A crisis of European integration

by Andrew Duff

Financial Times
September 26, 2011

The crisis of capitalism is also a crisis of European integration. The fundamental tenet of post-war Europe is that unity between its states and peoples brings stability and prosperity in place of strife and impoverishment. Today that belief is tested as never before. One does not have to be Greek to resent the fact that the frantic efforts by European Union leaders to centralise economic policy around the German model are driving the peripheral countries of the eurozone to the wall. It was not the purpose of economic and monetary union to turn everyone else into German satellites. Nor, to be fair, was it the intention of Germany.

So it is incredible that Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor appears to be conniving with French president Nicolas Sarkozy to impose a new system of economic governance on the eurozone which will compound the error of excessive centralisation.

Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European council, has been asked to come up with a plan by mid-October which will draw the reins even tighter. Mr Van Rompuy may be by instinct a federalist but he does not seem to be strong enough to resist the push from the national leaders towards a form of inter-governmental coordination which will lead inexorably to government by a directory of Paris and Berlin. Under his new proposals, the job of controlling national economic policies will be given to the European Council acting by consensus and beholden to the votes of national parliaments.

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