After Brexit, the European Union forms 27 associate States, but the countries of Western Europe are most crucial for integration processes with Germany and France. In addition, transnational elites, namely officials, judges and politicians operating in the EU institutions, are crucial for the advancement of integration. This group is liable to a large degree for pushing the EU towards a federation, that is to say, trying to transfer power from the associate States to its own institutions.
In 1 of my texts[1] I have distinguished various federalization patterns in the EU. They make, for example, the alleged mainstream MEPs, and thus the biggest factions in the European Parliament, consistently advocate a parliamentary federation, and so 1 where the Parliament would have more and more to say. On the another hand, officials search to strengthen the Brussels administration, including the Commission and the EU agencies, so that they can increasingly be autonomous towards associate States and even those countries control or influence their interior affairs. specified a process is evident in the case of disputes over the regulation of law, where the Commissioners compose the laws for the Polish Parliament, which are expected to order the justice strategy over the Vistula. In fact, they are interfering with the competences which, in the light of the treaties, belong to states and their democracies, and so is the organisation of justice at national level. The Commission thus extends its powers and political position to all associate States, not only to Poland.
Another kind of federalisation trend is the desire of EU judges to supremacy European law over national constitutions and overriding judgments of the EU Court of Justice over national constitutional courts. There is besides fiscal federalism, which aims to increase the gross of the EU budget, thus introducing fresh taxes and charges at EU level. This trend became apparent after the pandemic crisis, and was reflected in the introduction of the European Next Generation EU, together with the accompanying Union taxes. This is supported by both the elites of the European Parliament and EU officials who believe that this will increase their power in a united Europe.
These countries have immense influence not only in intergovernmental institutions, but besides in Parliament and the Commission, and can have informal influence on the case law of EU courts. The elites of these countries so presume that federalisation will increase their ability to manage the European Union more effectively. For example, Germany, like France, seeks to increase the scope of matters voted in in intergovernmental institutions in a majority way. This is simply a national solution and aims not only to make decisions more efficient, but besides to make arrangements that are beneficial to German and French interests. another countries will not have specified a large impact on the EU institutions after planned systemic changes, but they besides give up. This is for many reasons. any agree with specified changes, knowing that they cannot effectively halt these processes, and besides value the another benefits of integration over-national sovereignty. another countries are forced to approve specified changes as a consequence of media, political or financial pressure. This was the case in the case of the Polish and Hungarian Governments, which initially did not agree to systemic changes, rightly reasoning that this would limit their ability to effectively defend national interests in integration processes. Later, under the influence of sanctions and criticism conducted in liberal media, they refrained from blocking systemic changes.
All the systemic changes described were carried out without correction of the European treaties, and thus without unanimous agreement from the associate States. They thus raised constitutional and democratic concerns. In theory, the transfer of fresh competences to the EU should always take place as a consequence of the acceptance of all countries expressed through a procedure consistent with national ratification rules for global treaties.
In fresh years, the federalisation trend has been most evident in the context of the conflict around the regulation of law and another alleged European values and in the fight against economical crises which have led to the introduction of fiscal federalism, i.e. common debt and EU taxes.
So reasoning about the future of the EU, we can presume a deepening of the systemic trend towards the federation and centralisation of governance. It will most likely proceed without a formal revision of the treaties and strengthen the EU institutions specified as Parliament, the Commission and the EU Court of Justice, as well as the function of the largest Western European countries in decision-making processes. specified systemic changes have deepened during successive crises affecting Europe in the 21st century. It was recognised that the EU would respond better to crises erstwhile it was more centralised, thus managed by the transnational elites and elites of the 2 largest associate States.
The problem is that the French-German leadership is not full compatible, and even there are powerful tensions between Paris and Berlin regarding further integration directions. An example is the attitude towards the US and transatlantic relations. Paris traditionally advocates expanding strategical autonomy towards Washington and building a strong geopolitical position for the EU, evidently under the direction of the French elite. Another geopolitical presumption is to prosecute the best possible relation with Moscow and Beijing, and thus to refuse to participate in American rivalry primarily from the PRC, but to any degree besides with the Russian Federation. This geopolitical view is mostly shared by Berlin, but under the influence of the war in Ukraine, especially with Russia, it had to undermine the credibility of the West Germany in the countries of the alleged east flank of NATO and in the US. Therefore, after any time Germany became more active in military and financial assistance for Kiev, they proposed joint defence projects for the countries of Central Europe (e.g. anti-aircraft and rocket defence systems, as well as the availability of Patriot batteries for Poland). They besides increased arms purchases in the US, especially aircraft utilized to carry US atomic warheads stationed in Germany. In particular, this fresh motion towards the Americans led to a major crisis in German-French relations, as this was at the expense of halting work on the next generation multi-tasking programme in cooperation between France and Germany. According to Paris, Berlin's subsequent decisions had to have a negative impact on the possibilities of speeding up integration into the EU's defence policy.
Another challenge for the advancement of integration is the further crises affecting the EU, with serious economic, social and political implications. An example is the unstable situation in the monetary union. Following the 2007 financial crisis, there was a multi-annual crisis in the euro area, from which the monetary union did not truly come out today. The European Reconstruction Fund has insufficient opportunities to stabilise the euro area. The doctrine of its action is that all EU countries, including those without a European currency, are to consist financially in order to save the confederate monetary union. The massive crisis caused by Russian aggression against Ukraine can so destabilise the single currency system, which would have negative consequences for European integration. This would besides have bad effects on Germany itself.
To date, they have made the most of monetary union in the Netherlands. Even during the top phase of the euro area crisis, the German budget and financial institutions have seen a number of benefits from the euro. At the same time, Germany has managed to shift rather effectively the cost of the crisis and rescue the euro area to others, especially those in crisis, non-European financial institutions (IMFs), and even non-euro area countries (e.g. the European Reconstruction Fund). The European currency strategy primarily reduced the currency rate in which German entrepreneurs accounted and thus increased the competitiveness of German exports. The increasing commercial benefits meant expanding budgetary revenues and besides translated into an expanding geopolitical importance for Germany in Europe. The expression of this trend was that in the next crises it was the Germans' last word for the direction of anti-crisis policy. In another words, if the euro area falls apart, this will reduce Germany's economical and political possible and the effects of specified a script would ruin the dreams of an EU federation. They would besides gotta give emergence to powerful disputes between euro area shareholders, including the cost of the liquidation of the monetary union.
An example of the crisis in the euro area shows the logic of action by associate States, which are known to be not equal in the Union, and thus have asymmetrical influence and real political power. The benefits of further EU projects are accumulated in the largest, richest and most influential associate States. The costs are borne by those who are the weakest politically, poorer, little competitive or in the most troubled. The leadership of the largest states is not only interesting, but sometimes leads to serious errors that are costly to everyone. Just mention the example of EU climate policy.
It was based on Russian natural materials, primarily supplies of inexpensive Russian gas. Later it turned out that this served primarily the geopolitical interests of the Kremlin and was straight at the cost of the safety of Ukraine and Poland, as well as another countries exposed to aggression from Russia. The consequences hit the EU as a whole, triggering inflation and a powerful, multi-annual energy crisis that could seriously weaken Europe's economical and food potential. It is already known present that the crisis will origin a downturn, a recession in many EU countries (including most likely Poland), a steep increase in public and private debt, serious difficulties in handling this debt, and thus could lead to further economic, social and political problems. In addition, the energy crisis is exacerbated by EU climate ambitions.
Worse still, climate policy in the EU is not adapting to the crisis, and even more ambitious in fresh weeks. An example is the extension of the ETS to housing transport and heating, which means further increases for drivers, businesses and households[2]. In this way, the EU does not respond optimally to the energy crisis and must inevitably exacerbate it.
This is an example of the fact that both the French-German leadership and the supranational elites in the EU institutions are incapable to meet the serious geopolitical and economical situation. They are attached to earlier plans and do not respond adequately to the fresh situation. They make many mistakes and, in addition, they act selfishly, that is, they effort to shift costs to weaker social groups or associate States. In this way, they lose credibility as leaders for the EU as a whole. This kind of policy-making during crises, which involves the excessive egoism of the top actors, ineffectiveness or misdecisions they make, and which frequently points to the separation of “leaders” from reality and social problems, poses the top threat to the EU. All the more so, the voice of reason is most frequently suppressed, and the resistant are increasingly stigmatized in a populist way as a threat to Europe or even sanctions. This way of managing integration can so thwart dreams of introducing a federation in Europe. In addition to emerging crises, it can become the most likely origin of European disintegration.
What can we learn from our analysis? From a Polish point of view, joining a monetary union or participating in programmes supporting the euro area (as with the European Fund for Reconstruction) is risky until the monetary union strategy is reformed and its structural flaws are eliminated. It should besides be borne in head that today's euro is simply a geo-economic system, which has been designed primarily for the benefit of Germany – in order to strengthen their political dominance in the EU.
Poland should be very careful about further federalization ideas, due to the fact that they are frequently not economically beneficial to Polish taxpayers, and they actually limit the scope of the EU decisions for national voters and political elites. They mostly reenforce the influence of the largest Western European countries. A major challenge for Poles is the crisis situation, and especially the limitations or costs resulting from the mispolicy of the EU. This will most likely require more courageous decisions on the part of the Polish authorities than erstwhile actions. While the government regulates the prices of natural materials and energy, it mostly adapts to EU decisions on the European stage, hoping that the EU will resolve our problems.
Footnotes:
- The president Is Europe Moving Towards a Democratic Federation?, [in:] the same, Yearbook of Polish European Studies, Vol. 20/2017, pp. 11-30.
- F. Di Sario, EU Reaches deal on critical climate policy after marathon talks, ‘Politico’ 18.12.2022, https://www.politico.eu/article/climate-policy-deal-emissions-trading-system-european-union/ [18.12.2022].
