Adrian Năstase - propagandă pentru "Europa Unită", "entitate transnaţională"; Tratatul de la Lisabona - "doar un compromis, trebuie mers mai departe"

The problem is not this, but the fact that although the need of a more cohesive and homogeneous Union is acknowledged by most intellectual and political elites, when it comes to concrete actions, determination is strongly decreasing. The decrease of motivation for making Europe more united must be explained by the fact that the “European dream” is too insignificant for the ordinary citizen. In spite of the worthwhile attempts to create a “European demos” it seems we are not even halfway down this road. I believe that this acknowledgement of the reality is important in order to see what we must do in the future to achieve this. - Adrian Năstase (discurs la FEPS - Foundation for European Progressive Studies).

Iuri Bezmenov (ex-KGB): "sunt necesari 20-25 de ani pentru a demoraliza o naţiune". 

Am scăpat de URSS, trebuie să scăpam acum de UERSS şi de cozile sale de topor. 

Nu mai e vorba de comuniştii cu şapcă, ca în '47, ci de URSS 2.0, o încrengătură de birocraţi, P.R.-işti, ONG-uri, fundaţii, lobbyşti, politicieni, etc...

Am preluat o postare de pe blogul lui Adrian Năstase (am accentuat pasajele semnificative):


Discursul de la Consiliul stiintific al FEPS

V-am ramas dator cu unele detalii referitoare la reuniunea de la Bruxelles. Am anexat textul contributiei mele si am adaugat doua fotografii cu presedintele FEPS, Massimo d’Alema, fost prim-ministru al Italiei si unul din cei mai importanti lideri ai stangii socialiste europene.

Some (critical) reflections about the future of Europe

Reflecting upon the situation of our bigger home, the European Union, should become a daily exercise. There is, however, a risk of routine, of habit concerning thinking the same problems in the same terms. Therefore, from time to time, there is a need to re-evaluate the whole situation from a new perspective, in the light of new realities.

            I think the moment has come to critically and honestly re-evaluate the situation in Europe from the perspective of new challenges to which we must answer at the shortest notice and as efficiently as possible. Certainly, during this brief paper, it is not possible to fully analyse the whole European problematic; I will only highlight some relevant aspects. 

An overview of the European landscape today

            The European Union has suffered major changes during the last two decades, evolving from a mainly economic common market to a political entity. However, the most visionary plans that were made during the early 90s seem to have lost momentum during the last years, under the impact of a rebirth of fragmented interests, be they regional, national or local (provincial). Therefore, instead of establishing a new political entity to rival other significant international actors, we are in the middle of a new period of disputes, also caused by the economic and financial crisis which we are facing.

Looking retrospectively at the last twenty years of the European construction, we can notice some important moments that marked a promising process of building a supranational entity: Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice, Lisbon. The names of these cities remind us of the gains we have made on this road towards a common European democracy. We might even call it “European dream” or, lately, “European illusion”. Nevertheless, some important steps were made towards making the European Union a respected voice at world level, by its own and not only by the contribution of its various entities, mostly national. The Constitutional Treaty can be considered the climax of this process, but its outcome began to outline the shadows that are still tormenting us today. The Lisbon compromise tried to create the impression of a partial success, but the realities show that we are still far behind from where we should have been.

 Another important process strengthening the European Union during the last twenty years was enlargement. In fact, after the end of the Cold War, it was only logical that the dream of the European “founding fathers” to reunite the whole of Europe should become a reality. Indeed, the process managed so far to reunite most of the countries expressing their wishes to become EU members, but not all of them, due to various specific issues that each accession raised. From the point of view of a new member state citizen, I can say that it has brought a new hope to people who were accustomed for so much time to consider themselves unlucky to be born in this corner of the world, providing them a new stability, security and perspective in daily life, even if sometimes it was only a psychological factor. The fatigue of the enlargement process at present is the expression of the lack of commitment existing nowadays in the EU and it is utterly arbitrary for those countries that are trying hard to be fit for accession (mainly from the Western Balkans and Black Sea areas).

            On the other hand, one should understand the fatigue that seems to have enveloped Europe. The Euro-enthusiasm from the beginning of the 90s vanished, being replaced by the desire to preserve the current situation. The status-quo seems to be the aim of most European citizens, even if the whole world is scattered by changes. The fear of national public opinions’ reaction towards some proposals to continue the Union’s enlargement is common both to our social democratic parties and to the European right. Of course, there are differences of nuances between PES and EPP regarding EU enlargement, but I think we should even clarify among us, within the democratic left family, the issue of respecting our commitment upon enlargement in the Western Balkans area and in the Republic of Moldova. I know, from my experience as Prime Minister how important the existence of a tangible accession perspective was in order to demand people support for adopting reform measures that often involved a high economic and social cost.

In the recent years it was said that within the European Union there is and “Old Europe”, made up of the western member states, and a “New Europe”, made up of the eastern member states. These labels, arising following positions concerning the 2003 military intervention in Iraq, would have reflected the “true Euro-centrism” of the first group and the decided pro-American attitude (or Atlanticism) of the second group (also including the United Kingdom). However, this separation loses its meaning if we are taking into account other issues that have lately marked the European debate.

            Thus, if we are assessing matters related to social and economic integration, we can again identify a “core Europe” made up of Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium and Luxembourg, traditionally supporting the European Social Model, but also a Welfare State Nordic Europe made up of Denmark, Sweden and Finland, supporting a specific type of Scandinavian social model while preserving more national sovereignty, and a “neo-liberal Europe”, made up of the United Kingdom, Netherlands and Central European countries. In what regards economic issues, one can distinguish between the members of the Eurozone and countries preferring their own national currency (mainly, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark and, lately, Hungary).

Of course, these differences are historical and it is unrealistic to believe that they could be levelled after only a few decades. The problem is not this, but the fact that although the need of a more cohesive and homogeneous Union is acknowledged by most intellectual and political elites, when it comes to concrete actions, determination is strongly decreasing. The decrease of motivation for making Europe more united must be explained by the fact that the “European dream” is too insignificant for the ordinary citizen. In spite of the worthwhile attempts to create a “European demos” it seems we are not even halfway down this road. I believe that this acknowledgement of the reality is important in order to see what we must do in the future to achieve this.

Another dividing line is the attitude towards energy security. Thus, countries like Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovakia are favourable to an improved relation with Russia in this field, while others such as the United Kingdom, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Finland and the Baltic States are more inclined towards identifying alternative sources. Although the issue of energy security is essential for all Europe, approaches from the perspective of the “common European interest” were not achieved at the highest common denominator, on the contrary, national approaches prevailed.

Lately, a new cleavage emerged, following the Libyan crisis, between the countries favouring military intervention (France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Netherlands, Denmark, Greece a. o.) and countries with a more reserved attitude (Germany, Italy, Romania, Sweden etc.). All these divisions create for the Union the image of an uncertain political actor which is not able to overcome internal disagreements and consequently cannot pretend to be taken seriously at global level.

            What is more alarming is that divisions between member states are paralleled by the divisions within the same ideological groups, along the national lines. Thus, if in the past we could speak about common ideological positions as regards, for example, military interventions (with the left clearly opposing them), welfare state or immigration, and sometimes even trans-ideological coalitions, as in the case of European integration, enlargement and the common market, nowadays we are witnessing a resurgence of national positions. Thus, taking only the example of the European Socialists during the last European elections in 2009, we may notice that the common message and ideas were very much blurred in favour of various national issues, sometimes situating parties from the same ideological family on opposite sides. This has created much confusion among voters used to embrace more trans-national attitudes and alienated or marginalized them, allowing for the rise of populist and nationalist forces.

Populism and nationalism also seem to have been reignited by the economic crisis. We must acknowledge the fact that globalization has brought to European citizens not only benefits but also an increasing feeling of insecurity. Small communities or national states and not the European Union are considered to be the efficient protection spaces against incertitude. Unfortunately, an increasing number of Europeans consider the Union is useful during times of prosperity and peace and less during times of crisis.          

The battle of world giants

            Meanwhile, on the world stage, the significant actors are increasingly showing their resolve and strength to challenge Europe’s traditional leading role. Thus, in terms of demographic evolution, the EU seems to be on the losing side. If we take only the population into consideration, the EU is still a bright third, with 501 million people (all data from 2010), after China, with 1.34 billion and India, with 1.21 billion people, and ahead of the US, with 309 million, Brazil, with 190 million and Russia, with 142 million people. However, taking into account the labour force, the EU population is seriously aging. The percentage ratio between children and the elderly is 15:17, while in India  it is 30:6, in Brazil 26:7, in China 18:9, in the United States 20:13 and in Russia 15:13. This means that in the following years the EU will have a smaller (and more expensive) labour force compared to the other economic world giants, which will make it more vulnerable and dependent on others. The perspectives are not very bright as the natural growth of the population is very low (0.1%), compared to that in India (1.76%), Brazil (1.05%), the US (0.98%) or China (0.6%).

            From a strictly economic point of view, the EU is still in the lead with the highest nominal and per capita GDP in the world (16,447 trillion USD and 33,052 USD, respectively), as well as in terms of the revenues polarization (Gini coefficient at 30.7, while the other actors are all between 37 and 49) and in terms of international trade. But for the long term projection, the indicator which is most significant is the economic growth rate, and there the EU is lagging behind, with a negative growth of – 4.08% (in 2009), compared with the exceptionally positive growth rates of China (10.5%), Brazil (7.5%), India (5.8%), Russia (4%) or the decent rate of the US (2.8%).

            The advantage of the other actors is that they are individual countries with strong central governments, having unitary strategies for further development. In contrast, the EU is just a loose confederation of governments having various and sometimes divergent interests. The lack of a proper constitutional setting and the ad hoc economic governance resulting from the inter-governmental side of the organization are not the adequate means to counter a serious economic crisis and a growing global competition for resources, markets and revenues.

In spite of the elaboration of the Europe 2020 strategy, which envisions the development of a knowledge and research based green economy, the perspectives are presently not very promising. Instead of limiting the gaps which have already increased between the EU and China or the US, due to the budgetary constraints, the proposed targets are ever harder to be reached. Thus, if we are taking into account the resources allocated by China to research, innovation and engineering and the US attempts to keep up the pace, EU efforts seem insignificant. Moreover, even where we would have thought that the EU had an advantage, the green economics, the performance of Chinese green economics is much better, with greater ability to adapt in the future. Thus, at world level, the EU truly seems a “cat” crashed by “mammoths”.

            The only sector where Europe had a clear advantage was the welfare state. Currently, though, the right wing governments are trying to abolish it, claiming it is not sustainable in the long run. They are only half right. Of course, the pensions of an ageing population cannot be supported by an ever lesser labour force. But the solution is not the elimination of those benefits, by increasing retirement ages or supporting private pensions systems. A sustainable solution in the long run implies encouraging birth rates, by supporting young families, which will then have a reason to work and provide a better situation for themselves. Thus, the labour force deficit could be covered in the longer run, without relying exclusively on immigration and creating the basis for a renewal of the EU sustainable economic growth. The welfare state is thus an asset which should not so easily be removed, if we take into account the interests of the whole society and not of only some interest groups.

I do not wish to enlarge the increasingly numerous choir of the European Common Foreign and Security Policy critics, but we cannot avoid this subject. The role of the European Union in the global governance remains unclear and perspectives are rather more negative than positive. The European Union has not become a full member of the UN General Assembly and the European share within the IMF will inevitably shrink in favour of emerging economies (China, India, Brazil). The general influence of the European model decreased at global level, in the context of our economic weaknesses and of new rising economic powers.

In my opinion, strengthening global governance could be the single efficient mechanism in order to fight risks determined by global warming, decreasing water supplies and increasing food prices. Without strengthening global governance, the risk of multiplying failed states number is a real possibility, a situation that would inevitably determine the occurrence of new local conflicts and an increasing number of illegal immigrants. Therefore, it is more efficient to prevent than to become an emergency firemen for extinguishing more “political and military fires” all over the world. Tradition forces the social democratic family, for increasing international solidarity, to assume more energetically the project of global governance.

Concluding remarks

I have analyzed a few of the most important weaknesses of our common home, the European Union, in order to determine a collective effort for eliminating these weaknesses. From my political experience, I know that sometimes we need to present more directly a situation in order to determine quicker and more efficient positive reactions. Also, I believe it is very important to acknowledge the fact that, although plain numbers indicate a decline of Europe, the battle is not yet completely lost and if we resolutely achieve the measures we are proposing, the situation can steadily improve. However, it requires a constant effort, even if some of the measures might not generate the highest degree of popular enthusiasm.   

After briefly describing the EU situation, I believe that we can extract some important observations regarding what we have to do. I suggest the priority of the following:

    Revitalizing the “United Europe” project, by launching pan-European debates concerning the future of Europe. FEPS and the national foundations should establish a concrete calendar of actions and this should be thoroughly respected.

    The new generations of politicians should be more actively involved in debates concerning Europe. There is the risk that the “European dream” becomes a trivial, usual one, lacking emotional impact for generation which did not witness the experience of a divided Europe. Renationalizing European politics could be considered the different path of affirmation for new European political and intellectual elites, but such an involution must be prevented. PES should be leading the action of re-igniting the interest for Europe.

    We should make a change in our working methods. Instead of ambitious but unrealistic plans (like Europe 2020) for a decade, I think we need a more detailed planning, with tangible objectives, for a period of maximum five years. The “Lisbon Agenda” experiment showed that Europe needs more efficient tools for reaching its goals.


http://nastase.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/discursul-de-la-consiliul-stiintific-al-feps/

>> Site-ul FEPS