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(1787)
After voters in the Netherlands and France rejected a gigantic
constitutional treaty, the team led by José Manuel Barroso placed remarkable
confidence in Tony Blair’s presidency. His therapy – downsizing budget,
bureaucracy, and legislation – was minimalist enough to freeze any enthusiasm.
Not surprisingly, greater expectations turned to Angela Merkel’s grand
coalition. The British prime minister and the German Kanzlerin share a moderate
faith in Euromiracles. Federalism is not a popular feeling in Berlin, London,
Paris, and among other Babel residents. Nearly everybody claims flexible
communities à la carte, provided
someone else pays the bill. If the Central Bank bans easy credit cards, two
basic routes plus a third option could entertain our fellow tacticians. The grey way. Being
a conservative nostalgic landlady, Europe is eager to defend her old farm.
Barroso warns Blair, who alerts Gordon Brown, who cautions his continental
relatives, who crowd around the Kanzlerin. This storyboard demands a WTO
compromise backed by generous sponsors and the improvement of national
accounts with an extra-blessing of good Asian news. Warm optimism helps. Wuthering
heights. According to current Maastricht-Amsterdam-Nice rules (EU Treaty,
article 43), at least eight member states may start an advanced cooperation
under specific conditions. Jacques Delors, the most successful federal
architect, suggested exploiting this clause. What for? Far more than eight
partners agree that human capital must become the common focus, yet
innovation is glamorous only in principle. Too many vested interests find
absurd pushing a mature householder across the windy fields of competitive
cooperation. There is surely a further alternative. It deals with heavy exogenous
shocks. Say a real energy crisis and/or huge financial bubbles. Perhaps
uncontrolled feudal conflicts. As long as the cost of European welfare leads
Byzantine EU summits to a deadlock, conventional risk management proves
useless. That cost is rising.
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