European integration once had its good times and was beneficial for the participating states. Unfortunately, we have completely missed this time. We joined at a time when everything was going downhill.
On May 1, we commemorate the 20th anniversary of our country’s entry into the European Union. For some it is a jubilee worthy of celebration, for others it is a dark day, and the vast majority of us will move somewhere between these two extremes. However, it is an opportunity for everyone to reflect – on the current state of integration, on its pros and cons, and on the extent to which our former expectations have been fulfilled.
The good times of integration are over
Accession to the EU was perceived as a certain culmination of the “return to Europe”, as a coveted admission to an elite club that would bring us international anchorage, prosperity and prestige. If in one promotional material of Špidl’s government, the Union was described as “an area of peace, stability, prosperity and social security”, this probably corresponded to the ideas that prevailed in our society at that time.
The problem with these ideas was not that they were completely detached from reality, but rather that they were out of time with this reality. We still had before our eyes the original regional economic block and its common market, i.e. the area of free movement of goods, people, services and capital. This bloc has played a positive role for the participating countries and their economies for a long time, and has therefore gained a great reputation and attraction for the surrounding countries. We failed to appreciate that at the time of our preparation for membership, the European Union was already growing into a completely different kind of arrangement, where a number of other activities are packed into the common market and when the economic side of the project is overshadowed by broader political ambitions.
As a turning point in the development of integration, we can mark the period of Jacques Delors as the head of the European Commission and especially the Maastricht Treaty. Suddenly, it was as if the organization had outgrown its founders and taken over the reins. In the years after Maastricht, the Union began to swell, its powers and the regulations adopted on the basis of them expanded in all directions, the Union’s institutions hunted for more power and looked down on the member states more and more. The two new gigantic projects of the integration process – the euro common currency and the Schengen area – acted as catalysts of centralization from the beginning.
From the Euro Constitution to the Green Deal
A very unfortunate circumstance connected with the enlargement of the Union in 2004 was its connection with the project of fundamental institutional reforms, which materialized in the so-called Euroconstitution, subsequently transformed into the Treaty of Lisbon. The reforms in question, enforced after many years of anabasis at the end of 2009, in summary aimed at further significant strengthening of the Brussels center at the expense of the member states, and thus at deepening the Union’s centralization direction.
In the years following the push through of the Lisbon changes, the expansion of the Union became more and more spontaneous. Union regulation grew to cover new areas and aspects, regardless of whether they related to real problems of cross-border importance that could not be dealt with at the level of the Member States. Union structures also flourished (new bodies, mechanisms, money channels) and the volume of finances managed by the EU increased. Brussels has waded into day-to-day politics, trying to set the tone on almost every key issue, routinely ignoring the limits of its powers.
The second trend was a distinct movement to the left. Adopted legislation, new legislative proposals and the activities of the Union in general were increasingly beholden to the left-wing world view. In addition to the original heavy-handed state paternalism of the German-French style (with its strained care and protectionism), which we already knew from before, the program of the new left, i.e. progressivism, in all its dimensions – i.e. including gender, anti-discrimination, multicultural and environmentalist agendas.
At the same time, the consequences of headless centralization surfaced in this period. First came the debt crisis, then the migration crisis. The two flagships of the Union – the euro and Schengen – hit reality hard then and revealed their opposite face. These major crashes have shown that excessive integration breeds more and more difficult-to-solve problems that overshadow the original advantages of cooperation and connecting European countries. The Union is bogged down in a morass of interdependence, problem-sharing, collective irresponsibility, heavy-handed, ineffective central decision-making and redistribution of consequences.
A brief glimmer of hope came with the UK referendum in June 2016, in which British citizens decided to leave the EU. At first, it might have seemed that the narrowed EU-27 would go through a certain self-reflection after this shock. A number of commentators suddenly demanded deep reforms, the return of powers to the member states, the loosening of the straitjacket, the end of the grandiose arrogance of EU officials. A transition to multi-speed integration, a slimming of the Union’s grip on the internal market and its closely related areas, an abandonment of the centralist line, as well as the ambition to create a common state body and Union people were predicted. However, during the three-year fruitless discussion, it became clear that none of this will happen, that the will for reforms is lacking. The Union remained firmly in the rut, i.e. on its centralist and leftist course.
Just when we were coming to terms with the fact that Brexit would be another missed opportunity to change EU policy, another blow came in the form of the Green Deal. This plan and the gradually emerging extensive set of EU measures set the main goal for the Union to achieve so-called climate neutrality, i.e. zero net emissions of greenhouse gases, by 2050. According to the ideas of Brussels, all sectors of the economy and society must be involved in the so-called “green transformation”. Each one of us has to change our thinking, consumption habits and lifestyle.
The Green Deal goes beyond everything we have been used to, both in the fight against climate change and in European integration. We have before us a far-reaching, revolutionary program that aims to change our economic and social model – a change that is not to be given by spontaneous development, but ordered and artificially organized from above.
The fight against global warming has long been a key pillar of the EU’s activities, and the Union has been the driving force behind this agenda on the international scene, but in the form of the Green Deal, there is a qualitative shift. Climate alarmism in a particularly heightened form is essentially becoming a state ideology in the Union. The entire legal system is to be adapted to it, its postulates are to permeate across sectors, all activities and policies of the EU are to contribute to its fulfillment, a significant part of the Union budget is set aside for it, schools are to inculcate it in children, its questioning is excluded.
It is obvious that this policy means the EU’s definitive break with common sense and the foundations of economic reasoning, and that it threatens a whole range of core values and interests, such as, above all, freedom, human dignity, prosperity, public finances, the independence of member states and democracy.
Against the backdrop of the Green Deal, all-round expansion continues in many other areas – including defence, asylum and migration policy, social affairs and the media sphere. The shift to the left is also accelerating – important recent examples are the directive on improving the gender balance among the members of the bodies of listed companies, the Istanbul Convention, which the Union acceded to within its powers, the directive on transparency in remuneration or the directive on the balance between work and private life; a heavily ideological document is the European Pillar of Social Rights, which has the potential to contribute to the expansion of the EU’s activities in the field of social policy and at the same time to the promotion of the program of the New Left. It also gradates the self-confidence of the Union representatives and their superior way of acting towards the member states, the most prominent manifestation of which is the long-term power games hidden behind the protection of the rule of law.
Where we are today
In any case, the state of the EU as we observe it on the twentieth anniversary of accession is extremely bleak. The negative elements in the construction of the post-Maastricht Union, which worried us already in 2004, have significantly diminished over the years of our membership. For twenty years we have slid down the slope.
I believe that Senator Daniela Kovářová captured the overall picture well when she declared in June 2023 at the plenary session of the Senate: “The EU is flowing like a flooded river – a river that has spilled out of its bed, has become uncontrollable, has become cloudy and is causing enormous damage.” It is no longer the regional economic block that facilitated mutual trade between member states and ensured prosperity. It is no longer the dream EU we entered. It has become an unwieldy all-encompassing and all-regulating colossus in which misguided politics dominates the economy and society and suffocates them.” Kovářová added that “we are just going with the flow on that river. We show no substantial effort to brake or reach the shore, let alone aspire to tame that river again. There is no self-confident, consistent, assertive policy towards Brussels.”
I myself have recently been in a light article European integration in the mirror of our fairy tales looked for parables for our current situation in some classic fairy tales (e.g. Mug, boil! or A tough guy). On a more serious note The EU as a community of expropriated owners I then compared the Union to a community of owners of units in a house, which has gone beyond its purpose and control by the individual “owners” (member states), who are not subject to orders, and whose “units” (states) are gradually occupied and expropriated by their activities.
It is paradoxical that Prime Minister Petr Fiala – once a sharp analyst and critic of European integration – expressed the opinion in an interview for ČTK at the beginning of 2023 that the EU is undergoing self-reflection against the background of the war in Ukraine and is changing for the better. He is said to be able to “agree much more on key values”.
We opposed Fiala’s point of view with Petr Hlávka in a joint article. We argued that, in fact, “European integration is falling into the most miserable state in its entire history. Union authorities are out of control. In their view, integration has mutated into headless centralization, ubiquitous regulation and ideologization. The space for the independence of nation-states is thus constantly narrowing. Pernicious left-wing doctrines—especially climate alarmism, multiculturalism, and genderism—destroy the economy, traditional institutions, and social order. States like Poland or Hungary that resist these pressures are severely bullied. The EU has never been more distant and dangerous from the interests of the citizen.”
The EU must undergo fundamental reform
It is clear that the Union cannot continue in this way. The experience with the Green Deal in particular should be a wake-up call to anyone who previously failed to understand how dangerous it is to entrust vast powers to distant, unreachable transnational institutions beyond democratic control.
There is only one way out of the dead end we are in – back. We have to turn around to face back and return to the intersection where we went astray. We need a regional integration grouping, but only one that knows its place and that is devoted to the things that belong to it. The European Union only makes sense as an economic bloc that facilitates mutual trade between member states. It was created for this, it once proved itself in this, it built its brand on it. The harder it tries to be something else—a superstate, a global player—the more it turns from a useful tool into a ball on its foot. We need an organization that is the servant, not the master, of its members; which looks after its own, and has no ambition to be the director of the globe; which stands firmly on the ground and is not subject to fashionable ideologies.
The solution lies only in the in-depth reform of the legal and institutional framework of the Union, because the current problems are at the very core of the system. A shift is unthinkable without a complete readjustment of the legal and institutional framework of the Union, which will bring a drastic reduction in the powers of the Brussels center, a change in decision-making procedures and a strengthening of control mechanisms.
As a possible way to replace the current centralist, expansive model, I see a system of flexible integration based on a modest mandatory common base and optional superstructure (see more detailed considerations An outline of a possible fundamental restructuring of the European Union – from a lawyer’s point of view and Flexible multi-speed Uni à la carte.)
