Britain and Germany working together in Europe

Speech given by FCO Minister for Europe, Denis MacShane, Berlin, 15 May 2003

Last week we celebrated the 30 years of Britain in the European Community, today the European Union. I spoke at our biggest bookshop in London with authors from different European countries.

FIGHTING AGAINST ANTI-AMERICANISM

They are writers and intellectuals so of course they were not supporters of the conflict in Iraq. Suddenly, from nowhere, came a familiar noise. The noise of Europeans being anti-American.

But there was one writer there from an older generation. She remembered when the writers of Europe needed the United States because they were Jews, or communists, or social democrats or because they believed a man should say what he wants to say and write how he wants to write.

The America that then as today gives a home to so many who flee persecution or want a life of freedom and hope for their children.
Of course I do not agree with all the policies of the US administration. I do not agree with all the policies of many European administrations. But if Europe allows itself to be infected by anti-Americanism it is not America that will suffer. It is Europe that will pay the price.
In my own land I have to fight against anti-Europeanism. I do not want to fight against anti-Americanism as well. Anti-Europeanism and anti-Americanism are the twin side of the same negative coin. They are dead end politics.

We are Europeans. We are unAmerican. We should never be anti-American. Nor should we seek to create a multi-polar world.
This is a return to the old cold war block mentality or worse a return to 19th century ideas of spheres of influence - Europe versus America versus China versus Russia versus India and so on. The best answer to unilateralism is partnership.

Everyone who follows German politics and who likes and is a friend of Germany as I hope I am understands the decisions taken arising from the Bundestagswahl last year.

But there were other political forces in Europe who want to enroll Germany in a new coalition that has its heart a rejection of the transatlantic partnership. This must I believe be rejected.

Not for Europe's sake but for the sake of the best values of the United States. Because there are forces in America that want to make anti-Europeanism a guiding principle for policy.

Not in the current administration - not President Bush or Secretary of State Powell - but in the ideological fundamentalists who want a world not of partnership but of subordination.

THE CHALLENGES FACING EUROPE

But for Europe to be a full and equal partner we need to meet the following challenges:

First, we need to get Europe moving again. Less talk in seminars on Europe's future and more work for the working class in new enterprises.

Today the EU produces 20 per cent less wealth each year than the United States. According to the Foreign Office economists that wealth gap will increase to 40 per cent - to Europe's disadvantage by the year 2010.

France's International Insitute of International Relations has just produced an important report 'Le commerce mondiale dans le 21eme siecle'.

It paints a picture of European growth declining to an average 1.1 per cent between 2020 and 2050 and Europe leaving the world stage as a serious economic, let alone politica actor.

Pro-European politicians and I count myself as a passionate pro-European should stop making speeches about European finality and destiny and make effort to persuade employers and trade unions - die Bossen und die Bonzen - as well as all citizens of the need for reform to get Europe´s economy moving again.

The second challenge is to make a success of enlargement. Poland and Hungary are very old nations who will now shape a very new Europe.

Five years after the stunde nul of 1945 we had created the European Iron and Steel Community, the OECD, NATO, the Deutschmark and Germany had its Grundgesetz.

We will have had to wait 15 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall to see the former communist countries of East and Central Europe enter the new EU on May 1st next year.

Enlargement will pose problems of people movement and of the lower standard of living in the new member states. They will want to maximise their competitive advantage to attract investment and we should not stand in their way.

One of the keys to making enlargement work depends on the third challenge facing Europe - the reform of its budget and clear action to root out corruption. It is becoming more and more absurd every day that out of the 100 billion euros in the annual EU budget nearly half is devoted to one relatively small part of the EU economy and society - namely agriculture.

Each cow in Europe gets a subsidy of 2 dollars or euros a day via the Common Agricultural Policy. At the same time more than one billion of our fellow citizens worldwide have to survive on a daily income of less than 2 dollars a day.

EU budget reform is now a priority not the least because EU agro-protectionism, along with US and Japanese agro-protectionism threaten to derail world trade negotiations so vital to send positive world economic signals.

The fourth challenge is to make a success of the Convention. The new rules needed to make an enlarged EU work are being discussed in the Convention and will be taken forward by the Inter-Governmental Conference. I welcome the work of Giscard and his Conventioneers.
They have to decide soon if they will produce a set of proposals which will be acceptable to the majority of EU governments or whether the insistence on either an ultra-federalist or an ultra-intergovernmental position means all the questions being re-opened by the IGC.
I hope they have the ambition to be modest and to refuse the temptation of making the best the enemy of the good.

WHAT DOES BRITAIN WANT?

What does Britain want?

Tony Blair has made it clear. We want a strong Commission, a stronger role for the European Parliament and for national parliaments, and a clear role for the European Council.

We want a team Europe. Not a Europe with one telephone number on the desk of some Nietzschean super-president of Europe.
We want a strong Commission president with an elected mandate via the European Parliament - but not please a highly partisan or politicised figure - to focus on getting Europe back to work and energising and leading the Commission in Brussels.

We would like a standing chair of the European Council. This person - a Chair or Vorsitzsender - not in English a president - will be elected by his or her peers and will have walk-in rights to talk to all 25 heads of government.

I personally think the Council chair will most likely come from one of the smaller countries, and be someone who can act to bring Europe´s nations and peoples together in a closer union. We want a strong single figure to be Europe´s external affairs representative.

We want more common foreign policy but not a single foreign policy. We understand that foreign policy remains often a vital national question and the presidents, prime ministers and Chancellors of Europe´s nations are not ready to transfer all competences in foreign policy work to Brussels.

Foreign policy will remain intergovernmental but we would like to see Europe´s new Chris Solana or Xavier Patten at the Commission table to help make better use of EU resources to promote common foreign policy positions agreed by the European Council.

Because the final challenge for Europe is to create a partnership so that we can leave behind the 20th century idea that the nations of Europe have to be in conflict with the idea and identity of the European Union.

We want more Europe and more Germany. More Europe and more Britain. Europe is not a zero sum game in which Europe can only grow at the expense of a strong national identity for its component nation states.

In my adult lifetime I have seen Germany become more German, France more French, Ireland more Irish thanks to the increase in the sharing of sovereignty in the European Union.

A new European Union will allow Poland and the other old nations of Europe to develop the cultural identity and strengthen their sense of nationhood while burying the atavisms of negative nationalism.

We want more Europe but we do not want less Germany or less Britain. 53 years ago the European Iron and Steel Communiy was born followed in 1957 by the Treaty of Rome. In this first period Britain was absent at the creation of Europe.

CONCLUSION

In tomorrow's Europe Britain and Germany must work together to create a new alliance for permanent reform and constant renewal. There is no European finality but a journey of nations and peoples to build a better tomorrow.

This new Europe will never be built against Germany or without Germany, against Britain or without Britain, against France or without France. I agree with Jean Monnet when he said that there are no small and no big nations in Europe just some that think they are bigger than others.

In tomorrow's Europe, size really does not matter. What counts is will, determination and a desire to cooperate. But Britain, France and Germany have a special responsibility.

We have to measure our ambitions one against the other. Any axis for Europe's future that does not have London, Paris and Berlin on it will not turn or attract others.

We must learn from the disarray of recent months and learn to consult, coordinate and cooperate. That way tyranny will be defeated, multilateral engagement strengthened and Europe will speak as one on the great issues that confront the world.