is still in progress. It has changed from a battle for accountability and reform to a clash between visions of open and closed societies, between a global consensus and policies still operating at the national, local, or even tribal level.
If the EU is going to quell the revolt against globalisation, free trade, and open societies, it will need more leaders and fewer managers. European leaders, frankly, should know better than to blame EU institutions, hypothetical trade deals, and refugees for their own failures to tackle unemployment and reduce inequality.
The EU’s current crisis-management playbook is running out of pages. We in Europe can either put our heads in the sand while the European project slowly dies, or we can use this crisis to start a new project of renewal and reform.
Here, too, the right choice is clear: EU leaders should offer Europeans a new social contract, based on the understanding that people’s legitimate fears about globalisation should be met with a collective, progressive European response. The EU has been a major force behind globalisation, and only the EU has the power to help manage the consequences. European leaders must explain to their voters why nationalism cannot.
Former Belgian Prime Minister Special to Gulf News
Guy Verhofstadt is also currently president of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Group (ALDE) in the European Parliament.