Kirkhope advocates quality not quantity for EU activity in key speech

Charlemagne Prize Forum

Ladies & Gentlemen,

I am honoured to be invited to join the discussion this morning at this Charlemagne Prize Forum. I am grateful to the Foundation, to the City of Aachen, and to the Cooperative Banks Association, for the opportunity to address you today.

For too long the European agenda has been dominated by institutional wangling: we have had a succession of treaties, each following hard on the heels of the previous ones. Since the early 1990s we have been averaging one new treaty every four years. There has barely been time to begin assessing the impact of one treaty before demands were being made for the next intergovernmental conference to begin. Even now there are some who are already impatiently prepared to declare that the Lisbon Treaty has failed in this or that area and should be revised soon.

In the interests of the peoples of Europe and indeed for the European Union itself, this pattern has to stop.

Let me offer three reasons why I believe this is necessary.

Firstly, the European Union faces enormous economic and political challenges which have received insufficient attention. If for example, we had put the same effort into the Lisbon 2010 Strategy as institutional re-arrangements we might now not need the Europe 2020 initiative.

Secondly, we have developed a mindset that pursuing institutional reform is an effective substitute for demonstrating political will. Rather than addressing, for example, the problem that our member states have shown insufficient commitment to developing effective defence and security capabilities, we prefer to spend time adopting a treaty that simply announces that henceforth there will be 'European defence'.

Thirdly, it has undermined public support for the Union. For all of us who support the principle of the states of Europe coming together to cooperate freely within a framework of common institutions based on the rule of law, this is a great concern. The "enthusiasm" of many who describe themselves as pro-European has in fact paradoxically strengthened the opposition to the Union.

So in addressing the question of how the European Union should be organised in future I would argue that it should focus on the delivery of effective policy solutions in areas where the public can see and understand that Europe can offer added value rather than retreat back into its old habits of institutional debate every time a problem arises. 

Our starting point must be to appreciate that no matter how effective and how open we can make the institutions of the Union, its basic democratic legitimacy derives from its member states: from their institutions and parliaments.

This crisis has thrown this political and constitutional reality into stark relief.

In times of such uncertainty in the current political and monetary situation, it is to national institutions and particularly national parliaments that people turn: whether it is the Bundestag, the Assemblée Nationale or the House of Commons.

The European Union's institutions should therefore resist the dangers of institutional overstretch and focus on those areas where it can make a positive difference. 

The lesson of the European Union's 1992 Programme is that it can achieve results when it has a clear sense of direction and priorities: building the single market was a worthwhile objective which could be easily understood by the public. It is no coincidence that this was also a time when support for membership of the Union reached a peak. In 1992, 71% of the public believed that membership of the Union was a good thing. By 2009 this had fallen to 53% - barely more than half of our fellow citizens.

During the same period and against a background of constant treaty change, we witnessed the European Commission launch initiative after initiative - regardless of whether Europe was the appropriate forum or whether it could really deliver any tangible benefits - in the hope they would make Europe popular. This approach failed.

Too often in the past it has seemed as if the Union was more interested in expanding the quantity of policy areas in which it had a role rather than in focusing on the quality of existing policies.

We have experienced too many half-baked initiatives: poorly conceived, badly designed, and less than competently implemented.

Even some of the Union's most notable policies have suffered in this way. Take the euro as an example. In the ECR group we want it to be a success for those who wish to be members but the political consequences of monetary union were just not taken seriously enough: the growth and stability pact was weakly drafted and then ignored, and insufficient care was taken to ensure that the most basic level of effectively monitoring public finances was in place (contrast this with the disciplines of Erhard and the "Econimic Miracle" of 1960s Germany). In following through on the growth and stability pact there was simply a failure of political will and benefiting from experience!!

When it comes to foreign policy I think we are in danger of making a similar mistake: It is far too easy for us to get mesmerised by debates about whether the position of the High Representative is well-designed, whether the connection between the Council and Commission is working, or whether the proposals for the European Action Service are right or not. These are important questions of course and do need thorough discussion. But the far more important questions are: do our member states really have the political will to cooperate? What are our shared objectives that need to be promoted? Do our member states have the physical capability and the resources to implement any decisions taken? 

In my view a slightly less ambitious but more effective Union should be our aim. The European Union should perhaps do less but do it better.

The commitment of the new European Commission under President Barroso to make the Europe 2020 strategy the 'centre-piece initiative' of its work programme is therefore to be welcomed.

The European economy is in deep crisis and only determined action will change that reality. I do not simply refer to the immediate crisis triggered by the failure of the banking system. I mean the underlying crisis which has seen the European economy left behind by more competitive and innovative economies across the Atlantic and in Asia.

Whilst we believe there are details to be added and changes to be made, the broad thrust of the Europe 2020 policy is correct: Europe as it says needs a "strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth" which can deliver "high levels of employment, productivity and social inclusion".

This must be the overriding priority which defines the Union during the decade ahead.

Our future economic prosperity and all the benefits it can generate depend on successful businesses and entrepreneurs. They are the ones who create wealth and sustainable, productive jobs - the best anti-poverty policy yet invented.

The European Union must be their ally not their adversary and, in focusing on the Europe 2020 initiative, I believe it can fulfil this hope.

Ladies & Gentlemen,

as we seek to modernise the European Union and rebuild support amongst the public we need to adopt a more sophisticated, more mature approach to the debate about its future.

For too long the public debate about Europe has suffered from "polarisation": that you are either 'for' or 'against' Europe. This simplistic black or white, all or nothing, approach has been at the expense of a healthy debate on Europe and its future.

On the one hand, so-called pro-Europeans have felt that they have had to become apologists for everything done in the name of Europe - even when the public could plainly see the faults for themselves of such policies as agriculture or fisheries.

On the other hand, if you were sceptical about some aspects of the Union, you were immediately labelled an "anti-European" and brushed aside.

Now that the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty is out of the way, and the successive rounds of treaty reform we have endured since Maastricht are seemingly at an end, perhaps we can open a new chapter in the debate? Perhaps we can now accept that there are many different but equally legitimate views about the policies of the European Union and its future? We must move on!

The ECR Group was partly designed for this purpose: to overcome this simplistic binary approach to Europe and to argue that you can be supportive of the European Union and committed to its success whilst also being committed to policy reform and nervous about an ever more centralised Europe. It intends to play a full part in the architecture of the Centre Right forces of the European Parliament. To be innovative, conservative and pragmatic.

The European Union now has a great opportunity. We must put behind us the years of institutional debate and focus on delivering tangible benefits to the public. I am confident that by setting limited but achievable objectives, the European Union will regain public confidence and demonstrate its value in an uncertain world.

8th February 2012 - ECR Vice-Chairmen speak at Heritage Foundation