Kirjoitukset THE EUROPEAN BICYCLE | THE EUROPEAN BICYCLE |
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From Warsaw Business Journal, October 9-15 2006"Nothing can be achieved without people, nothing endures without institutions." Jean Monnet, the founder of the European Union After the Second World War, Western Europeans believed in the capabilities of a representative democracy to improve the living conditions of nations. Politicians were appreciated. From the ruins of the war arose a new and better Europe. But the more peoples' lives improved in terms of education, healthcare and social security, the more critical they became of the decision-makers that achieved these changes.Voters are notoriously ungrateful and time glorifies the past. But if push came to shove, I doubt many would settle for what they had in the past, whether materially or spiritually. Peace come true European cooperation in terms of economy and security is to date the most successful peace project in history. Nowhere else have as many nation-states achieved as good and uninterrupted cooperation for over 50 years. This achievement is all the more impressive, considering that we are talking about a continent where only 60 years ago more than 50 million people were killed in mutual wars. Now these same warring nations - 25 countries and 20 languages - co-exist in reasonable harmony and argue at most about the size of agricultural subsidies or the details of Directives.Particularly the younger generations listen with amazement to speeches that emphasize the importance of securing peace in Europe. Who would ever be so crazy as to start a war in Europe? The 'inter-rail generation' may not notice that in the center of Europe lie the Balkans, an area where only some years ago there was warfare, and where some mass murderers are still at large. The propensity to resort to violence still hasn't totally disappeared from Europe.Though much criticized, the 'Brussels bureaucracy' is in the end much cheaper than fighting wars. The EU Parliament's monthly visits to Strasbourg cost about the same annually as the peacetime maintenance of one Panzer brigade.Expansion a successThe richest nations in the world are often located in areas with limited natural resources. In fact, oil, gas, gold and diamonds seem to form a threat to democracy. Good education, minimal corruption and national security are factors that improve the competitiveness of a nation and thereby the standard of living. Among the 12 richest countries in the world, no fewer than eight are EU countries. Inflation remains low in the euro zone, even if some experts predicted that the common currency would lead to a catastrophe. Finnish consumers, among others, have benefited from this in terms of low interest rates. The eastward expansion of the EU has proven to be an economic success story. The economy of all of Europe has grown and trade has expanded in a way that no one dared to predict three years ago. We keep creating more jobs than we lose. Old member states have benefited from investing in the rapidly growing markets of the new members. Immigrants from the new members have filled gaping holes in the service and construction sectors which suffer from chronic labor shortages, even if salary differences between countries have lead to immigrating workers often being overqualified for the jobs they end up doing. This is a waste of resources from Europe's point of view.No to stagnationIt is ironic that the same people who used to criticize communism are now worried about Eastern Europeans entering the Western European labor market, now that the Berlin Wall has collapsed both physically and mentally. How can Europe ever compete with Asia or the U.S. if it can't compete within its own borders?The EU can be compared to a bicycle, which has to move forward all the time so as not to tumble. We must continue removing competitive obstacles within the EU in order to keep creating jobs to replace those that will anyway move to low-cost countries. For the labor movement the situation is difficult, particularly in Central Europe where workers are frequently not organized, but the labor unions are nonetheless fairly vocal. Unions focus on securing existing jobs, even if their related rejection of structural changes stops the creation of new jobs in the future. They would do well to remember that stagnation does not create new jobs.In creating an economy which resists stagnation - which opening up of Europe's labor markets will help to achieve - the framework of the EU will bring benefits that no single member could have achieved on its own, demonstrating again that if the EU did not exist, we would need to invent it. Mr. Lehtinen is a Finnish MEP in the Socialist Group of the European Parliament and a full member of the Parliament's Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection. |
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