A plea for action to get Europe off its sickbed

To mark yesterday's signing of the Amsterdam Treaty, six members of the European Parliament issued an impassioned plea that Europe be shaken out of its political and institutional lethargy. The Amsterdam Treaty is "mediocre and disappointing", they warned. Europe can and must do better.

The signatories of the appeal come from five EU countries and represent both left and right-wing parties. They are not Euro-sceptics, but Euro-enthusiasts discouraged by the Union's irrelevance to the daily lives of its citizens and its inability to act forcefully in foreign policy or to reform its institutions.

Last July, the same group founded SOS-Europe, which 100 MEPs - most of them from France, Belgium and Italy - have since joined.

The crusading leaders of SOS-Europe who signed yesterday's petition are: Jean-Louis Bourlange, from the French Gaullist UDF; Daniel Cohn-Bendit, from the German Greens; Gianfranco Dell'Alba, an Italian radical; Olivier Duhamel, a French socialist; Jose-Maria Mendiluce, a Spanish Independent, and Antoinette Spaak, from the Belgian Liberal Party.

"Europe is unwell," the six begin their plea. "Europeans are unwell. Europe is hurting, but people don't realise it. We must react quickly, because afterwards it will be too late." Europeans are anxious about mad cow disease, AIDS, pollution and unemployment. "There are those who sometimes blame these scourges on Europe," the appeal says. "They are wrong, since they affect the whole world. Others regret that Europe does not protect us more from them. They are right: a great political power ought to be able to act."

In a veiled criticism of Germany - which has tired of being the EU's largest contributor - the authors of the appeal condemn those preoccupied with what they call silly, petty accounting: "How much do I put into the European budget? How much do I get out of it? As if one could calculate the price of peace, the price of democracy, the price of the Union."

European leaders believe that Economic and Monetary Union, the most ambitious step in European integration so far, will bring new dynamism to the EU. But optimism about EMU has become an excuse for inaction in other areas, and the founders of SOS-Europe say Europe is unwell despite the euro. "The cultural divide is growing," they write. "The upper crust are thrilled at the irreversibility of the euro. They are right. The upper crust say the euro is sufficient. They are wrong. For the underdogs are not satisfied with the euro alone. They want work, recreation, a better private life, some form of collective existence. They don't see what these have to do with the euro, even if there is a connection."

Europe's inability to act when the former Yugoslavia collapsed in civil war in the early 1990s was a major setback for the Union. "Europe said `you'll see' and we saw nothing," the MEPs recall. "Europe said the Americans were our friends, not our bosses. She said a lot of things and she did nothing." Nor do the authors of the appeal see any progress towards a European foreign policy. How should the EU react to Chinese power and human rights abuses? they ask. To Africa's poverty and instability? To the explosion in Algeria? The US isn't afraid to trumpet its own power, they note, but Europe cringes. "Europe is fragile, worried, tired. Its past intimidates it. It is terrified of its future."

Individual governments must take responsibility, offer Europe a common vision, carry proposals forward, keep their commitments, the MEPs say. They did it with the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, "a little, not much, not enough in any case". The parliaments and peoples of the EU approved Maastricht "by a hair's breadth" because they wanted a stronger, different Europe. They had understood that the EU would enlarge itself towards the east, but that it would first strengthen its institutions.

The process of enlargement is to begin at the European summit in Luxembourg in December. Four or five central European countries should be admitted to the EU by 2003 or 2004.

"To this purpose, European governments were to have prepared and adopted a genuine reform of EU institutions," the appeal notes. "And what happened? The Amsterdam summit did not even manage to pretend. It came up with a pseudoreform last June, that the foreign affairs ministers of the 15 (memberstates) are endorsing, this October 2nd, by signing the treaty in Amsterdam.

"Our leaders botched a reform that they themselves had considered indispensable for the political future of Europe," the six say despairingly. The Inter-Governmental Conference was to have reduced the number of EU commissioners and reweighted votes so the system more accurately reflected demography. It was supposed to strengthen the powers of the European Parliament and extend the areas where the EU could take decisions by majority vote rather than unanimity. Agreement was reached on none of these crucial issues.

"It cannot go on this way," the MEPs protest. "No one seriously believes that a Europe of more than 20 member-states can function according to the rules of the Europe of 12, which became 15. But the anti-Europeans are thrilled at the deadlock. And the anti-Europeans are everywhere, on the right and on the left. "Meanwhile, the pro-Europeans hesitate. Do they have the right to say that the emperor has no clothes? Yes, if it helps to dress him.

"With enlargement, the game will change, and we must change the rules if Europe is to be able to go forward," the appeal continues. "Otherwise, she will be paralysed." They say the Amsterdam Treaty is falsely portrayed as "the sign of a common will, of good health, a licence for enlargement". Meanwhile, "the essential thing is to extricate ourselves from the present wasps' nest, to conceive of institutions that can function. Europe needs efficiency and democracy. Europe needs a new treaty. "The new rules must be clear, efficient, democratic - that is to say the exact opposite of the present mess."

Most European decisions are still taken unanimously. Although the six MEPs do not name names, the veto option allowed the last Tory government in Britain to gum up the EU machinery. More majority voting is essential, they say. "With unanimity, every state's egotism counts, and we arrive at a multitude of decisions without a real policy. With majority voting . . . it is possible to formulate real policies." These reforms are too important to be left in the hands of the national governments which failed to meet their deadline last June, the appeal says. They must be prepared "by a team or a man who knows how to propose what the clash of 15 differing afterthoughts failed to accomplish."

The six say they created SOS-Europe so that these reforms would be thrashed out within the civil societies and parliaments of EU nations. It is an immense undertaking, they admit, but they believe it can be achieved. "Europe is your business," they tell the citizens of Europe. "Get involved."