©Thierry Leterre

It is tempting to regard Europe either as a topic entailing only technical aspects, or to understand it through a debate between the « anti » and the « pro » Europeans. Those who are favorable to Europe, and those who are not. The alternative rests on the one very same temptation : understanding debates over Europe as a problem, and a « neutral », technical approach as a solution to this problem. In a broader view, this perspective coincides with the hope for technical solutions to political problems. Such an attitude feeds the mainstream of European studies, for different reasons, one being that it justifies political and academic technicians in their task of justification and, more noticeably, their own practice of Europe as a legal-rational structure. For the rest of us, even academics or politicians who do think that politics is not about technicalities or not solely about technicalities, Europe is exactly what an article in a satiric French newspaper once called « the most boring subject of our time ».

 Time for modesty ?

Maybe, we should limit ourselves at a call for modesty, and acknowledge that only subtle interpreters of European treaties and agreements should speak about Europe. Actually subtle interpreters already think it should already be the case. Maybe we should stop to resist and agree. Only, agreeing is hard for old-style political scientists who have long known that the claim for subtlety is often indented to cover political issues. To say it bluntly, technique in politics is never solely technique ; it only refers to a context where technicians intend to keep away from non-technician demands. Whatever technique is at stake in politics, be it juridical technique or economic technique, constitutional technique, it is also a political device, used by people who claim to have a non-political stand, in order to gain political advantages. The first of this advantage is objectivity : how can you protest against Europe if you do not understand its complex legal structure ? How can you -as Dockers did in 2005- violently demonstrate against the parliament, while you should know that the parliament is not the decision maker in the case, but rather a political ally ? How can you pretend that there is a deficit in democracy in Europe when you are not acquainted with the subtle equilibrium of the so called « comitology » ? The more technically complex political issues are, the easier it is to remove those issues from a collective agenda of deliberation, and to justify that only the learned ones should be part of the decision making process. The case of the referendum is a good one. It is a constant temptation in France to avoid asking the people what they think of Europe. In 1997, the French Minister of Foreign affairs, Pierre Moscovici, declared (Libération October 20th 1997) that he was not in favor of a referendum nor even of a parliament discussion about the Amsterdam Treaty in order to avoid « awaking sleeping conflicts ». In 2005, after (and sometimes before) the disastrous French referendum over the European constitution, some pretended that the people should not have been consulted. The fact that in France, all the constitutions since WWII have been ratified through a referendum (and sometimes rejected by a referendum as in 1946) obviously did not strike these wise observers who were imbued with the conviction that democracy is a dog that barks as the moon rises, without understanding that it cannot help the cycle of the nights.

 Time for specialists

Keeping the European treaties in the limits of technical arrangements allows a quite clear pattern of action : a technical approach takes out the heat of a debate. Nobody but well-versed in the matter politicians or technocrats gets hot after a discussion on half a percent of the level of public deficit, or the number of years it will take to enlarge Europe : indeed people might well be upset with the enlargement of Europe or the level of public deficit and the course of action it might take to reduce it. But European debates do not deal with such global issues : they only refer to the modalities that will be necessary to enforce already sewn-up policies negotiated in accordance with an « agenda ». Who will fight a real political fight for or against an « agenda » or a « process » ? Making political issues technical is a dominating policy in Europe. It is what I call « the solution by the bore ». Transforming matters of public concerns into technicalities in an agency so complex to read or to understand, with a so balanced decision making process that it is difficult to grasp where the ultimate responsibility rests -except for vague and repeating denunciations of the « European bureaucracy » which are so convenient for governments which thus avoid taking their share of responsibility- makes it difficult for non specialists, even concerned citizens to have a clear opinion. Europe appears as the most boring topic of our time, as one put it years ago. Boredom is the natural consequence of technique, and as Pierre Moscovici put it, leads to a convenient rest. The European citizen should stay a sleeping beauty, and while the new political engineer of the European technocracy is by no means a Charming Prince, it might be that European governments turn into well thinking apprentice sorcerers. There is no point referring to a plot theory where political elites would intend to hide their aims from the people, for the problem has more to do with a mistake about popular feelings about Europe than with a well thought plot. The main idea that guides politicians and European bureaucrats is that debate should be carefully avoided, because of a dominant picture of Europe as threatened by a covert conflict over its very existence. According to this picture, there is a minority of citizens, sometimes a majority, against Europe. Technical agreements, technical jargon (like the dull choice enlargement/deepening that has no common sense) allow a limited debate among elites (be they political, bureaucratic or academic) and within the narrow limits of this debates a potential consensus. You can endlessly debate over deepening and enlarging Europe without wondering if it has any logical sense (as if an enlargement is not per se a change in nature and so a form of « deepening ») you can pretend than a convention has the right to turn a dull and complex Treaty into a constitution (as if it was possible that a treaty was per se a constitution)… These are not (as I once thought) false debates. But they do not open on the very existence of a democratic debate which is what public opinions decide it to be, and not what is at stake inside the charmed circle of technical elites. To that extent, the « solution by the bore » fails to allow room for debate -ordinary political debate on what is fair or interesting, or advantageous, not technical debates about economic convergence… It fails, of course, because it is not intended to open a debate, to take the risk of challenging European policies in a debate. The simple fact that no solution was found after the double refusal by France and the Netherlands of the Constitutional Treaty to manage the clear disavowal of a scheme so favored by political elites shows how little the same elites can react to real, actual, political fights at the European level.

 Time for politics

We pay a heavy price to the time when Europe was actually a frail construction, and when avoiding debates over Europe was a way to consolidate the so-called « European construction ». It was the justification of the « little steps » doctrine : making Europe go further on by the accumulation of concrete, day to day decisions. The underlying conviction of this technique was that a big project supporting a big picture would be rejected. But now, this justification, however, is undermined by the fact that Europe is no burning issue anymore. And that is where the distorted picture of Europe is so crucially playing against Europe : the real distortion in Europe is not between those who favor Europe and those who reject it. It happens between the immense majority that just does not care about Europe, or only from time to time, and a bunch of specialists (academics, journalists, politicians and bureaucrats) passionately dealing with the issue. Whether the members of the latter team are for or against Europe is far secondary compared with the fact that the former ones do bother to have an opinion about Europe, and play a game which is supposed to interest any citizen of the Union, and the rules of which are understandable only to a few and interesting to far less. It is time for a big project, which should appear as such. An uninteresting treaty called « constitution » is no such big picture. It is a succedaneum for a complete perspective on Europe. It is time to ask the citizens of Europe how they want to be governed in Europe, and what extent a central governance body should have -a real government ? a technical body dealing with a limited amount of issues ? The situation that prevails nowadays ? Such questions can be answered only if we have a clear understanding of what Europe is now. European citizens should know that the Union has more power in some fields than many real governments in the world (to take an example, the fiscal rules between the European sovereign states are tighter than the rules between the American federated states), that they are judged by courts that do not depend a sovereign popular power, that most of their laws do not come from their will, but from inter-governmental agreements, that their fate is made largely without their direct involvement. Whether such a situation is a good or a bad thing, is precisely something that should be decided by the peoples of Europe. In other words, it is time to stop building Europe and to start living in it.