Log in
A+ A A-

Interview with Frank Engel on European Federalism and Greece

Frank Engel ia an MEP from Luxemburg and the head of the Luxembourg EPP delegation. He has written three books on European issues the last of which 'Projet de Manifeste pour les États-Unis d'Europe' ('Manifesto for a United States of Europe') published in 2013 spells out his vision about a federal Europe. Frank Engel spoke to Thimis Tsiliopoulos about what a federated Europe would mean for Greece.

ET: If we're talking about a federated Europe, something not yet achieved, one would ask how feasible it is in the near future, or what time frame can we talk about.-    

FE: The timeframe question in this respect is probably the most surreallistic aspect of it, because you could always say it took us 60 years to get where we are, it might just as well take another 60 years until we get there, so maybe it's not something that can be achieved in the short term. Maybe not in one generation... I don't know when....

On the other hand, if you look back at what the founding fathers did, it was very clear that if the European defence community had not been sunk by the French National Assembly in 1954, we would have had the European federation less than 10 years after Shumann's 9th of May speech. So it is all a matter of will and a matter of determination, and of where we want to go. As far as i'm concerned, I'm absolutely convinced that if we want to do it we could do it in 2-3 years.

ET: If this worked out, if we had a federated Europe, how would Greece benefit? First of all in a general sense what would be the benefit of any country joining such a federated state?

FE: The benefits will be multi-fold. I see quite a few which would also be highly interesting for Greece. The first would be major economies of scale in terms of all the trappings of the sovereign nation state, which cost a lot of money today and which by simply expanding them once on a federal level instead of 28 times, or how many times you want, on the level of the nation state would give you quite considerable savings.

I'm talking about, for instance military and defence, all the foreign affairs business, the doubling and multiplying of infrastructure investments, which then have  to be interconnected, which cost again. I'm talking about things like development cooperation. So economies of scale will be one major thing and this will be measured in entire percentage points in terms of budget expenditure.

Then we'd have something, which in my view is a major thing, we'd have the perspective of finally getting to a point where we could leave this sterile debate of everybody having to be solid, stable, and competitive. It's absolutely clear that in global competition, of the 28 member sates, not everybody can be  solid, stable, and, above all, competitive. And just like Florida for instance is in no way competitive within the USA, nobody still minds having them. Florida fulfills a purpose, just like Greece would fulfill a definitive purpose within the European federation, just like Germany did, only that these purposes would be different.

ET: So do you see an allocation of labour, resources, roles?

FE: I would certainly see the perspective of saying “together we're good at everything, and separately, everyone of us is particularly good at something”

ET: Specifically for Greece, which is the sixth year of recession and faring rather poorly in terms of its economy and despite the memorandums what would the benefits be? How could a federal Europe help Greece out of the mess it's in now?

FE: The first thing a federation would have to contemplate, otherwise it wouldn't be one, and we should have already done that when we introduced the single currency, would be to invent a federal budget worth the name. That means, not 1% of GDP, but at least between 5 and 10 percentage points of GDP, which would also allow for  significant measures of redistribution within the federation, through the federal budget. That would allow a country like Greece, but not only Greece, to settle down somewhat, to set money aside again, in it's own budget, for investment purposes that will be badly needed.

That would allow, for instance, for “Marshall Plan”-like  endeavors to take place for Greece, because a federation would necessarily mean that we would also be able to say “we will now take 100-200 billion euros in order to redress the situation in the south. This would be a common endeavor and a common goal. In that way the country would get back on track and out of this home made recession, because the further you tighten the purse, as is currently still being done, the longer this recession will last. This is mechanical and nobody will convince me of the contrary.

ET: Greece has other problems as well. Part of the reason Greece is in such a bad state is because of the government overspending, wastefulness, corruption, and so forth. Would a federal Europe address these problems and how?

FE: It wouldn't be federal Europe's duty to do that. On the other hand, I believe, it would take care of itself, because greater mobility within a federation that would make one less focused one oneself within the sovereign nation state would entail, what I now call, for want of a better term, an automatic exchange of best practices. Which means that, we will not probably, root out corruption from one day to the other. By the way it exists everywhere, maybe on a lower scale, but it still does.

At the same time it would not be like now where in certain hermetically sealed sovereign areas a given phenomenon like corruption could continue endemically, whereas elsewhere, for cultural reasons, more transparency in the media, or whatever, it is very limited.  The common European governance, the true European governance that would be entailed by the federal perspective and practice, would, I believe, all by itself contribute to an improvement of governance practices all across the federation.

ET: Greece, and many European countries are members of NATO, and NATO sort of acts as a hindrance towards the creation of a common European defence structure. Can this be surmounted ? Can a defence structure on a federal level adress all the different factors that are posed by individual state defence problems, like Greece with Turkey, or France, now, with Syria, in a satisfactory way for everyone?

FE: It would have to! I don't see NATO hindering this. I see individual European NATO members hindering themselves and each other from achieving meaningful defence integration. This has to do with a totally fragmented defence procurement market. It has to do with a lot of interests in precisely the armaments markets, which remain firmly national affair. This has very little to do with NATO.

I have the feeling, and I've had it for a long time, that the NATO partners on the other side of the Atlantic would be more than happy if Europeans all together finally got their act together in defence terms and were able to play a greater military role, also in their own immediate neighborhood. Talking about Syria for instance, these are our neighbors. .Syrian refugees are coming to Greece, not to Oklahoma. It is my fundamental conviction that this something that should be much closer to the Europeans than it is to the Americans, even though the Americans would take at least a notional interest in the thing.

We ideally have to learn that a perimeter of a few hundred kilometers around our own borders is first and foremost our own “thing,” and then only the Atlantic alliance's “thing.”

By the way, I don't actually think, which is something that at some point has to sink in, in Greece, that Turkey is about to invade anyone.

ET: Refugees from Syria are flooding Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and other nearby areas. Greece, however, does have an immigration problem and part of the reason is that it is so close to problem areas or easily accessible as a stepping stone to the EU. Illegal immigrants are then trapped here because of the Dublin II agreement. How would a federated Europe deal with this problem?

FE: I believe the first thing that any kind of 'meaningful' Europe, be it federal, or be it what we have at present, would have to do would be to see to it that we get the notion that any sort of external border is a common border. We haven't done that. This is not only a Greek issue. It's a Maltese issue. It's a south Italian issue. It's, in part, a Spanish issue, and a French issue, if worse come to worst. It's an issue for all those that are on the Mediterranean borderlines. To the greatest extent, with the exception of a few FRONTEX dots and elements, we leave the countries pretty much alone to see to it that they fend off whoever doesn't carry an “invitation card.”

That is not something that is viable in the long run, if you're supposed to have common policies regulating immigration, but also things like asylum and border crossings. But, as has been so often the case, we haven't managed, so far, to give concrete meaning to political affirmations of intent. This is something that in this particular case hurts places like Greece. We might all claim we are in solidarity with those that defend our external borders,  but if I look at who does so on the Evros River, or across the Aegean, then I see Greek uniform bearers and I see the Greek Coast Guard and I don't see many other people. This can't continue like that.

ET: If you were to say to Greeks the one reason why you should want a federal Europe, what would it be? The most salient thing, if there is one.  

FE: Each and everyone of us in the long run, and it might only be a medium sized run, is going to be pretty defenceless in the face of global competition, on every level. And even if Germany were to hold out in terms of  industrial production, and that's pretty much it, for the whole rest of us, we are all trapped in national economic logics that don't get us much further, because we cannot devaluate any longer. If we cannot devaluate any longer, we just have to put up with higher wages, higher prices, and social security systems that we have, and which are 'mature'. This is something the whole world wants, but so far isn't getting, and while they're not getting these benefits  they're just simply cheaper in everything they do. If we want to continue like that, dividing 7% of the global population that is European by 30 national sovereignties, we will all nicely, separately, go under.

But if we pull together, we'll be able to solve the present day problems, and we'll be able to mobilize half a billion people for meaningful competition with the rest of the world. This is not antagonistic, this is merely survival training.