From Minimal to Maximal European Union

The European Union is facing one of the most serious crises in its history, while the US expects it to provide support for American policies in flashpoints around the globe.

The double rejection of the Constitutional Treaty by France and the Netherlands re-sulted in the Treaty’s clinical death. The reasons are interpreted in different ways but what underlies the rejections is a substantial gap between people and political elites as far as goals, expectations and strategies are concerned.

The negative response to the Treaty also raises the issue of how the state is going to operate in a globalised environment. Will it be a minimal or a maximal one?

The first model (the minimal state) is founded on the concept of John Locke regarding un contrat social between elite and people and describes a state operating in a way that fully reflects the wishes of its constituent parts. In such an arrangement, there is an identification between the goals of the citizenry and those of the state as expressed by its political leadership.

According to the second model (the maximal state), the state, via its bureaucracy, ex-presses interests that do not count for the total of the wishes of its citizens or interests different from those of the majority of people. In such circumstances, a state may not reflect the genuine wishes of the majority, since it primarily aims at advancing its own goals, thus privileging a small elite of society. As a result, choices on the political, economic and social level override people’s interests.

Eventually the way the state acts does not justify its raison d’être, which is to cater to the needs of the majority operating in a consensual way. This results in a conflict of interests between the political elite itself and the citizens as shown by the French and Dutch reactions.

For many years, the European integration process has been an elite issue. Decisions were taken mainly, if not exclusively, by political elites without any clear consent of national electorates in an increasingly centralized way.

For as long as the EU managed to operate successfully, this gap did not pose major obstacles to the integration process. However, a number of issues changed the mood of many people in Europe. First, after the introduction of the EURO, prices skyrock-eted in most countries of the Eurozone making many Europeans look back at the time when national currencies provided a stable, low-cost environment.

Second, unsuccessful policies of national governments failed to live up to the people’s expectations. With unemployment rising across the Eurozone it is no mystery why social problems prevailed over the institutional need to formalize what has been agreed through treaties.

Third, growth has been dramatically slow in Europe, while the strong EURO has af-fected European exports.

At the same time, the impact of globalization on the EU operational mode has caused European economies not to be competitive and this dictated the adoption of new strategies at the Lisbon Summit in 2000. The new agenda set priorities widely wel-come by Europeans (boosting employment, enhancing competitiveness) but what was not clear to all sides was the means with which these would be achieved.

To the eyes of a number of technocrats, the adoption of neo-liberal policies supported by the UK emerged as the only solution, however, flexible terms in employment, the deconstruction of the welfare state and limited rights for the working class was not an acceptable strategy by European standards.

The message from the referenda is that the EU needs re-orientation, on a “maximal” basis that will be widely accepted by European peoples. On the other hand, with hind-sight, it is clear that the attempt to proceed with a Constitution was by far too great a leap forward under the circumstances.

In a way, the political elite expected radical structural changes to be accepted by the social partners in a short time through the adoption of unpopular strategies. Practically few people expected too much from too many in a short notice without consent.

What is currently happening in Europe may seem incomprehensible to the average American, but should be approached within the differentiation framework that distin-guishes two aspects of the same model, capitalism.