Reijo Kemppinen - The EU at 50: early retirement or new vocation?

Written by Kemppinen on Wed 28th Mar 2007

Speech by Reijo Kemppinen

Head of the European Commission Representation in the UK

The EU at 50: early retirement or new vocation?

Conference on "Europe, the next 50 years"

Goodwood House, 28 March 2007

Ladies and gentlemen,

This is a marvellous setting for a 50th birthday.

I want to thank the organisers for their kind invitation to be here with you today.

My warmest greetings to everyone. And especially to the sixth-formers among us.

I want to take this opportunity of expressing our appreciation of the European Movement's work.

They have carried the torch for the European idea. And it has often been a lonely task.

Ladies and gentlemen, there's one year that's uppermost in our minds today - 1957.

It was the year Ghana and Malaya became independent.

It was the year Sputnik was launched and space became the new frontier of all mankind.

It was the year John Lennon and Paul McCartney met for the first time.

And of course 1957 was the year the Treaty of Rome was signed.

It didn't cause much of a stir at the time. As with the Beatles, it took some time for the music to filter through.

But once it did, the Treaty of Rome became something we couldn't have lived without - even if we take it for granted now.

A couple of weeks ago you may have seen Manchester United play against a European Eleven at Old Trafford.

The match was organised to celebrate half a century of Manchester United competition in Europe as well as to mark the signing of the Treaty of Rome.

Commissioner Siim Kallas, the former Estonian Prime Minister, was there, and he was very keen to meet Bobby Charlton, whom he had only ever seen on TV.

He told me how he used to watch Finnish TV because it was the only western TV channel they could receive behind the Iron Curtain.

Enlargement has meant an awful lot to them. It's meant an incredible opening-up to the world. The breaking-down of so many barriers.

It's meant democracy and freedom. Freedom to watch the TV channels you want and travel abroad wherever and whenever you want.

We should never underestimate what European integration has meant - reconciliation between former enemies, the underpinning of peace and democracy, and the creation of new economic relations.

For people in the UK, the benefits may seem less tangible. Especially in political terms.

Of course, there are the three million jobs the government attributes to UK membership of the EU - at a cost per person in 2006 of about one espresso coffee a week.

When the UK joined in 1973, it was called the "sick man of Europe". Now it's the world's fifth-largest economy.

I suspect the three million jobs and the EU's single market - the largest in terms of GDP in the world - may have something to do with that.

Now we know that the EU budget isn't a kitty: it funds our common policies. So you can't expect to get out exactly what you put in.

I couldn't put a precise figure on the value of so many things the EU does - such as food safety and disease control and standards for drinking water and cleaner beaches.

Such as entitlement to health care abroad thanks to the European Health Insurance Card and the right to draw one's pension anywhere in the EU.

Such as cheaper air travel since the EU opened up air transport to competition.

I couldn't put a precise figure on technical benefits such as the GSM standard developed by EU-funded research that allows mobile 'phone systems to talk to each other across Europe.

But we can say it has become the globally dominant worldwide standard and 82% of the world's mobile users have phones based on it.

I can't put a figure on such political benefits as the underpinning of democracy across Europe, the stabilisation of peace in the Balkans, EU humanitarian aid to tsunami victims in the Indian Ocean and EU development aid across the world's poorer countries.

Yet we finance all of these - and much more - through the EU budget. And I would venture to say we all get more back in intangible but very real benefits than we put in.

The EU is the world's foremost aid donor. That means we can all feel proud of our collective contribution to aiding people across the developing world.

For that espresso coffee a week, you don't just get three million jobs in the UK.

You get a world role and a voice in global politics and the satisfaction of knowing we can defend and promote our shared values on the world stage.

Because together our 27 member states are stronger than any one is - or could be - individually.

As we together face global challenges - globalisation, climate change, terrorism, the curse of HIV AIDS particularly in the developing world - Europe needs to fit itself economically and politically for these tasks.

And, despite what you may think, the indications are that people across the EU - including here in the UK - support more decision-making at European level on certain global issues.

A Eurobarometer survey published in December last year found these figures:

· 55% of people in the UK are in favour of more decision-making at EU level on the environment.

· 61% believe there is a real need for decisions in the fight against terrorism to be made jointly within the EU.

In these areas, there is scope for decision-making at EU level with strong support from both people and government in the UK.

If the UK wants to act effectively to tackle these problems, then it can only do it through the EU.

But if it wants the EU to be able to meet these challenges effectively, then people need to understand what the EU stands for.

And to make the EU work effectively, we need an institutional settlement.

Given the risks and the evidence available, putting one's trust in action at national level is like King Canute ordering the tide to stop.

At the last European Council meeting in Brussels a fortnight ago, we saw firm agreement on some of these issues.

The heads of state and government agreed on an integrated climate and energy policy backed up by an action plan. They set a number of groundbreaking political targets:

· On climate change, the EU has committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 by at least 20% over 1990 levels.

· On the Single Market for gas and electricity, it has agreed on the need to separate supply and production activities.

· On renewable sources of energy, it has set a binding target of 20% by 2020.

These targets follow up the Commission's package of energy and climate-change measures announced in January.

They show that the EU is determined to continue leading in building international consensus on combating climate change.

It's worth stressing the fact that climate-change measures can be an opportunity, not just a challenge.

And the technological lead will translate into economic opportunities too.

Developing the necessary technology can ensure that Europe takes the lead technologically.

But setting targets is just the start. European leadership also means Europe-wide laws and decisions as opposed to British or French or Finnish laws.

And that means it needs to take the lead politically in order to translate these targets into action internationally and have impact at world level.

Ladies and gentlemen, the European Union is a work in progress.

From a grouping of six countries dealing mainly with agriculture, coal and steel, and nuclear power, it has developed into today's EU of 27 members dealing with a huge range of issues. Issues that concern Europeans and that we need to tackle together, on the basis of our shared values.

Some have said that the EU is suffering from a "mid-life crisis".

But can you call it a crisis when you've 12 new members in the last three years and others are queuing up to join?

When you're the world's largest trading bloc with an internal market of around half a billion?

When you're making substantial progress towards joint decision-making on justice and home affairs, security and defence?

When your institutions are held up as a model and emulated in South-East Asia, Africa and South America?

When your organisation generates prosperity and political stability among your neighbours beyond its borders, sets world standards and successfully exports its values around the globe?

Ladies and gentlemen, let me wind up with two points.

First, today is a day to look back, but even more it's a day to look forward.

Lewis Carroll said: "It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards."

The EU's achievements are there for all to see. We should never take them for granted.

Now we need to look to the challenges ahead. They will not be resolved on their own.

Second, you don't need to love the EU.

Someone said the verb "to love" is the most complicated in any language. Its past is never simple, its present is imperfect and its future is always conditional.

So it's asking a lot to love the EU.

But we do need the EU to tackle the challenges facing us - and those that will face us - in the next 50 years.

And it's up to all us Europeans - especially our young people - to make it work.

Thank you.