Simon Persico, Professor of Political Science at Sciences Po Grenoble and at the Pacte laboratory

Sabine Saurugger, Professor of Political Science at Sciences Po Grenoble and the Pacte laboratory

At a time when Europe is facing an unprecedented combination of crises, and with parties hostile to European integration are heading for historic success in the European elections European elections, is the European Union (EU) worth saving? And if so, how? how? To answer these questions, we have written, together with twenty-four colleagues specializing in European issues, a book deliberately provocative title: Sauver l'Europe? Citoyens, élections et Gouvernance européenne par gros temps (Dalloz 2019). In this book, we diagnose the situation in a wide range of areas institutions, economic policies, abstention rates and the role of the or the EU's role on the international stage. After all the vast number of scientific articles and books on these subjects provide a the extent of the problem - it's deep.

With this in mind, we attempt to formulate and discuss concrete proposals for strengthening or or, on the contrary, further differentiate European integration, improve its its democratic functioning and public policies. Why do we do this? Because, despite disagreements that may exist between us on this or that dimension of European European policies, we are convinced that the disintegration of the disintegration of the European area would pose far more problems than it would than it would solve.

The European Union in the storm

The EU is facing a polycrisis, in the words of European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, who can hardly be accused of excessive of excessive alarmism. If it has survived the economic and financial crisis crisis without disintegrating, reformed the Posted Workers Directive and implemented one of the world's most ambitious environmental policies. the world, it is in fact perceived as having been profoundly its institutional, economic and social functioning. On the economic economic front, it does not yet seem to have recovered from the consequences of the Great Recession that began in 2007, and the recovery has benefited some countries much more than others. On the inequality front, although the situation than in North America, Russia or China, the gap between the richest between the richest 1% and the poorest 10% has increased the last twenty years. On the human rights, one of the cornerstones of the Group, European European institutions assist without systematically having the tools to react effectively the tools to react effectively to fundamental freedoms by certain member states, such as Viktor Orbán's Hungary. Viktor Orbán's Hungary. On the climate crisis front, the EU, once at the forefront, now appears to be struggling to deliver the results to which it has committed itself. So much so that none of the 28 member states are meeting their commitments under the Paris Agreement. On the humanitarian and migratory crisis, States are unable to agree on a agree on a reception policy in line with humanitarian law, This has led to a situation in which only some countries are - more or less well make the effort - to a greater or lesser extent - to welcome these extremely precariousness.

Furthermore, while all member governments of the member states have voted unanimously to tighten the rules for a tightening of the balanced-budget rules to which they are subject their economic and financial difficulties economic and financial difficulties make it difficult, and sometimes impossible impossible. For example, Emmanuel Macron's concessions to the Gilets jaunes movement, which effectively increase France's budget deficit weaken the French President's European position, even though he had set out even as he sought to be the herald of a more integrated Europe. THE EU is a convenient scapegoat for national leaders who blame it for their own responsibility for their failures, even though it is they who largely shape European European policies.

Added to this is the contestation. Since the mid-1990s, citizens have been accusing the European Union of being too liberal. of being too liberal - as criticized by a large part of the French left - or of defending of the French left - or of defending quasi-socialist policies socialist policies - the central criticism of the British right. Brexit is the most visible expression of this mistrust, but it's not the only one. One thinks of the high level of abstention - less than one in two Europeans turns out to elect their European Parliament since 1999. There's also the the success of parties hostile to European integration, which in June 2019, a historically high number of representatives in Strasbourg. This hostility is also rooted in the complexity of the European framework. European framework. A citizen interested in European affairs would find it find it difficult to get to the heart of the decision.

Should Europe be saved?

Faced with such a diagnosis many are calling for the disintegration of the European Union. Union. Exit from the euro, Frexit, plan B... Although weighed down by the fiasco of the Brexit, which led such political parties such as the RN or the 5-Star Movement to abandon the idea of to leave the European Union, calls to leave the EU or dismantle all or some or dismantle some or all of its common policies. Once confined to once confined to purely Europhobic groups, these calls are now being left and right of the political spectrum. Faced with this, the pro-European rhetoric, blindly defending European policies, is no longer effective. is no longer effective. In these turbulent times for the European Union European Union, our book aims to avoid these two pitfalls: that of dismantling the of dismantling the European supranational space and that of business as usual.

We are convinced that the disintegration of the European area would be a historic mistake. mistake. The challenges facing our societies are profoundly supranational in nature. supranational in nature. Global warming, humanitarian and migratory inequalities of income and wealth, fiscal dumping... How can nation-states face up, how can nation-states tackle, on their own, problems whose resolution, on the contrary of supranational coordination?

The construction of nation-states in the ^nineteenth and ^twentieth centuries was a response to this need for coordination. And it didn't happen overnight. To take just one example, it took until 1968 to complete the unification of the French welfare state - a state despite its reputation for being highly centralized. Even in the 1950s social legislation (minimum wage, collective bargaining agreements) remained largely and social dumping was rife... between the Haute-Loire and the Haute-Loire and Puy-de-Dôme. It was through the strict application of a national national harmonization of social policies that the French trade union movement to guarantee rights for all citizens.

It therefore seems counterproductive to advocate a form of national withdrawal, all the more so as the the European Union does not deserve, or at least no more than the member states the accusations levelled against it. The EU is sometimes accused of evils which affect national political systems just as much, if not more so. national political systems. Take France, for example: can it really be said that industrial interest groups industrial interest groups do not influence the decision to prioritize economic development to the detriment of the environment? Does the play a central role in shaping public policy? Do citizens feel that they are effectively and fairly represented in the institutions of the Fifth Republic? The answer to these questions is obviously not. While criticism of the democratic shortcomings of European European institutions is entirely legitimate, and the reader will find plenty of evidence to the reader will find much to criticize in our book, it is equally important to criticize national institutions. Each of Europe's democracies faces, faces the same challenges, the same polycrisis, as the European Union.

It is precisely for this reason the urgent need to coordinate simultaneous and effective action by 28 or 27 nation-states - that the European Union must be saved. Can we really accept the the disintegration of a political space for supranational consultation and decision-making when it is precisely such consultation and decision-making mechanisms that we need, according to economists, climatologists and migration specialists? climatologists and other migration specialists?

Building a supranational is a difficult and slow process, but it has to be said quite simply: the the European Union is by far the most integrated form of supranational organisation where integration is by far the most advanced; where collective decision-making collective decision-making mechanisms have been the most widely developed and developed and democratized; and the one in which transfers of powers from national from national to supranational, have covered the most varied fields. This should compel politicians and citizens alike to take care not to break break down the tools that enable - albeit imperfectly and often unsatisfactorily often unsatisfactory - for effective coordination. The ambition of this book is to show that it is still possible to save what exists.

How to save Europe?

Obviously, no magic formula solve the situation in the blink of an eye. And yet political science, law and economics, while demonstrating the complexity and the complexity and multi-dimensionality of the issues at stake, offer several ways out of the crisis. Each of the contributors to this book, specialists in the of this book, each a specialist in his or her own chapter, has attempted to concrete proposals, which are listed at the end of the book.

Among the many ideas put forward, not all are obviously new. are obviously not all new. When it comes to institutional matters, a number of similar proposals can be found in several recent works. The Traité de démocratisation pour l'Europe (Democratization Treaty for Europe) by researchers Stéphanie Hennette and Thomas Piketty. Piketty, whose proposals are extensively discussed in the book.

The uniqueness of our proposals lies in the fact that that they address broader dimensions than just institutional or economic or economic elements alone, to include the politicization logics underway in political systems, which are an integral part of the problem. integral part of the problem. From this point of view, it's not just institutional reforms that Europe needs - and these are obviously necessary - but above all a lasting but, above all, a lasting change in the way in which political leaders politicians - aided and abetted by journalists - talk about European issues and politicize the issues at stake.

So instead of multiplying institutions in an increasingly differentiated European Union, the aim would be to would be to make the European Union's decision-making process more comprehensible. understandable. This is one of the prerequisites for political life and public debate and public debate in the member states. This means accepting the conflictual nature of European issues - greater visibility visibility necessarily implies more conflict. But it also means avoiding binary opposition between pro- and anti-integration. As if there as if there were only pro-integration political elites on one side - representing the representing the "system" - and other political elites hostile to the EU - described as "populists".

Opposition to Europe is thus that the traditional parties seem incapable of protecting people from the to protect people from the vagaries of the markets. It is indeed the disappointment the promises of the welfare state that makes people doubt the benefits of the benefits of globalization and European integration. It is therefore urgent for the EU (or at least certain states within it) to agree to pursue common economic and social policies. Last but not least, asserting the Union as an international player requires the pooling of operational capabilities and genuinely joint decision-making. decision-making. This, however, would require a real surrender of one of the last bastions of national last bastions of national sovereignty - foreign foreign policy - and the possibility of neutral member states and nuclear-armed nuclear-armed member states to compromise in this area.

These proposals from Sauver l'Europe? are intended to illustrate the multiplicity of possible improvements. They do not constitute a political political or ideological manifesto. Their sometimes contradictory, iconoclastic or radical nature their sometimes contradictory, iconoclastic or radical nature. to all those who, on the basis of knowledge and facts, who wish to discuss the future of this Europe that we consider necessary to save. With a single objective: to enable each and every one of us to better to better understand the democratic stakes involved in building Europe, and to make informed informed at the ballot box.

Table of contents

Introduction: Saving Europe? - Simon Persico and Sabine Saurugger

Clarifying and democratizing institutions

Chapter 1: Who governs the European Union? - Sabine Saurugger and Fabien Terpan

Chapter 2. From elections to referendums, why does the European Union's "democratic deficit Union persist? - Céline Belot and Florent Gougou

Chapter 3. Differentiated a realistic remedy for the EU's crises? - Fabien Escalona

Chapter 4. Is the Brexit a prelude to the dislocation of the European Union or proof of its necessity? - Christophe Bouillaud

Winning over the public

Chapter 5. Values of the Union, values of Europeans? - Frédéric Gonthier

Chapter 6. Euroscepticism, ambivalence, indifference? Is Europe doomed to be illegible in the eyes citizens? - Morgan Le Corre Juratic, Cal Le Gall and Virginie Van Ingelgom

Chapter 7. Is abstention from European elections? - Raul Magni-Berton

Integrating political conflict

Chapter 8. Can the major lose the European elections? - Christophe Bouillaud and Simon Persico

Chapter 9. Another Europe: What is the point of the European elections for parties critical of the European project? European project? - Chloé Alexandre and Tristan Guerra

Chapter 10. What are the consequences of growing opposition to the European Union on national political systems? - Emiliano Grossman, Isabelle Guinaudeau and Simon Persico

Emerging from crises

Chapter 11. The choice austerity to deal with the crisis. What economic and social room for maneuver economic and social room for maneuver? - Hélène Caune and Clément Fontan

Chapter 12. How effective monetary policy effective? An economic analysis of in a changing environment since 1999 - Louis Job

Chapter 13. Why does the EU seem incapable of dealing with the "migrant crisis"? - Clara Egger and Simon Varaine

Chapter 14. Does the listening too much to lobbies? The case of environmental policies - Chloé Bérut and Eva Deront

Strengthening international

Chapter 15. What place for the European Union in international relations? The challenge of international power - Delphine Deschaux and Fabien Terpan

Chapter 16. Is Europe no longer attractive? The EU as seen by its neighbors - Max-Valentin Robert

Conclusion and list of proposals - Simon Persico and Sabine Saurugger