Breaking out of the vicious circle of EU politics

The scope of EU decision-making must be enlarged if Europe is to “break out of the vicious circle of always waiting for a miracle to fall out of the sky”, writes Daniel Cohn-Bendit, co-president of the Greens group in the European Parliament, in the autumn edition of Europe’s World.

Moreover, political practices and the EU’s institutions must be strengthened through institutional checks and balances, he argues. 

Cohn-Bendit laments that European leaders “never stop to consider Europe as a new space to govern,” claiming that they “do not hesitate to use Europe as a scapegoat to avoid breaking bad news to their citizens” instead. What’s more, national leaders’ “political grammar is limited to the present and excludes both the past and the future” when it comes to the EU, he argues. 

The present tense employed in debates over the Union’s future “may win elections, but it destroys global perspectives and sabotages any opportunity to experience, or to perceive, politics as a process that can contribute to global development”. In this context, “it is not surprising” that EU citizens hesitate to embrace the European cause, he says. 

Cohn-Bendit says that if globalisation leads to a European project “without any meaning” and a “refusal to explore new avenues”, then the EU will be unable to adapt to change and find solutions to its challenges. 

Regarding the Reform Treaty, he hopes it will allow those member states who wish to press further with integration to go ahead thanks to the “reinforced cooperation” mechanism. 

If Turkey joins the EU, Europeans can “celebrate a qualitative step forward in the European project”, states Cohn-Bendit, warning that the alternative may be a Turkey that switches its strategic sights on Russia or Iran. 

The EU as it stands is in a position to influence the equilibrium of world politics and face the challenges of climate change and energy diversification, but political union is at a crossroads and it is now time to decide whether to consolidate and further strengthen EU cohesion, Cohn-Bendit argues. 

He says that issues like climate change and energy supply demonstrate “the futility of isolated national actions and the critical importance of deepening and […] further enlarging the EU”, concluding that the dynamics that were created at the Laeken summit in 2001 are now “sadly long gone”.