Oxford, England. Summer 2021
We started writing these lines while parts of Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands were hit by a tragic wave of floods that killed more than 200 people. We saw terrible images of houses swept away in a matter of minutes and heart-wrenching testimonies of the people affected. We are heartbroken that so many European friends lost their lives, their livelihoods, and their loved ones. We hope the whole of Europe will offer their solidarity and support and that our EU institutions will rise to the occasion and also offer their help to the people affected.
The floods in Western Europe are widely attributed to climate change, which like the pandemic and global inequality (and its consequence, mass migration) call for a united, and coordinated global response. Looking back at this past year we see both cause for dismay and glimpses of hope that what is urgently necessary is also achievable.
We are, of course, still in the midst of a global pandemic. At the times of writing it killed more than 4 million people throughout the world and more than a million people in Europe. It affected virtually every human being on the planet, reshaping the lives of billions. It changed the world like no other event in our lifetime.
When the pandemic arrived in Europe, back in February 2020, it found most of us completely unprepared. Italy was hit first. As it became clear that Southern European countries urgently needed assistance to tackle the devastating economic impact of the pandemic, some of their Northern neighbours seemed disinclined to rise to the occasion.
We witnessed growing anger, acrimony and resentment between countries in the South and the North of Europe. As an Italo-German couple, this affected us personally and deeply. We felt that we needed to try and do something. Time was of the essence. We decided to reach out directly to Angela Merkel, the longest serving European leader and head of state of Europe’s most populous state, hoping that her voice could be decisive in the meeting of the European Council in April.
With the help of many European friends, we wrote an open letter to Angela Merkel. We asked her to lead “a united European response to the economic and financial crisis prompted by this pandemic”. We called for European bonds as the best way to finance European recovery.
Our letter was signed by more than 500 scholars, intellectuals and activists from thirty-five European countries. Among them were two Nobel laureates, some of the most important German and European historians, representatives of important cultural and economic foundations. They were joined in a few days by thousands of European citizens. A tangible sign of the support throughout Europe for a strong response of solidarity to the pandemic.
The European Council meeting in April 2020 did not reach an agreement on eurobonds but on May 18th, 2020, Chancellor Angela Merkel ended Germany’s historical opposition to debt mutualisation in a video conference with Macron.
Her decision was certainly also the result of internal pressure from Germany, where a vast front of progressive intellectuals raised their voice for European solidarity, and external pressure from other European governments. This was coming particularly from the Italian prime minister Conte, very active on German media, who was also, together with French President Macron, the major architects behind the letter of nine prime ministers on the 25th of March demanding financial transfers and European bonds. We hope our letter did its bit to contribute to this vast front calling for European solidarity.
On May 27, 2020, the European Commission launched its proposal to support the European recovery. The program, dubbed Next Generation EU, was an unprecedented borrowing scheme to finance the recovery through the emission of European bonds, to be repaid over a period of 30 years starting in 2027. The Commission suggested that at least a part of this new European debt might be reimbursed through the introduction of European taxation. Tax on the revenues of large multinational corporations benefiting from the EU single market. A digital tax applied to companies with a significant digital presence. Finally, more revenues taxing plastic waste and penalising CO2 emissions through the European Emissions Trading System. Following similar priorities, the money raised through the eurobonds emissions should be invested in the green transition and in programs of digitalisation presented by the different member states.
A handful of EU countries led by the so-called “frugal four” (Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Austria) objected to the Commission’s proposal and called for a reduction of the financial transfers and of European bonds emission.
About a year ago, on the 17th of July 2020, a momentous meeting of the European Council began. Three days later, a long awaited unanimous agreement was finally reached on a proposal very similar to the one put forward by the Commision. Finally, there was a plan for a European economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic financed by the creation of European bonds.
About a month ago, on the 15th of June, 2021, the European Commission issued the first tranche of such European bonds, collecting more than 20 billions euro on the financial markets. This was the first of a series of emissions that should allow the European Commission to raise just above 800 billions euro (more or less 5% of the EU GDP) by the end of 2026. A bit more than half of this money will become grants transferred to individual European member states, whilst the remainder will be loans. They will help the recovery and resilience of European member states, taking into account how much each country has been hit by the pandemic.
One year on, it’s worth reflecting on what those decisions represented.
The agreement was the culmination of three months of intense negotiations. It’s well known that a day can be a long day in politics. Not so in European politics, where big changes usually take much longer. Yet it is fair to say that the centre of gravity of EU politics shifted more in those three months than in the last ten years.
The agreement was a break from the austerity orthodoxy that was hegemonic in the EU in the decade that started in the aftermath of the financial crisis. It was the beginning of a new phase of European politics characterised by paradigm shift within more dynamic European institutions, impressing a change of pace to the process of European integration in the direction of more solidarity and cooperation among EU states. For all of us fighting for a more just European Union, it was a glimpse of hope after a long night.
Yet, much more needs to be done to consolidate this positive change towards a European Union of justice and solidarity for its citizens and for the world.
First and foremost: the temporary measures adopted in response to the pandemic should become permanent. The Green New Deal should put forward a bold plan for the next three decades. European bonds should become the norm, not the exception. “To be heard in a globalised world, Europe needs to grasp its destiny more firmly in its own hands” Angela Merkel said back in 2018. A common debt is a shared investment in the future and a fundamental tool for countries which want to take control of their collective destiny.
In our letter last year we wrote that the pandemic “knows no barriers between North and South, nor should it be permitted to create them”. The recovery fund implicitly acknowledges this reality, but sadly many other political decisions failed to address the need for a united response in the face of global challenges.
Thanks to the fantastic achievements of scientists, many Europeans are now vaccinated against COVID-19, and in some parts of Europe a sense of normality has returned. But vaccination programs have proceeded at different speeds in different countries and too many European citizens are still awaiting their jab, particularly in Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, in some parts of the world the pandemic is now even more devastating than it was last year, while neither healthcare workers nor the most vulnerable members of society have been vaccinated.
The EU should lead the global effort to vaccinate the world and must “do everything in its power to make “anti-pandemic” vaccines and treatments a global public good, freely accessible to everyone” as demanded by the “No profit on pandemic” European citizens initiative.
This summer floods are also a tragic reminder of the urgency to act against climate change.
The EU commission has recently published its proposal for a Green Deal to achieve no net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050, decoupling economic growth from resource use. It is absolutely imperative that these goals are reached well on time and all efforts are made to proceed as quickly as possible on the road to carbon and climate neutrality. In November 2021, the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow will be a momentous occasion to test EU’s ambitions to lead the fight against climate change.
It will also be important to make the most of the recently started “Conference on the Future of Europe”, creating a real opportunity for citizens to have a chance to discuss the constitutional arrangements of the EU, as also demanded by the Citizens Take Over Europe coalition.
Most importantly, we need to make the European Union an open, outward looking and inspiring project that makes all Europeans feel proud. This means being welcoming to refugees fleeing wars and misery as well as welcoming Europeans living in countries who want to join the union because they believe in its future and values.
There is one country which has made clear in every possible way that it is European and wants to be part of the EU. It is Scotland. The Scottish people voted to remain in the EU in the Brexit referendum in 2016 and have since decided they want to have a referendum to leave the UK to join the EU. Scotland is an open, outward looking and inspiring nation that can do a huge deal to help the EU fulfil its potential. For these reasons, the author of this letter wrote to EU leaders last April to ask to prepare to welcome Scotland to the EU. Please read about this initiative and consider signing its demand on the Europe for Scotland website.
Conversely, it will be crucial to seriously challenge the authoritarian drift in Eastern Europe and assert the European rule of law as a bastion for democracy, freedom of expression and civil rights, making EU money conditional on the respect of core values. We must not condone in any circumstance authoritarian behaviour within the EU.
Much more will need to be done to make the EU a project that inspires hope in all its citizens and workers. It is imperative to transfer more power and wealth from the top to the bottom, levelling up and strengthening workers’ rights across the Union; bringing about a serious crackdown on tax avoidance, tax havens and tax evasion as well as serious taxation on financial transactions. It is time to make all efforts to bring social justice to the core of the EU project.
Finally, some thoughts on Angela Merkel, the recipient of our letter and one the most significant figures in European politics in the last few decades.
It is fair to ask whether she did what we asked her to do in our letter.
We asked her to lead the action in the European Council to “signal to the world that Europeans stand together in the face of this crisis and are ready to do whatever it takes to preserve our union and in fact strengthen it in the face of hardship”.
It is fair to say that she played a significant role in that agreement. Without her role in bringing Germany and much of Northern Europe on board, we reckon, it wouldn’t have come about.
On the 26th of September 2021, Germany will choose a new Parliament. A new government will eventually arise ending her 16 years long chancellorship, the first woman in this role. Depending on when the negotiations for the new government will end, she might go down in history as the longest serving German chancellor, a record also for equivalent roles in the EU.
As she approaches the end of her political career, it is interesting to look back at her European legacy.
At the beginning of the twenty-tens decade, during the Greek crisis, shameful rhetoric from her party and a litany of short sighted European decisions had tarnished the EU’s reputation in the world, as well as Germany’s in southern Europe. Few think the best Merkel could do was to keep Greece in the euro, which she did. Many think she should have done more to help Greece. Like many, we believe that the handling of the Greek crisis triggered a crisis of legitimacy for the European project.
The years that followed partially redressed those mistakes.
In 2015, her decision to welcome a million refugees shunned a new light on Merkel’s Germany and gained the admiration of many. Conversely, Germany’s support to deals to keep migrants outside the EU borders like the ‘statement of cooperation’ between EU states and the Turkish Government, the following year, sparked widespread and justified criticisms. Still, Merkel’s name will be forever associated with her 2015 decision.
In 2016 and in the years following Brexit and the election of the new American President Donald Trump, Merkel embodied a strong opposition to reactionary populism, defending the legacy of the Paris climate accord while also standing up for democracy and human rights.
In 2019, her stark opposition to a no-deal Brexit was much needed common sense in a difficult negotiation between the EU and the UK. Throughout the Brexit negotiation, Merkel was often the “adult in the room” who helped steer the EU towards a non acrimonious relationship with the UK government.
In 2020, when the pandemic arrived in Europe, she proved her abilities as a chancellor and as a physicist when she recognised the depth of the sanitary emergency before many other European leaders.
Merkel’s Germany has therefore seen its reputation increase over the years becoming a country many Europeans look forward to for leadership. We don’t look forward to nations leading other nations but to citizens taking action and act collectively to build a European democracy.
We strongly believe that the continuous process of European democratic integration is the only way forward for us Europeans to have a voice on the globalised world in search of a governance, our best chance to safeguard our common goods and collective wellbeing from the corrosive rhetoric and damaging policies of nationalists and xenophobes and our best chance to set an example of democratic cooperation that can inspire nations and citizens of other continents.
With the Next Generation EU agreement, Merkel helped shape the Europe of tomorrow. In doing so, she followed her predecessors Brandt and Kohl in the best tradition of German European policy and consolidated her European legacy.
For the sake of our shared European future, we must hope that tradition and that legacy will be continued.
Long may live our European Germany.
Andrea Pisauro and Nina Jetter