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Se, com a escala das Instituições Europeias, nào se consegue
enviar uma mensagem mais viva, actual perante os desafios sombrios e preocupantes que se
desenham no Horizonte, e menos abstracta e cinzentona … estamos mal …
Os preocupantes desenvolvimentos políticos que se perfilam e
organizam no contexto das Eleições Europeias não nos podem deixar indiferentes.
A Euro-burocracia de Bruxelas ( número de membros do
Parlamento: 766/ número de funcionários do Parlamento 8.000 / número de
reuniões no Parlamento: 22.000 / 4 vezes por mês o Parlamento muda em peso para
Straatsburg … e isto é só no Parlamento, sem contar com a Comissão e outros
satélites e organizações agregadas ), vai ser confrontada com um “abanão” e um
sinal vindo dos cidadãos, cada vez mais distantes desta megalomania hermética e
fechada sobre si mesma, constituída por “cinzentões”, como Barroso, numa
espécie de gigantesco clube privado, herméticamente e super-burocráticamente
separado das populações e habitantes da Europa.
Grandes e Profundas Reformas impõem-se portanto, e acima de
tudo, o surgimento de novos líderes capazes de comunicarem, motivarem, entusiasmarem e representarem o Ideal e o Sonho Europeu … e acima de tudo a Europa dos Conteúdos, a Europa Social, Ecológica, Cultural e Humanista.
António Sérgio Rosa de Carvalho
O Voo do Corvo contextualiza este apelo/mensagem de Delors , Vitorino e os "restantes 39", nos
desafios presentes e nas possíveis ameaças futuras.
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OPINIÃO
Em frente pelas eleições europeias de 2014!
07/12/2013 – in Público
Os cidadãos poderão apoderar-se plenamente do grande
acontecimento democrático da próxima Primavera, tanto em Portugal como na
Europa. Às urnas, caros concidadãos!
As eleições europeias de
1. Revalorizar a "Grande Europa"
O aumento da atenção que a crise da zona euro suscitou nos
últimos tempos não nos deve fazer esquecer que as próximas eleições europeias
dizem respeito à "Grande Europa" (ou seja, a União Europeia a 28): é
a essa escala que os nossos países e cidadãos, unidos na diversidade mas agora
reconciliados, deverão escrever as próximas páginas da sua aventura comunitária.
A "Grande Europa" é mais do que nunca a escala
certa para afirmar o papel crescente da UE na globalização que a maior parte
dos seus povos quer reforçar, conscientes de que a união faz a força. A UE
dotou-se de políticas de alargamento e de ajuda externa que estarão em debate
na próxima campanha eleitoral. O mesmo acontecerá com a política comercial
nestes tempos de negociações transatlânticas, com os esforços europeus que será
preciso aumentar para melhor regulamentar a "finança louca", e com os
balbuciamentos da UE em matéria migratória. Finalmente, o empenhamento
diplomático e militar dos europeus deve ser reforçado, pelo menos na vizinhança
próxima, incluindo com base em cooperações limitadas.
A "Grande Europa" também é o horizonte pertinente
para continuar os esforços em curso em matéria de protecção do ambiente e do
clima, bem como encorajar os processos de transição energética. Este é o
sentido do projecto da "Comunidade Europeia da Energia" que
promovemos com o objectivo de responder às aspirações prioritárias dos cidadãos
e dos Estados da UE (competitividade da indústria, segurança de
aprovisionamento, protecção do ambiente, etc.).
A "Grande Europa" é, por fim, o mercado único, que
ainda pode ser aprofundado no sector dos serviços, da economia digital e das
grandes infra-estruturas, de modo a criar maior crescimento e mais empregos,
que deve permitir uma livre circulação de trabalhadores simultaneamente mais
fluida e melhor enquadrada (em particular em matéria de destacamento), e que
deve ser objecto de maior harmonização social e fiscal, de modo a atenuar as
tensões entre o Oeste e o Leste, ou centro e periferia.
2. Completar a união económica e monetária
A crise evidenciou as falhas ligadas ao desequilíbrio entre
união monetária e união económica, embora fazendo ao mesmo tempo a zona euro
aparecer como o cadinho político de uma maior integração, baseada em direitos e
deveres específicos em termos de disciplina e de solidariedade.
Por essa razão, as acções de solidariedade e de controlo já
iniciadas devem ser continuadas: concretização de uma verdadeira "união
bancária" baseada numa supervisão europeia dos bancos, numa contribuição
dos actores financeiros para o seu próprio salvamento e numa redução das
divergências das taxas de juro que as empresas e as famílias têm de pagar;
melhoria da coordenação europeia em matéria de políticas económicas e sociais
dos Estados- membros, de modo a prevenir os excessos e os desvios que ameaçam o
funcionamento da união monetária, através de incentivos financeiros concedidos
aos Estados-membros que lancem reformas; criação de mecanismos de seguro
contracíclico sob diferentes formas entre os Estados e a zona euro;
mutualização parcial da emissão de dívidas nacionais face aos riscos
persistentes de crise sistémica...
Completar a união económica e monetária é também
conferir-lhe uma dimensão social específica apoiando-se nos parceiros sociais
para, por exemplo, melhor organizar a livre circulação de trabalhadores ou a
assunção ao nível europeu das vítimas dos ajustamentos estruturais, em primeira
linha os jovens. É dar-lhe também meios concretos para apoiar o crescimento
através de investimentos maciços, tanto para acelerar a saída da actual grave
crise económica e social que ameaça a sua coesão e o seu dinamismo, como para
criar as condições de um desenvolvimento humano ecologicamente responsável.
Finalmente, é preciso completar a governação da zona euro
reunindo de novo as "cimeiras da zona euro" numa base regular,
dotando o Eurogrupo de um presidente permanente e permitindo que os deputados
nacionais e europeus exerçam melhor os seus poderes de controlo democrático,
tanto em Bruxelas como nas capitais nacionais.
3. Promover a construção europeia com base em alternativas
claras
É com a formulação de uma dupla agenda positiva ao nível da
UE e da zona euro que será possível dar todo o seu sentido à campanha eleitoral
que se desenrolará em dois registos complementares.
Trata-se antes de mais de reafirmar a confiança na
construção europeia, valorizando as suas realizações fundamentais que são, por
exemplo, o espírito de reconciliação e o princípio da livre circulação. Os
partidos extremistas querem tornar as próximas eleições numa espécie de
referendo a favor ou contra a UE ou o euro, tirando partido da degradação da
sua imagem provocada pela crise e pela sua gestão. Temos de fazer
incansavelmente a prova da Europa, de forma decidida e com abertura de
espírito, com base numa visão ampla das oportunidades e das ameaças
geopolíticas que enfrenta.
As próximas eleições europeias também deverão permitir um
confronto partidário claro entre diferentes abordagens do funcionamento, das
políticas e do futuro da UE. Trata-se de pôr em evidência as divergências que
separam os conservadores, os liberais, os sociais-democratas, os ecologistas, a
esquerda radical e as outras forças políticas, e de assim permitir aos
eleitores diferenciar os seus programas para a UE no horizonte de 2020.
Neste contexto, é positivo que as forças políticas europeias
estejam prestes a designar os seus candidatos à presidência da Comissão, de
forma a personificar os desafios do debate e do escrutínio. É porque poderão
pôr caras nas principais orientações da construção europeia e nas clivagens que
estruturam a vida política da UE que os cidadãos se poderão apoderar plenamente
do grande acontecimento democrático da próxima Primavera, tanto em Portugal
como na Europa.
Às urnas, caros concidadãos!
Jacques Delors, presidente fundador de Notre Europe e
ex-presidente da Comissão Europeia
António Vitorino, presidente de Notre Europe, ex-comissário
europeu e ex-ministro
e os restantes 39 participantes no Comité Europeu de
Orientação de Notre Europe-Instituto Jacques Delors
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‘Behind these new, diverse political parties is a popular
discontent with unemployment, austerity and the Brussels bureaucracy.'
Illustration: Belle Mellor
2014 is not 1914, but Europe is getting increasingly
angry and nationalist
While Germany focuses on
forging a government, populist anti-EU parties look set to do well at next
year's elections
Timothy Garton Ash
The Guardian, Monday 18 November 2013/ http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/18/europe-angry-nationalist-eu-elections
Now the German elections are over, Germany and France will
launch a great initiative to save the European project. Marking the centennial
of 1914, this will contrast favourably with the weak and confused leadership
under which Europe stumbled into the first world war. Before next May's elections
to the European parliament, the Franco-German couple's decisive action and
inspiring oratory will drive back the anti-EU parties that are gaining ground
in so many European countries.
In your dreams, Mr and Ms Pro-European, in your dreams. Now
for the reality. We will not even have a new German government until just
before Christmas. In the German coalition negotiations, which are meant to be
concluded next week, European affairs are being handled in – wait for it – a
sub-group of the working group on finance. That sub-group is called "Bank
regulation, Europe, Euro". For all the three participating parties, Angela
Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, the Bavarian Christian Social Union and
the opposition Social Democrats, the hot-button issues are domestic. The
introduction of a minimum wage, energy policy, dual citizenship, a proposed
motorway toll – all count for more than the future of the continent.
Germany's politicians know what really matters for selling
their parties to voters in future elections. As ordinary Germans get into the
swing of their Christmas shopping, most are not feeling the pinch of the euro
crisis. Youth unemployment is around 8% in Germany, compared with 56% in Spain.
It is hard to convey just how far away, and how un-urgent, the crisis of Europe
feels to the man on the Berlin U-bahn. Unlike his counterpart in Madrid, he
does not emerge from the underground to find stinking garbage piling up on the
streets.
Once the German government is formed, its European policy
will be the product of compromises between three departments of state – the
dominant federal chancellery, the finance ministry, and the foreign ministry –
which will themselves be divided politically between Christian and Social
Democrats.
Europe's reluctant leading power will have to make further
compromises with France, which has different views on several key issues.
France also has a weak president, François Hollande, who is failing to reform
his own country, let alone helping anyone else's. The ageing and increasingly
unequal German-French couple – which in January marked a rather downbeat golden
wedding anniversary, with the German wife now definitely wearing the trousers –
will have to take account of the concerns of valued partners such as Poland, as
well as proposals coming from European institutions.
And from this dysfunctional orchestra is to emerge a clarion
call that will knock the sceptics of all countries back on their heels and
mobilise Europeans to vote for Europe? Ha, ha, ha.
Partly as a result, this will be the most interesting
European election campaign since direct elections to the European parliament
began in 1979 – for all across Europe there is the most amazing array of
national protest parties. "Populists" is the blanket term lazily
draped over them all, but it does not capture their diversity. With all due
disrespect to the UK Independence party and Germany's anti-euro Allianz für
Deutschland, it is quite wrong to tar them with the same brush as Greece's
neo-fascist Golden Dawn, Hungary's Jobbik or France's Front National. That's
even more true of, say, Catalan nationalists, let alone Beppe Grillo's Five
Star Movement in Italy – which could not be farther from the far right. Closer
to the xenophobic politics of the French Front National – but with multiple
national and sub-national variations – are groupings such as the Vlaams Belang
in Belgium, Finland's The Finns party (until recently, True Finns), the Danish
People's party, and so-called Freedom parties in Austria and Holland.
Two of their most skilful leaders, Marine Le Pen of the
French Front National and Geert Wilders of the Dutch Freedom party, have
started trying to pull them together. After wooing in spring, over lunch at the
elegant La Grande Cascade restaurant in Paris's Bois de Boulogne, this odd
couple last week performed the political equivalent of a wedding dance in The
Hague.
"Today is the beginning of the liberation from the
European elite, the monster in Brussels," cried Wilders. "Patriotic
parties", added Le Pen, want "to give freedom back to our
people", rather than being "forced to submit their budget to the
headmistress". In Vienna on Friday, four others – Austria's Freedom party,
Sweden's Democrats, Italy's Northern League and Vlaams Belang – joined a wary waltz
with Le Pen.
I will be amazed if these parties do not do well in the
European elections. I see nothing at all coming from the current leadership in
Berlin, Paris or Brussels (forget London) that is likely to reverse an
electoral grande cascade. Behind these parties' typically 10% to 25% standing
in opinion polls is a wider popular discontent with unemployment, austerity and
a Brussels bureaucracy that goes on spewing out regulations about the
specifications of your vacuum cleaner and how much water you can use in the lavatory
flush. A German Christian Democrat candidate for the European elections tells
me that the anti-euro and anti-Brussels arguments of the Allianz für
Deutschland resonate with quite a few of his local activists.
I am now taking a couple of months off from regular
commentary to finish the book I'm writing about free speech (a vital right,
anchored in the European convention on human rights, which these parties enjoy
and exploit to its limits). When I come back, I'll be up for the good fight
against Le Pen, Wilders, Jobbik and their ilk. Yet, with this divided,
slow-moving and uninspiring European leadership, I have no illusions that we'll
succeed in stopping the cascade. And if my guess is right, what happens then?
Since the one thing most of these parties have in common is
that they are nationalists, they may have difficulty agreeing on much beyond
their shared dislike of the EU. If they are strongly represented in the
European parliament, the immediate effect will be to drive the mainstream
socialist, conservative and liberal groupings closer together. So you'd have an
explicit "grand coalition" in Berlin and an implicit grand coalition
in Brussels.
The trouble with grand coalitions is that since the
mainstream, centrist parties are burdened with the responsibility of
government, the field of opposition is left wide open for protest parties. On
the other hand, the anti-parties' very success could at last mobilise a younger
generation of Europeans to defend achievements that they take for granted. Nineteen-fourteen
this won't be, but a hundred years on, Europe will again be living in
interesting times.
Twitter: @fromTGA
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Marine Le Pen e Geert Wilders revelaram uma "aliança histórica" para as eleições europeias dos próximos anos.
Alexandre Costa
11:00 Quinta feira, 14 de novembro de 2013 in Expresso online
Uma "aliança histórica" contra a integração
europeia e a imigração foi anunciada por Marine Le Pen, líder da Frente
Nacional francesa, por ocasião da visita que efetuou ao Parlamento holandês, a
convite de Geert Wilders, líder do eurocético e antimuçulmano Partido da
Liberdade".
"O tempo para os movimentos patrióticos estarem
divididos acabou", afirmou a líder da Frente Nacional francesa. "Hoje
é o início da libertação da Europa do monstro de Bruxelas", acrescentou
Wilders.
A aliança entre os dois partidos de extrema-direita ocorre
tendo em vista os próximos atos eleitorais, em especial as eleições europeias
de maio do próximo ano, nas quais os eurocéticos esperam vir a aumentar a sua
presença face à atual situação económica na União Europeia.
Apesar de ter perdido quase metado dos seus lugares no
Parlamento holandês, nas eleições legislativas de setembro de 2012, o Partido
da Liberdade é o quarto maior do país e, segundo as últimas sondagens, está a
recuperar a popularidade.
Os dois líderes pretendem alargar a aliança a outros partidos
europeus da mesma área política. Para se constituírem como grupo no Parlamento
Europeu necessitariam de 25 deputados. Atualmente, a Frente Nacional tem três
eurodeputados (um dos quais Marine Le Pen) e o Partido da Liberdade está
representado com cinco.
Geert Wilders (right) and Marine Le Pen unveil plans to work
together ahead of European parliamentary elections in May Photograph: Martijn
Beekman/EPA
Le Pen and Wilders forge plan to 'wreck' EU from
within
Front National and Freedom
party aim to exploit euroscepticism at European elections to block policymaking
within parliament
Ian Traynor in Brussels
theguardian.com, Wednesday 13 November 2013 / http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/nov/13/le-pen-wilders-alliance-plan-wreck-eu
Two of Europe's leading far-right populists struck a pact on
Wednesdayto build a continental alliance to wreck the European parliament from
within, and slay "the monster in Brussels".
Marine Le Pen, the leader of France's rightwing nationalist
Front National, and Geert Wilders, the Dutch maverick anti-Islam campaigner,
announced they were joining forces ahead of European parliament elections next
year to seek to exploit the euroscepticism soaring across the EU after four
years of austerity, and the financial and debt crisis.
Le Pen, who has predicted that the EU will collapse as did
the Soviet Union, said the aim was to bypass Brussels and restore freedom to
the nations and people of Europe.
The rise of populists on the right and the left, from Sweden
to Greece, has worried the mainstream EU elites and is already shaping policy
ahead of the May elections. At the top level of EU institutions in Brussels,
there is talk of "populists, xenophobes, extremists, fascists"
gaining around 30% of seats in the next parliament and using that platform to
try to paralyse EU policy-making.
"This is a historical day. Today is the beginning of
the liberation from the European elite, the monster in Brussels," declared
Wilders after meeting Le Pen in the Dutch parliament in The Hague. "We
want to decide how we control our borders, our money, our economy, our
currency."
The aim of the electoral alliance appears to be to form a
Trojan horse in Brussels and Strasbourg: a large parliamentary caucus dedicated
to wrecking the very institution that the far-right has entered. To qualify for
caucus status, the new group needs at least 25 MEPs from seven countries, which
they will get easily on current poll projections, although it is not clear if
they can yet muster seven national parties.
"We want to give freedom back to our people," said
Le Pen. "Our old European nations are forced to ask the authorisation of
Brussels in all circumstances, forced to submit their budget to the
headmistress."
Both politicians are currently riding high in the polls in
their own countries. A poll last month in France put the Front National at 24%
ahead of the governing Socialists and the mainstream conservatives. Wilders'
Freedom party, while suffering setbacks in elections last year, is currently
leading in Dutch opinion polls.
Eurosceptic parties or those actively committed to wrecking
the EU and to ditching the single currency are also expected to do well in
Greece, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Poland and elsewhere in eastern Europe, while
Nigel Farage's UK Independence party is being tipped as a possible winner of
European elections in Britain.
"As a result of the economic fallout from the eurozone
debt crisis, populist parties on both right and left have seen and will likely
realise a significant surge in their popularity," said analysts at the
Eurasia Group. "The crisis has provided populist and nationalist parties
with an excellent opportunity to clean up and modernise their rhetoric.
Political parties hitherto thought of as 'nasty' or 'racist' can no longer be
considered so."
The pact sealed in The Hague is a big boost for Le Pen who
is successfully developing a more moderate image distanced from the overt
antisemitism of her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, and for her campaign to form a
broader "European Alliance for Freedom" on the nationalist right.
The effort to pool policies and campaigns has foundered in
the past because the various nationalists invariably find enemies in other
nations and because far-right parties tend to be dominated by leaders enjoying
a cult of personality.
The aim of the Franco-Dutch alliance is to bring in Sweden's
Democrats, also rising in the polls, the anti-immigration Danish People's
party, Austria's Freedom party of Heinz-Christian Strache, which took more than
20% in recent national elections, and the rightwing Flemish separatists of
Vlaams Belang.
By forming a new caucus in the European parliament, the
group would gain access to funding, committee seats and chairs, and much more
prominent chamber speaking rights. Farage, leading a caucus of 33 MEPs, has
exploited the opportunity deftly to raise his European and national profile.
Wilders said they wanted UKIP to join, but Farage has said
he will not collaborate with Le Pen because of the Front National's reputation
for antisemitism.
There are also several major policy differences that Wilders
and Le Pen appeared to be burying on Wednesday which are likely to resurface.
Coming from the Dutch libertarian tradition, Wilders is strongly pro-Israel,
pro-gay, pro-women's rights. The Front National is seen as homophobic, anti-gay
marriage, and no friend of Israel.
The two big policy areas they have in common are
anti-immigration and anti-EU.
They have ruled out collaborating with more overtly
fascistic parties such as Golden Dawn in Greece and Jobbik in Hungary.
The attempt at a concerted campaign comes as support for the
EU is haemmorhaging across Europe.
Gallup Europe, following polling in September, found that
only 30% viewed the EU positively compared to 70% 20 years ago, and concluded
that "the European project has never in its history been as
unpopular".
Even in traditionally pro-EU countries, such as Germany,
support is atrophying. It remained high among older people but the 25-50 age
group was split 50-50 between EU supporters and opponents. Across the EU,
eurosceptics outnumbered EU-supporters by 43-40%.
A new study by Mark Leonard and Jose Ignacio Torreblanca for
the European Council on Foreign Relations identified five "cleavages
feeding centrifugal tendencies in the EU".
The European elections "will be held against a
background of economic crisis and loss of confidence in Europe as a political
project," the authors found, pointing to the possibility of a "Tea
party-like scenario" in which eurosceptic parties capture a large quota of
the seats, turn the institution into a "self-hating parliament" which
is then "effectively prevented from acting".
A massive rise in immigration next year could trigger a
devastating crisis in Britain's schools, housing and welfare services,
according to a secret Government report leaked to The Mail on Sunday.
The number of Europeans who have moved to better off
countries in the north to find work has doubled since the economic crises first
hit four years ago, with Britain and Germany topping the list of choices
Por Isabel Arriaga e Cunha, Bruxelas / in Público
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Ukip Leader Nigel Farage poses inside a Ukip-branded cab.
Photograph: London News Pictures/REX
"All three
mainstream parties are terrified of Ukip, and aware of the state of public
opinion. Next September's referendum on whether the people of Scotland want to
stay in the United Kingdom will further test the depth of separatist
tendencies. Then will come a general election campaign in which the main
parties, again, will have one eye on Nigel Farage's party when drawing up their
manifestos. Pro-EU campaign statements will be in short supply."
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Is Britain sleepwalking towards a European exit?
An Observer poll conducted in four countries reveals the
widening gulf between Britain and the rest of the EU. And on both sides of the
Channel, attitudes seem to be hardening
Toby Helm, political editor
The Observer, Saturday 30 November 2013/ http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/30/britain-european-exit-poll-gulf-eu-attitudes
Slowly but surely, Britain is detaching itself from the
European project, slipping into an EU membership category of its own, one
marked "outlier nation". That, at least, was the impression left by
statements emanating from a European Union summit in the Lithuanian capital,
Vilnius, on Friday, where the UK's reputation as the club's most awkward and
unhappy member was underlined yet again.
It is also the clear lesson from a landmark four-nation poll
of attitudes to Europe carried out by Opinium in the UK, Germany, France and
Poland and published by the Observer.
The survey shows not only that British people regard the EU
much more negatively than do citizens of other countries, but also that the
citizens of other EU nations think Britain brings few benefits to the union. As
a result, more people on the continent seem happy to see us leave than seem
keen for us stay. That, in itself, should worry pro-Europeans profoundly.
Exchanges at the Vilnius summit gave glimpses of the current
state of relations between Britain and its partners. The so-called Visegrád
Four – Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary – posed as the true
Europeans as they tore into David Cameron in a statement, reacting to his calls
for tougher rules to prevent mass migration within the EU.
The four insisted that eastern Europeans, rather than being
a drain on the UK economy and scrounging from the British benefits system, were
in fact harder workers and more productive than many Britons. "They are
younger and economically more active than the average British workforce; they
also contribute to UK national revenues far in excess of the social benefits
they use," they said. They also accused Cameron of adopting a selective
approach to core EU principles, such as freedom of movement across borders.
Separately, Romania's prime minister, Victor Ponta, reacted
to Cameron's pledge of tough new welfare rules for EU migrants, including those
expected to arrive in Britain from his country from 1 January, by saying:
"We will not accept being treated as second-rate citizens." Britain
has always been involved in rows in Europe, but now such talk is more
commonplace. Earlier this year, France's foreign minister, Laurent Fabius,
adopted a lofty Gallic tone towards Cameron and Britain. "You can't do
Europe à la carte," he said. "I'll take an example which our British
friends will understand: let's imagine Europe is a football club and you join, but
once you're in it you can't say 'let's play rugby'."
Fabius spoke out after the prime minister pledged that if
the Tories won a majority in 2015, he would seek to re-define the terms of UK
membership and then hold an in/out referendum in which the people would be
asked to approve or reject membership on the new terms, by the end of 2017.
For France and Germany, whatever their differences over the
future of the EU – and there have always been many – the political consensus
about Europe has held firm between them for well over 60 years. From the
founding fathers, who formed the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951,
insisting that the pooling of resources would "make war not only
unthinkable but materially impossible", to the former German chancellor
Helmut Kohl, who described the EU as "a matter of war and peace in the
21st century", to Angela Merkel today, European integration has remained
not just an economic cause for the mutual benefit of neighbour nations, but an
underlying moral imperative. New members in eastern Europe such as Poland have
their concerns, but are broadly very content to be inside.
With the UK it is different. We have always been suspicious
but now we seem borderline hostile, and the feeling is mutual. The survey of
more than 2,000 people in the UK and over 1,000 in each of Germany,
France and Poland, shows a clear parting of the ways. Just 26% of Britons think
the EU is, overall, a "good thing" compared with 62% of Poles, 55% of
Germans and 36% of French.
Accompanying this anti-EU feeling is an ingrained cultural
resistance to the European ideal and the very idea of being European. Just 14%
of UK people polled say they regard themselves as European, compared with 48%
of Poles, 39% of Germans and 34% of French. Whereas most people in Germany,
France and Poland name a fellow European country as their closest ally, the
British name fellow English-speaking nations: 33% named the US, 31% Australia
and 23% Canada.
Equally striking, in the context of Cameron's attempts to
negotiate a new deal for the UK, attitudes to British membership are pretty
negative among our partners, who will have to sign off on any future special
terms of membership we may want to agree. When asked whether the UK is a
positive force in the EU, just 9% of Germans, 15% of French and 33% of Poles
say it is. Opposition to giving the UK special membership terms is strongest in
Germany, where 44% are against and 16% in favour, with 26% of the French in
favour and 36% against. In Poland there is more support, with 38% in favour and
23% against.
Even the prospect of the UK leaving the EU – an outcome that
would destabilise the community profoundly – does not seem to worry most German
or French people too much. Ever-closer union can live on without the UK. Just
24% of French respondents say a British exit would have a negative effect on
the EU, compared with 36% of Germans. Poles were more concerned, with 51%
saying the effect would be negative.
The picture is not one of uniform enthusiasm for the EU in
the other three countries, and blanket hostility towards the EU in the UK. The
polling shows very high levels of concern about the EU's effect on immigration
among French and German citizens, as well as among the British: 64% of British
people say they regard the EU as having a negative impact on immigration, with
59% of French people and 42% of Germans saying the same. Only 20% of Poles
regard the effect on immigration as negative.
And when it comes to the ability to travel easily to other
EU nations, even the British are strongly in favour, with 56% saying it is
positive and 6% taking a negative view.
On the EU's role in environmental policy, opinion in the UK
is quite evenly split, with 34% viewing it positively and 30% saying it is
negative. On foreign policy, 22% of Britons are in favour of what the EU does,
while 35% are negative.
The gulf between British and German views about Europe's
role is demonstrated, perhaps most starkly of all, by the findings on foreign
policy: 49% of Germans regard the EU's involvement in foreign affairs as a good
thing, against just 10% who are against.
As the UK prepares to admit Romanians and Bulgarians to work
and live here from January 1, before European elections next May in which the
anti-EU Ukip party is expected to perform strongly, it is difficult to see how
the pro-European argument will be able, easily, to break through in the months
to come. All three mainstream parties are terrified of Ukip, and aware of the
state of public opinion. Next September's referendum on whether the people of
Scotland want to stay in the United Kingdom will further test the depth of
separatist tendencies. Then will come a general election campaign in which the
main parties, again, will have one eye on Nigel Farage's party when drawing up
their manifestos. Pro-EU campaign statements will be in short supply.
Last week, the former Tory prime minister Sir John Major
said it would be a "truly dreadful outcome for everyone" if Britain
were ever to leave the EU.
With opinion as it is, here and in other EU countries, it is
also an outcome that now seems entirely possible
 |
Shock four-country poll reveals widening gulf between
Britain and EUPoll of France
Germany, Poland and the UK shows British hostile to EU, and
other nations hostile to Britain
Toby Helm, political editor
The Observer, Sunday 1 December 2013/ http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/30/shock-poll-reveals-gulf-britain-eu-france-germany-poland-hostile
A powerful cross-party alliance including former Tory
foreign secretary Malcolm Rifkind and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg is
calling for an urgent fightback against spiralling anti-European sentiment as a
new four-nation poll suggests the UK could be heading out of the EU.
The landmark survey of more than 5,000 voters in the UK,
Germany, France and Poland finds British people far more hostile to the EU and
its policies than those in the other EU states, and strikingly low support for
British membership among people on the continent.
At the same time, the total numbers of people in Germany and
France who support giving Britain a special deal on membership to satisfy
British opinion are heavily outnumbered by those who oppose doing so, which
suggests that David Cameron may struggle to achieve his hoped-for tailor-made
arrangement for the UK.
Testing cultural opinions, the poll finds very few British
people choose to describe themselves as European. In other EU nations,
enthusiasm for the concept of Europeanism is far higher.
Opinium found that just 26% of British voters regard the EU
as, overall, a "good thing" compared with 42% who say it is a
"bad thing". In Poland 62% say it is a good thing and 13% bad; in
Germany 55% good and 17% bad, and in France 36% good and 34% bad.
When asked about the UK's contribution to the EU, there is
little enthusiasm among our partners, and little to suggest they will go out of
their way to keep us in. Just 9% of Germans and 15% of French people think the
UK is a positive influence on the EU, with more Poles, 33%, taking that view.
Only 16% of Germans and 26% of French people back the idea
of a special deal being struck for the UK. Cameron has said he intends to
renegotiate the UK terms of entry and hold an in/out referendum if he wins a
majority at the next election, offering the new arrangement to the British
people in a referendum.
The idea of Britain leaving the EU does not appear to worry
our European partners unduly. Just 24% of French voters said a UK exit would
have a negative effect, compared with 36% of Germans and 51% of Poles.
Rifkind said: "There needs to be a serious debate about
the real benefits of – as well as the real problems about – British membership
of the EU. Without it we could do serious damage to Britain's interests."
Clegg said next year's European elections represented a key
test and attacked those intent on taking Britain out of the EU. He said:
"Everybody knows the EU needs reform. But simply carping from the
sidelines and flirting with exit undermines British leadership in the EU, fails
to deliver reform and leaves Britain increasingly isolated. The debate about
Europe is no longer about who is for or against reform – everybody agrees on
that – it is between those who believe we can lead in the EU and those who want
to head for the exit.
"That's why next year's elections will be so important:
the Liberal Democrats will be the leading party of 'in'. It's time we
challenged Ukip and large swaths of the Conservative party who want to betray
Britain's vital national interest by pulling us out of the world's largest
borderless single market, on which millions of jobs depend."
Labour MP and former Europe minister Peter Hain urged
pro-Europeans to stand up and fight: "This is a wake-up call for British
pro-Europeans that Britain – especially if the Tories win the next election –
is heading for an exit from the EU which would be an utter disaster for British
jobs, prosperity and influence in the world. But it is equally a wake-up call
for the Brussels Bubble, which is totally out of touch with Europe's
citizens."
The poll shows concern about immigration to be almost as
high in France as in the UK. In Britain, 64% of voters think the EU's
immigration policies have a negative effect; 59% say the same in France.
It also reveals that more UK voters feel an affinity with
the US than with their European neighbours, whereas our EU partners tend to
choose other EU nations. When asked who they would generally support on
occasions when there was a disagreement between the US and EU countries, 37% of
UK respondent said they would tend to support America; just 10% would generally
side with Europe.
British people are not negative about everything the EU
does: 54% think free movement rules are good for tourism against 6% who think
the reverse. There is also strong endorsement for free-trade benefits. Nearly
half of those polled say the absence of customs controls and tariffs on goods
and services is an advantage. Only 10% see free trade as a disadvantage.
Ukip leader Nigel Farage said: "This is a fascinating
and comprehensive study into the relative relationships between countries
within and about the EU. We, on these islands feel, due to our history as a
globally trading nation, much more at home with our cousins in the Anglosphere
than we do with our friends on the continent."
Grã-Bretanha teme crise devastadora nos serviços sociais
Por Diogo Vaz Pinto
publicado em 5 Dez 2013/ in (jornal) i online
Relatório secreto do Ministério do Interior traça
prognóstico catastrófico
O aumento em massa da imigração esperado para o próximo ano
poderá desencadear uma crise devastadora para o sistema escolar e para os
programas de habitação e segurança social britânicos, segundo um documento
secreto divulgado pelo jornal "The Mail".
O relatório revela que todos os departamentos governamentais
receberam instruções para elaborar planos de emergência comportando muitos
milhões de libras depois de ser avisado de que os seus serviços públicos
poderiam ser precipitados numa situação de catástrofe em resultado da chegada
de centenas de milhares de cidadãos da Europa de Leste ao Reino Unido. O
documento alerta para uma possível "mudança radical" nos números da
migração no ano que vem e como isto pode causar grande instabilidade social,
provocando uma reacção de ódio em todo o país.
A revelação foi feita no mesmo dia em que o jornal
desenvolveu a questão da migração, explicando que a perspectiva de abandono
está a causar conflitos sociais tanto nos países de Leste como na Grã-Bretanha.
As reportagens entretanto publicadas falam em casos de polacos que estão a
abandonar crianças em lares de adopção para se libertarem e poderem partir para
o Reino Unido. Algumas destas crianças terão mesmo chegado a suicidar-se depois
de serem deixadas para trás.
Quanto ao relatório secreto, escrito pela ministra do
Interior Joan Ryan, em claro contraste com as repetidas garantias do governo de
que a questão da migração está sob controlo, multiplica-se em alertas e detecta
uma série de áreas que poderão enfrentar desafios tremendos no esforço para
integrar uma hipotética vaga reforçada de estrangeiros em busca de trabalho e
melhores condições de vida.
Da necessidade de contratar um exército de professores de
Inglês para ensinar um crescente número de crianças de Leste ao risco de os
migrantes com vidas mais duras se tornarem bêbados e agirem de forma violenta,
inundando os albergues para os sem-abrigo, ao perigo de o influxo de
mão-de-obra barata forçar os trabalhadores britânicos a aceitarem cortes
salariais - o que, por sua vez, tem "implicações graves" em termos de
tensão social -, o documento faz um prognóstico ominoso do impacto da migração
no Reino Unido ao longo do próximo ano.
Secret report warns of migration meltdown in Britain
By SIMON WALTERS, Daily Mail / http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-398232/Secret-report-warns-migration-meltdown-Britain.html#
The document reveals that every Government department has
been ordered to draw up multi-million-pound emergency plans after being told
public services face catastrophe as a result of the hundreds of thousands of
Eastern Europeans pouring into Britain.
Special investigation
• Polish children dumped by parents heading for Britain
It also warns that a 'step change' in the level of
immigration next year could make things even worse, triggering an angry
backlash across the country.
The disclosure comes as The Mail on Sunday reveals that the
new wave of immigration is causing as much social strife in Eastern Europe as
it is in Britain.
Our investigation found Poles are dumping children in local
care homes so they can travel to Britain. Some reportedly killed themselves
after being left behind.
The leaked document, written by Home Office Minister Joan
Ryan, is entitled Migration From Eastern Europe: Impact On Public Services And
Community Cohesion.
In stark contrast to the Government's repeated assurances
that immigration is under control, it warns:
• Ministers may be forced to abandon their refusal to grant
council houses and welfare benefits to workshy new arrivals, creating what Ms
Ryan describes as an extra 'pull factor' attracting further immigrants seeking
handouts.
• A new army of English language teachers is required to
deal with a huge rise in the number of Eastern European children since last
September.
• East European immigrants living rough are becoming drunk
and aggressive, and flooding homeless hostels.
• The influx of cheap labour is forcing British workers to
take pay cuts with 'serious implications' for social tension.
• East European patients are 'blocking' hospital beds
because they are ineligible for social care and benefits if they leave.
• Towns and cities hit hardest by the new immigration are
demanding millions of pounds of extra money to cope.
The document, marked 'restricted', was written by Ms Ryan on
July 19, the day after she submitted a separate report warning that 45,000
'undesirable' migrants from Romania and Bulgaria may settle in the UK when the
two nations join the EU next year.
The number of immigrants to Britain since Poland and seven
other East European countries joined the EU two years ago is now put at
600,000, compared with the Government's original prediction of between 5,000
and 13,000 a
year. Ministers expect this number to rise by up to another 140,000 next year.
Warning of potential chaos for schools, housing and health,
Ms Ryan's report says: "All departments have been asked to consider
contingency plans...in case of a further step change in the number of new
migrants."
One of her biggest fears is that the courts may force the
Government to scrap its restrictions on East European immigrants applying for
council houses or benefits. At present, they receive some benefits only if they
register for work - which one in three don't do - and earn full benefit rights
after they have worked for a year.
Ms Ryan says: "The legal basis for this is precarious
and there is a strong risk of a successful challenge. This is a concern."
Many East European immigrants end up homeless, partly because
of the welfare curbs. "This leads to antisocial behaviour, street drinking
and aggressive begging' as well as 'tensions' between vagrants, the report
warns. One in six places in homeless hostels in London is now taken up by
Eastern Europeans, who often arrive with no plans for a job or home.
Ms Ryan says some councils are demanding an end to the ban
on housing and other benefits so they can get people off the street. But the
report warns that dropping the restrictions could create a new 'pull factor for
people to come to the UK unprepared for work'.
Areas with the most East European arrivals - including
Slough and parts of London - are demanding more cash for public services, says
the report.
And schools desperately need more help following a sudden
rise in the number of East European children, many of whom do not speak
English. Some primary schools have accommodated up to 50 extra Polish children
in one term.
Ms Ryan calls for action - and cash - to recruit extra
English language teachers. "Schools often find it hard...because of large
numbers of new arrivals," her report said.
The document says foreign workers have helped fill jobs
other workers refused to do. But it adds: "There is anecdotal evidence,
particularly from Southampton, a port of entry for Eastern Europeans, that the
effect of migration...has been to depress wages for low-paid workers. If this
were widely true, or that perception were to spread widely, the implications
for community cohesion would be potentially serious."
There were few signs of social disorder involving Eastern
European workers but they "feature increasingly in tension reports...and
were a recurrent grievance in far-right extremists' material during recent
(local) elections".
Some migrants are living in hospitals and mental health
units because "there is no ability to provide access to benefits or
housing in which on-going care duties could be met".
In conclusion Ms Ryan says: "There are areas in which
strains are evident."
Despite the Government's underestimate of the number of
migrants, public services had generally coped, the report concluded. But the
expected influx of Romanians and Bulgarians meant that this "optimistic
assessment may not continue to hold good in, say, a year's time".
 |
A Grã Bretanha fecha-se sobre si mesma.
Prelúdio anunciador de futura Europa dividida em “castas”
determinadas pelo PIB ?
Início do fim do Sonho Europeu baseado numa unidade Cultural
e de Solidariedade entre os Povos? A eclosão de Nacionalismos separatistas
baseados em ressentimentos e temores excitados por populismos, assimilados
pelos Partidos “Clássicos”?
A Europa Social e Humanista
não acompanhou a Europa Económica.
A Obsessão financeira/contabilista, e a sua reduçào da muito
mais vasta Ciência Económica a um especialismo Neo-Liberal, está a destruir o
tecido social e o sonhado Projecto Europeu.
O Voo do Corvo publica o artigo original do tablóide
populista inglês, em que o Jornal I baseia o seu artigo, além de um artigo de
opinião de um jornalista da CNN.
António Sérgio Rosa de Carvalho. |
Portugueses, Espanhóis e Italianos ... ainda bem-vindos ?
UK's message to immigrants: Stay out By Ruben Navarrette,
CNN Contributor
October 24, 2013 -- / http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/24/opinion/navarrette-anti-immigration-uk/
Editor's note: Ruben Navarrette is a CNN contributor and a
nationally syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group. Follow
him on Twitter @rubennavarrette.
San Diego (CNN) -- Just this summer, the British government
was directly targeting illegal immigrants with a campaign that turned heads,
and, in many cases, turned stomachs.
In an initiative designed to persuade illegal immigrants to
pack up and voluntarily return to their home countries, officials deployed two
trucks to drive around London for a week. Each vehicle carried a large
billboard with the message: "In the UK illegally? Go home or face
arrest." Then it offered instructions to text the word "home" to
a government-run number for "free advice and help with travel
documents."
What was the free advice? Sounded like "Get the hell
out!" Not exactly the Welcome Wagon, was it? The campaign stirred up so
much public outcry that the government backtracked and decided to keep the
trucks in the garage.
But there's more, and it's still happening. According to a
recent article in The Wall Street Journal, the Conservative Party of Prime
Minister David Cameron has pledged to reduce annual net migration to the United
Kingdom. For the British, the problem is Eastern Europeans. The annual figure
of newcomers is about 200,000. The conservatives want to bring it down to the
tens of thousands.
This is just plain foolish. Just who does the British
government think is going to swoop in and take over the jobs that are left
behind if immigrants are run off? British citizens? Not blooming likely. By
now, several generations of British citizens have grown up thinking of these
kinds of jobs as beneath them and themselves as entitled to better. They're not
going to miraculously change their way of thinking and find their way back to
this kind of work just because the immigrants are gone.
European countries -- Great Britain, France, Germany, etc.
-- don't have the best track record of dealing with racial and ethnic
differences. Besides, it's not every day that a country puts up a "no
vacancy" sign to keep out even those immigrants who come legally. Most
countries like to at least maintain the pretense that they only have a problem
with illegal entrants. If nothing else, this approach is refreshingly honest.
It seems that Americans haven't exactly cornered the market
on bigotry and xenophobia.
Sure, we have our own peculiar issues with the foreign-born.
It's not easy being a nation of immigrants that has, in reality, always
despised immigrants. It's tough being a country that boasts about its
diversity, and then does everything it can to boil it away in the fabled
melting pot.
But we Americans are not alone in our narrow-mindedness.
Just about every industrialized country on the globe vacillates between needing
immigrants to do jobs that natives won't do and resenting the changes that
immigrants bring with them.
Parts of the immigration debate playing out on the national
and international stage are complicated. And yet this part is simple: Countries
that encourage legal immigration, and make the process easier, will thrive.
Those that pull up the drawbridge and put up barriers to keep out even
immigrants who try to enter legally will founder.
Who says? Economists say so. Life experience says so. U.S.
history says so. World history says so.
This is true of legal immigrants whether they come from
China, Vietnam, India, Brazil or any other country.
Yet it is also the case with illegal immigrants, as former
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan made clear in April 2009 when he
testified before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and
Border Security.
Greenspan said illegal immigration make a
"significant" contribution to U.S. economic growth by providing a
flexible workforce and that illegal immigrants act as a "safety
valve" for the economy since demand for workers goes up and down.
"There is little doubt that unauthorized, that is,
illegal, immigration has made a significant contribution to the growth of our
economy," Greenspan said in calling for an overhaul of U.S. immigration
laws.
We can assume Cameron's government didn't get the news.
After those trucks drove around six areas of London,
humanitarian organizations, opposition parties and labor groups in the United
Kingdom complained that the tactics were offensive and heavy-handed. They said
they harked back to an ugly time in British history when nativist groups had much
greater sway in the halls of government.
What a shame that this is what has become of a once-great
nation and one of the world's great superpowers. Now the United Kingdom is in a
defensive stance, trying to ward off invaders and hold on to what it has.
Contrast all this with what is happening in Israel. Consider
the diversity of the tech corridor in Tel Aviv, where some of Silicon Valley's
most successful companies come to poach workers and invest venture capital.
Everywhere you go, you're reminded that Israel is one of the most diverse
nations in the world and one with a proud immigrant tradition.
Israeli officials will tell you, without hesitation, that
much of what has been accomplished in the country's lifespan of only 65 years
can be attributed to the fact that this tiny country benefits from immigrants
and draws the best and brightest from around the world.
Of course, no nation is perfect. The Israelis have their own
problems with immigration. They struggle with the challenge of assimilation of
refugees from Sudan and Ethiopia. But still, they understand the restorative
power of immigration.
Meanwhile, at least the United Kingdom's government realized
the error of its ways when it shelved the billboards. Government officials
acknowledged that the message was too blunt and the results unconvincing.
Score one for decency and common sense. Don't you just love
it when old Europe learns a new way of thinking ?
Um homem só no topo da Europa
A um ano do fim do seu segundo mandato em Bruxelas, o
presidente da Comissão Europeia tem sido visado com uma salva inédita de
críticas, sobretudo de Paris e Berlim. Algumas são inerentes ao cargo, outras
resultam da sua fragilidade
Não há memória de tamanha barragem de críticas contra um
presidente da Comissão Europeia como a que foi desencadeada nas últimas semanas
contra o actual titular do cargo, José Manuel Durão Barroso.
Os ataques têm sido particularmente virulentos a partir de
França e Alemanha, os dois colossos determinantes de todos os sucessos e
fracassos da União Europeia (UE) e sem os quais nada é possível.
Em Berlim, a impaciência contra Bruxelas é notória,
sobretudo pelo que é visto como uma total incapacidade da Comissão para
conceber e propor soluções para a crise económica e desemprego cada vez mais
graves nos países periféricos.
Em Paris, a artilharia contra Barroso foi particularmente
pesada nos últimos dias, com Arnaud Montebourg ministro da Recuperação
Industrial, a acusá-lo de ser o "combustível" da extrema-direita, e
Nicole Bricq, ministra do Comércio, a considerar que o presidente da Comissão
"não fez nada neste mandato".
Enquanto o Governo alemão tem procurado, a pedido expresso
de Barroso, acalmar o jogo com moles desmentidos públicos do que é dito em
privado por vários altos responsáveis, François Hollande, Presidente francês,
não levantou um dedo para calar os seus ministros. Pelo contrário: o Governo
apoia "a substância" dos comentários de Montebourg, sublinhou esta
semana a porta-voz do Governo, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem.
A fúria francesa foi desencadeada pelo termo
"reaccionário" usado por Barroso para qualificar a exigência nacional
de proteger a "excepção cultural" europeia do acordo de comércio
livre com os Estados Unidos, para permitir a Paris continuar a subsidiar a
produção musical e cinematográfica gaulesa.
Em Berlim, mesmo se o estado de espírito contra Barroso é menos
bélico, a irritação não é menor. Subitamente, os alemães aperceberam-se de que
estão a ser acusados de todos os males que afectam os Estados do Sul, e
trataram de se distanciar do tipo de austeridade que está a ser imposta aos
países sob programa de ajuda externa, como Portugal e Grécia.
Para os alemães, esta austeridade é uma responsabilidade da
troika de credores europeus e do FMI encarregada de negociar e vigiar a
execução dos programas de ajustamento económico e financeiro que constituem a
contrapartida da ajuda.
Estas receitas, acusam altos responsáveis alemães, baseadas
sobretudo em aumentos de impostos para baixar os défices orçamentais em vez de
reformas estruturais para modernizar as economias, são totalmente erradas e
contraproducentes.
Dentro da troika, Berlim visa particularmente a Comissão
Europeia que é, de facto, a sua instituição-líder e aquela que deveria ter uma
leitura mais política dos processos de ajustamento dos países ajudados.
O presidente da Comissão procura defender-se lembrando que
são os Estados que tomam as decisões europeias, incluindo sobre os programas de
ajuda. Formalmente é verdade, mas, na prática, nenhum ministro das Finanças leu
alguma vez as centenas de páginas dos relatórios fornecidos todos os trimestres
pela troika sobre a execução de cada um dos programas de ajuda: basta-lhes ler
as conclusões para saberem se os países estão ou não no bom caminho e poderem
libertar a parcela seguinte dos empréstimos (desbloqueados ao ritmo das
necessidades nacionais de financiamento).
O que é inédito na actual vaga de críticas ao presidente da
Comissão é a violência, a simultaneidade franco-alemã, mas, sobretudo, o facto
de não se ter ouvido uma voz que seja em toda a Europa para o defender.
Comissão impopular
Parte da explicação desta irritação está no código genético
da instituição: por definição, a Comissão Europeia e o seu presidente raramente
são populares nos Estados-membros. Esta animosidade tem a ver com o facto de
ter sido concebida na fundação da UE para sobrepor um interesse europeu
supostamente superior e de longo prazo aos interesses imediatos e
eleitoralistas dos Estados, sempre na perspectiva da construção de uma União
"cada vez mais estreita" entre os povos da Europa.
Por via desta missão particular, a Comissão é a única
instituição comunitária com o poder de apresentar propostas legislativas
viradas para o bem comum europeu. Cabe-lhe, igualmente, impor o cumprimento das
decisões tomadas sobre as suas propostas pelo conselho de ministros dos 27
Estados, cada vez mais em "co-decisão" com o Parlamento Europeu.
Por estas razões, não é difícil de perceber que os Governos
resistam a que lhes seja imposto do "exterior" o que devem fazer,
desde a gestão dos orçamentos à redução das emissões de CO2 dos automóveis,
mesmo que tenham sido eles a decidir as regras.
Com a crise do euro e o reforço feito à pressa de alguma
coordenação das políticas económicas para evitar um endividamento excessivo dos
Estados, os Governos aceitaram transferir mais competências para Bruxelas. Só
que, quando a Comissão as exerce, vários, a começar pelos franceses,
revoltam-se.
Bruxelas tem outro sério problema, que é a falta de
legitimidade política: os membros da Comissão são nomeados pelos Governos (um
por cada Estado), sendo o presidente vagamente confirmado por um voto no
Parlamento Europeu.
Barroso tem um problema adicional próprio resultante de ter
sido uma "criação" do ex-primeiro-ministro britânico Tony Blair, com
o apoio do italiano Silvio Berlusconi e do espanhol José Maria Aznar - a
coligação "pró-invasão americana do Iraque" de 2003 - para travar a
ascensão do candidato franco-alemão: o então primeiro-ministro belga Guy
Verhofstadt, um "federalista" europeu convicto e parte do grupo dos
opositores à guerra.
Para Blair, Barroso era o candidato ideal para fazer a
"ponte" entre os dois grupos de países, por ter integrado
parcialmente a coligação pró-guerra com a cimeira dos Açores, embora sem ter
enviado tropas para o Iraque.
A versão oficial de que Barroso foi um "coelho"
tirado do chapéu à última hora para desbloquear o impasse gerado pelo veto
britânico a Verhofstadt é um mito há muito desmontado: a sua candidatura foi
meticulosamente preparada pela "coligação pró-guerra" durante vários
meses e com a sua participação directa.
Apesar de profundamente contrariados, o então Presidente
francês, Jacques Chirac, e o chanceler alemão, Gerard Schröder, não ousaram
agravar a crise europeia do momento com um veto ao português.
O problema é que, nove anos depois, e apesar das mudanças
políticas em Paris e Berlim, Barroso nunca conseguiu cair nas boas graças dos
seus líderes.
A sua confirmação para um segundo mandato em 2009 resultou
apenas da falta de alternativas capazes de satisfazer 27 países, mas, também,
da vontade de franceses e alemães de manterem em Bruxelas um presidente fraco
para poderem gerir a Europa como muito bem entendessem. O que jamais se
coibiram de fazer.
No início do segundo mandato, em 2010, Barroso foi
confrontado com o problema adicional da nomeação de um novo presidente do
Conselho Europeu - as cimeiras de chefes de Estado ou de Governo da UE -, cargo
criado no Tratado de Lisboa, para, precisamente, fragilizar o presidente da
Comissão. De chefe incontestado da "Europa", Barroso passou a ter de
partilhar os holofotes com um concorrente directo, o ex-primeiro-ministro belga
Herman Van Rompuy, cujo gabinete está instalado a 50 metros do seu, separado
apenas por uma rua.
Barroso nunca se conformou com uma concorrência que, de
facto, diminuiu o seu estatuto junto dos líderes da UE, onde é Van Rompuy que
impera. Em Berlim, sobretudo, o presidente da Comissão é acusado de passar o
essencial do seu tempo em lutas de poder com o belga, em vez de se ocupar a
repor a economia europeia nos carris.
Curiosamente, Barroso teve a possibilidade, no fim do seu
primeiro mandato, em 2009, de atravessar a rua para se tornar no primeiro
presidente do Conselho Europeu, quando os Governos da UE estavam à procura de
um nome. Os seus próximos aconselharam-no a fazê-lo, por conhecerem a sua
aversão à tecnicidade extrema dos temas que a Comissão tem de enfrentar todos
os dias, à gestão dos mais de 30 mil eurocratas e à arbitragem permanente das
sensibilidades dos Estados.
Do que Barroso gosta mesmo, dizem os seus próximos, é das
actividades de representação externa da UE: é nas grandes cimeiras
internacionais, com Barack Obama ou Vladimir Putin, que ele "está no seu
elemento", refere uma fonte europeia.
Quis fazer como Delors
Por que é que Barroso não mudou de cargo? Segundo um
responsável europeu que acompanhou todo o processo, porque quis, acima de tudo,
seguir as pisadas de Jacques Delors, o seu mítico antecessor com quem,
paradoxalmente, odeia ser comparado. Tendo Delors sido o único presidente da
Comissão a exercer dois mandatos (e meio), Barroso quis ficar na história pelas
mesmas razões.
O problema é que, na comparação inevitável com Delors,
Barroso perde em toda a linha.
Tal como o actual presidente, Delors também foi uma segunda
escolha dos Estados e, quando foi nomeado, não beneficiava de uma estima
particular em Paris e Berlim. O ex-ministro francês das Finanças conseguiu, no
entanto, conquistar rapidamente a confiança do então Presidente francês
François Mitterrand, e do chanceler alemão, Helmut Kohl, não pelos seus olhos,
mas pela sua visão da Europa, pelas suas ideias sobre o que fazer e como - do
mercado interno à moeda única - e pela sua extraordinária capacidade de
compreensão e de resolução das dificuldades dos Estados.
A grande força de Delors assentava, igualmente, no facto de
conhecer a fundo todas as áreas de intervenção da Comissão e de se ter apoiado
na grande qualidade dos funcionários da instituição, incentivando em
permanência o debate e a criatividade internas e procurando regularmente nos
serviços os eurocratas mais capazes de executar as suas ideias, sem se ofuscar
com as hierarquias.
A "Comissão Barroso" é precisamente o oposto,
assentando numa gestão presidencialista e totalmente hierarquizada, em que o
debate real e sobretudo contraditório é quase inexistente e a iniciativa
fortemente desencorajada. Com a agravante de que, nove anos depois da chegada
de Barroso a Bruxelas, ninguém é capaz de lhe identificar uma visão clara para
a Europa.
"Camaleão"
O rótulo de "camaleão" que lhe foi colado à pele
no Parlamento Europeu logo nos primeiros meses, em 2004, devido à sua
extraordinária capacidade de mudar de posição e de discurso em função do
interlocutor, mantém-se actual em 2013.
Delors deve igualmente grande parte do seu sucesso à
verdadeira equipa de choque de colaboradores de cinco estrelas de que se
rodeou. Ao invés, a equipa de Barroso - salvaguardando algumas excepções - é
motivo de consternação e até galhofa em Bruxelas, Paris e Berlim.
Por causa da sua aversão aos detalhes técnicos, é acusado em
Lisboa, Atenas e Dublin de evitar interferir nos programas de ajuda, deixando
os técnicos da Comissão das troikas em roda livre e sem o enquadramento político
necessário para evitar as receitas que estão a asfixiar algumas destas
económicas. A mesma crítica é ouvida em Berlim.
Como não dispõe de uma "opinião pública" própria a
que se possa dirigir, Barroso dificilmente se pode defender dos ataques. Para
isso precisa de passar pela intermediação do corpo de jornalistas - o maior do
mundo - acreditado em Bruxelas. Mas Barroso, que vive mal com a crítica, tem
uma má relação com parte da imprensa, o que reforça o seu isolamento.
O resultado é que, em grande parte devido à sua fragilidade,
o presidente da Comissão se tornou no bode expiatório perfeito para todas as
dificuldades e frustrações dos Estados.
O pior é que neste processo de atribuição de culpas, por
muito violento que seja, a procissão ainda vai no adro: na contagem decrescente
para as eleições europeias de Maio de 2014, Barroso vai ser sempre, e cada vez
mais, a vítima ideal para todos os extremistas, populistas e eurocépticos que,
ninguém duvida, vão saber explorar o descontentamento popular que alastra por
toda a Europa ao sabor da crise económica e do desemprego.
A um ano de terminar o mandato, do alto da sua torre de
vidro em forma de estrela, Durão Barroso é, e será, cada vez mais um homem só.
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