Natalie Nougayrède from the Guardian newspaper had an article recently in which she talked about her encounter with the Austrian Foreign Minister at a public discussion on the future of Europe. She had criticised the Austrian minister for her participation in a government that includes a very right-wing party, the FPÖ, and she pointed that the Minister had refused to deal with the issue, instead focusing on the lack of participation by the French government ministers in recent EU Council meetings.
I was present at this discussion, and one of the things that depressed me was the Austrian Minister’s response to the question as to what Europe meant to her. She did not mention democracy, human rights, or peace: instead, she concentrated on the geographical and historical definition, emphasising that for her it included the Mediterranean, and even Algiers. What depressed me also were the remarks of two far more impressive speakers at the event: the former Foreign Minister from Croatia said that everything she had valued in Europe now seemed under threat, and the chairman of the Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee said that for the first time he believed that Europe could fail.
What has this got to do with trade and investment, you ask? Well, when this kind of discussion begins to preoccupy the leaders of the EU, economic questions tend to get put to one side. But unemployment, especially youth unemployment, is still high. Economic governance is far from complete. There is still a huge amount of work to be done to make the EU a true Single Market. And the external economic policy of the EU is very limited and needs to be enormously enhanced. All this means politicians working together to take action and give leadership.