Sovereignist rhetoric on the primacy of national law and on immigration makes the elitist rhetoric of the Europeanist nomenklatura inaudible.
It only takes a few minutes, as Marine Le Pen masterfully proved in her recent press conference in Budapest, to convince the citizen, (who is ill informed about the negotiations, the minutiae and the compromises that preside over the drafting of successive treaties and directives framing the functioning and the jurisprudence of the EU), that a nebula of federalist conspiracy theorists has patiently robbed him of his most fundamental rights.
It is too late to try to make up for the lack of information and explanation that the elector has been deprived of since the signing of the Treaty of Rome. Policymakers have blatantly disregarded his capacity for understanding and have arrogated the right to think in his place “for his greater good”! It does not matter how many lies, illegalities, contradictions or omissions are uttered by the sovereigntist camp; neither does it matter that the Union – with all its imperfections – is the result of treaties negotiated and ratified by all its Members, duly mandated by their populations in accordance with their respective constitutional procedures; nor does it not matter that learned legal studies conclude almost unanimously that European law takes precedence over the national law of its Members. In the prevailing climate of uncertainty, confused by a world in need of reference points and confronted with insecurity, global warming, health emergencies, inflation, eroding living standards, etc., the ordinary citizen is prey to emotions, which overwhelms his readiness to listen to rational discourse and makes him vulnerable to extremist solicitations.
Contrary to what the populist sirens suggest, the option of a reformed Europe structured as a “Union of sovereign countries” retaining control over their national borders, their economic and immigration policies, etc., is incompatible with maintaining the € or the freedom of movement of people, goods, services and capital. The proposals of the sovereigntists therefore constitute a disguised call for the dismemberment of the Union and the € by the de facto re-imposition of the rule of unanimity in the European Council, leading to the blocking of the Union’s decision-making power, whatever the promises of reconstruction of the alliance on a new basis may be. What would be the purpose of the European Parliament if its independence, its legislative and control powers were subordinated to the national laws of Member States (MS)?
In addition to these fundamental surrenders of shared sovereignty, a Union of sovereign nations would have no incentive to agree on a budget that, at present, benefits both the less wealthy countries through the transfers they receive in the name of solidarity (levelling up) and the more developed countries that enjoy privileged free access to the largest market on the planet. At the same time, all of them benefit from the considerable negotiating power that the Union has in concluding numerous treaties, particularly Free Trade Agreements, on behalf of the 27MS. Moreover, there would be no more reason to limit unfair competition between Member States, to regulate state aids or to discourage competitive currency devaluations, the eradication of which, since the introduction of the €, has given investors and entrepreneurs and a stable monetary environment in which to implement plans with confidence.
Although the EU still has much progress to make in harmonizing, among other things, its immigration policy and the management of controls of its external borders, it is questionable whether implementing 27 national policies would be more effective than a uniform policy. Indeed, independence implies not only agreements between each country on the controls required at their respective common borders, but also individual negotiations with each country of origin of migrants (legal and illegal).
Furthermore, if national sovereignty prevails absolutely, how can the sharing and co-financing of investments needed to ensure the strategic independence of each country in terms of research, health, supplies, energy, etc., be agreed? Clearly, the Single Market with its four freedoms is a sine qua non precondition to allow for the pooling of resources and skills, as the recent agreement on the Recovery Plan illustrates emphatically.
The advantages that risk being sacrificed by the sovereigntist mantra are currently part of the “acquis communautaire”, but for the citizen, they most often only become palpable when they are removed (as Brexit has vividly demonstrated). In particular, the formal restoration of national sovereignties would considerably aggravate the dual vassalization of European countries to the United States, through NATO for matters of defense and the $ in the case of the economy and the currency. The restoration of “national sovereignty” would be nothing but a mirage.
Faced with a situation where a political, economic, financial, social or climatic crisis could erupt at any moment and dramatically restrict the choices available, the EU must decide, preferably through the democratic process on which it is founded, between: the sovereigntist alternative and assume the unavoidable consequences mentioned above, or pursue its objective of an “ever closer Union” mandated by the preamble of the treaty. In the latter case, significant changes must be made (supposedly the subject of the Conference on the Future of the Union) to improve its functioning and strengthen its democratic legitimacy. It will have to address the thorny issues of abolishing unanimity voting, defining a common immigration policy, deepening defense cooperation, rationalizing the Union’s external representation, etc.
But above all, the ambition to promote a democratic Union, dreamed of by the Founding Fathers in the aftermath of the Second World War, can only be achieved if the self-proclaimed elites who steer it, devote themselves body and soul to demonstrating that they advocate the only realistic answers to the problems facing its citizens. The rationality of the vision they defend will be better accepted if they are capable of showing a minimum of humility by recognizing the deficit of explanation from which the European construction has suffered cruelly throughout the last 70 years. It is a tribute to the Union that it has managed to preserve peace within its borders, in parallel with the establishment of an area of unequalled prosperity and freedom.
