What follows is a transcription of a speech Mátyás Eörsi delivered at a conference organized by the European Commission on its relationship with civic organizations. He was representing EFTA (European Free Thought Association) in this dialogue between the European Union and civic groups working with various EU organizations.
Eörsi is a founding member of SZDSZ, who became a member of the first freely-elected parliament in 1990 where, for 20 years, until 2010, he held important offices, including the chairmanship of the Foreign Affairs Committee. In 2006 he became undersecretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In addition to his political activities in Hungary, he also had a distinguished career in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, where he became the leader of the ALDE (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe) Group. In addition, he held the post of vice-president in the Liberal International between 2001 and 2006. Currently, he is senior foreign policy adviser to the chairman of the Democratic Coalition.
I am happy and grateful to both Mr. [Emmanuel] Crabit and my friend Allan Jean for having spoken about European values in their contributions before me. It made me get into a time-machine and fly back in time to several years ago when Hungary was negotiating EU membership. I recall how often I was told by Western colleagues that “Mátyás, the EU is not only about structural funds and cohesion funds, but it is also about values!” I responded that I was exceedingly happy to hear this, because – as I explained – my country needs funds, but it needs values even more. However now, when I hear the President of the European Parliament praising Mussolini, I wish I could go back and ask them: “Where are those European values you spoke about?” Because, forgetting about those values is not simply a Central European problem. Regrettably, it has spread all over Europe.
Before going into further details, I wish to point out, and this cannot be repeated and underscored often enough, that the EU has been the most successful institutional development on the European continent over history. It succeeded in preserving peace after World War II for the longest period ever and contributed significantly to democracy, development, and prosperity.
Nothing, however, can ever be taken for granted. The EU needs to adapt, no one questions that. But instead of getting lost in details, we need to focus on real issues. The state of New Jersey has a larger staff than the European Commission, so all that talk about the huge bureaucracy in the EU is becoming tiresome.
Of course, it would be an impossible mission to speak on behalf of Central and Eastern Europe. Tallinn and Sofia, Prague and Bucharest face different challenges, and they give different responses, too. Some member states are in the top (Estonia, e.g., is outstanding), others perform worse, and they have different perceptions as well. For example, when we asked our network about their perceptions Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary highlighted “European common values,” while Estonia, Latvia, and Poland were less enthusiastic about the concept.
What may be common, however, in at least some newcomers, almost 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, is a kind of disappointment in democracy and some apathy when you take a look at election turnouts. These signals are alarming, and they need to be taken seriously.
There may be a range of reasons, but for now I am putting my finger on two causes only. The first cause is the growing number of populist politicians who mislead the people. The second is the spread of corruption, with leaders stealing public money and becoming remarkably wealthy. Of course, we could argue that democracy is not a destination but is the journey itself. We could also argue that these negative experiences are actually good, because, if there were no democracy, people would not become aware of the misbehavior of their politicians, and for this reason such bad experiences should be perceived as complements to democracy.
According to political catechism, however, it is wise to avoid theoretical debates with the masses. Especially when we have a better choice: It is to change and to perform better!
Democratic institutions have reasons. Democratic institutions, e.g., should be instruments to prevent politicians from lying and stealing, or at least to make it much harder for them. We can certainly agree on this formula, from Lisbon to Tallinn, from Dublin to Sofia.
I will now be asking two simple questions.
The first question is whether the EU sufficiently prevents national leaders from lying.
Here is the answer: The major power in the EU lies in the Council of the EU. Its members are Heads of States and Governments, national leaders of member states, right? Now, you can see leaders of member states hindering or blocking, neglecting or abandoning community decisions, then launching attacks against “Brussels.” On other occasions leaders agree to community decisions, then go to their home media and attack the jointly decided measures. Remember the Lisbon Strategy! It determined and assigned tasks to the member states, and many of them ignored these recommendations for various reasons. Look at what happened: the EU made a correct decision, but national leaders did not do their homework but blamed the EU for their own mistakes! It was the worst division of labor possible!
How was it possible? It was possible because citizens have hardly any access to information about what their leaders are doing in the Council. As a result, they give credence to the false accusations. Any surprise that the popularity of the EU is declining?
Does it have anything to do with democracy? Of course, it does! Democracy is not about honest or dishonest politicians. Democracy is about preventing leaders from behaving dishonestly. It is the lack of transparency in the deliberations in the Council that enables national leaders to mislead citizens about the EU. Should there be a high level of transparency, such leaders would be caught, and they would stop misleading, even if this is less simple than it sounds. As I said earlier: Democracy has a reason!
In my opinion, the real power in the EU should be transferred to the EP, the body elected directly to this position and the most transparent and thus accountable body of the EU. Understanding, however, that the Council serves as a balance between bigger and smaller members, the solution would be a co-deciding Senate, with an equal number of members from each member state. It exists, we do not need to reinvent the wheel. Whether the Senate would also be directly elected, as in the USA, or the Council would be transformed, I shall not discuss today, except to underscore the imperative that it will have to be fully transparent.
I wish we had time to discuss the need for other institutional developments, such as a Constitutional Court to be elected by the Parliament. Then, of course, we would need a Constitution as well. I am aware that a Constitutional Treaty failed in two referendums, but when we speak about values, the name of the document in which political and social values are embedded is the Constitution. Also, it is great that the EU created a Human Rights Agency, but now the time has come to empower the agency. Otherwise it remains a fig leaf over human rights rhetoric.
My second question is whether the EU prevents corruption, which is becoming a more and more serious matter, especially in the south. Again, democracy has a reason, and another objective of democratic institutions is to prevent corruption.
I must say that the EU does not prevent corruption. Instead, the EU funds the corruption.
In one of the EU member states, during only two parliamentary terms, a PM became the richest person in the country through his oligarchs. Can you imagine a person who was a simple gas pipe fitter when his village childhood friend became PM, and nine years later he is twice as rich as Queen Elizabeth II and three times richer than Christiano Ronaldo? His bids are overpriced and, still, he is winning most public procurements. All of his fortune has been paid for by European taxpayers. The question is this: Who is surprised that the democratic nature of the EU is questioned?
“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others” –it is a famous quotation attributed to Churchill, but Churchill didn’t invent it; he simply quoted it in a House of Commons debate. I dislike this quotation because democracy is good. Democracy is the sole form of government that is transparent and makes governments accountable. Democracy is the sole form of government implicating self-reflection and automatism for self-correction. So, I used two heavyweight examples to demonstrate that the EU has much room to improve.
I turn now to a third problem, which has European citizens genuinely worried. Some leaders love to keep it on the agenda, especially during campaign periods, so they can demonstrate how incompetent the EU is. This is the refugee crisis. We may disagree on how to respond to the refugee crisis, but there is a wide consensus that such a crisis should be prevented on the spot where it originates.
Let me point to a single case. In the Syrian crisis only two global powers were visible: the USA and the Russian Federation. Not the EU. The EU was only interested in preventing the huge flow of refugees, not with halting the bloodshed. The Russian Federation was interested in gaining back control in Syria and dividing the EU through the refugee crisis. We all know the result: Russia won. The EU failed.
If the EU wants to be a shaper of global issues, if for example it wants to stop the war in Syria or elsewhere in the future, if it wants to be able to address causes of mass migration, it will never be able to do so without a common foreign policy and without a credible defense.
The division of competencies between European institutions and member states must be revisited. This is a matter of the quality of democracy, for the simple reason that its impact is critically important to citizens. Globalization is perceived as a huge threat to citizens. In order to respond effectively to worries of European citizens, the EU must be empowered to respond effectively. On the other hand, local issues – such as the shape of cucumbers – should be regulated locally. This will convince our citizens that the EU is serving them properly.
Some member states will start shouting that the EU is depriving them of their sovereignty. The truth is that revisiting competencies would strengthen European citizens and would weaken only leaders. We are making a choice between the sovereignty of our citizens and the sovereignty of national leaders. There is no question which option I recommend.
Finally, two more brief proposals.
When a member state government launched a lie campaign about the Commission (by the way, it is also funded by the EU), I was pleased to see a response by the Commission refuting the lies. Regrettably, however, I am afraid I was the only citizen of that country who discovered the response, when I was preparing for this event today. Posting a counter-video on the Commission’s website is not an appropriate response to a huge anti-Commission campaign that spreads the lies through tens of thousands of billboards visible on every street in all the cities and even in the small villages.
“Democracy must deliver” – this is an excellent quote by Bill Clinton, but let me improve on it: “Democracy must deliver, and citizens must be told that democracy delivered!”
Hey “Brussels,” whoever you are, be more political! Campaign! Convince citizens! Hey “Brussels,” we know that democracy is costly. You should allocate sufficient amounts for yourself in the next budget to explain to European citizens what EU institutions are doing and why.
There is a debate in the EU whether countries with a democratic backlash should be funded or not. If the conclusion is that funding should continue, citizens believing in democratic values will lose hope in the EU. If the conclusion is that funding should discontinue, far too many people would not understand why it is necessary and would feel that the EU had intervened in domestic affairs. However, this phenomenon can be explained with clear words. “European values” and “democracy” are not enough. Instead: “The EC cares about how European taxes are spent. It is happy to support developing countries as long as it can be certain that the support will be spent on public good and will not land in the pockets of oligarchs. Only countries where checks and balances, an independent judiciary and independent media enable sufficient control over the spending of EU funds and that are partners to the (EPPO) European Public Prosecutors Office can receive financial support.”
Citizens – both net contributors and net receivers – would understand such language. If the communication is proper and governments were reluctant to accept such conditions, and if as a result EU support to the country would fall off, citizens would be angry at their corrupt governments and comprehend the EU’s position. Then we win!
Some may respond that some of my proposals are utopian. That is perfectly fine with me.
If anybody at the beginning of the 90s had said that there would be no more Deutsche Marks, no more French francs and Dutch guldens, if anyone had said that Estonians could freely travel to Dublin and Lisbon without passports and without being stopped at border controls, the answer would have been that this was utopian thinking.
The utopia of yesterday is the history of tomorrow. I am certain that everything I was talking about today will be implemented someday. I am here today to say: The sooner, the better!
