Welcome to Better Europe’s weekly update on EU Affairs.
SOME POLITICAL PARTIES ARE OUT THERE TO DESTROY CIVIL SOCIETY
It seems that some right-wing and extreme right politicians don’t like NGOs. Perhaps because they confront politicians with an uncomfortable truth, appealing to their conscience. Perhaps because some MEPs genuinely don’t believe that organised civil society should have a voice in decision-making, and that politicians should only listen to corporate lobbies who represent their own economic interest. Or, as one German EPP MEP put it a while ago, because they prefer twenty extra cows in the field in Bavaria over financing an NGO. More intellectual honesty came when the instigator of the Parliament’s NGO Scrutiny Group admitted in February that the purpose of the non-committee was not to scrutinize spending, but find out whether EU financing for civil society organisations was politically undesirable or not. When the word was out, many Brussels bubble observers thought the NGO witch-hunt would calm down. But even if all MEPs to the left of the EPP *walked* out of the first meeting, the group’s mandate has been prolonged for another six months this week. Meanwhile, the intellectual damage is done. In its latest civic rights report, the Civic Forum finds that the EU developments encourage national developments that delegitimise civil society, through harassment, smear campaigns, and restrictive legislation. Opposition is now coming from within right-wing aligned civil society groups as well. The Chair of Belgium’s Beweging.net, the umbrella-organisation historically linked to Christian-democrat party CD&V, warned in an Ascension Day speech that “some political parties are out there to destroy civil society. But an attack to civil society is an attack to thousands of volunteers and organisations who make an effort every day for a more caring society”. It’s hard being an NGO these days.
THE G7 IS BACK
The last time that the G7, the Group of Seven most “advanced” economies was making newspaper headlines, must have been in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis. In 2009, the group adopted a statement in Pittsburgh that according to financial industry lobbyists at the time basically meant that governments would regulate the hell out of everything that had not been regulated yet. Since then, some say its role has been largely overtaken by the G20 and other international coordination groups. But now that the original raison d’être of creating the G7 to deal with the impact of the 1973 oil crisis is firmly on the geopolitical agenda again, the G7 has a new chance to shine. Its Finance Ministers are meeting next week in Paris to prepare for a G7 Summit in Évian on Lake Geneva in June. On the agenda of the leaders is pretty much everything that is keeping politicians awake at night. Here we go: financial support for Ukraine, the economic impact of the conflict in the Middle East, climate issues, illicit financial flows, and the supply of essential minerals. And the agenda for finance ministers next week is even more explicit: reducing large and persistent macroeconomic imbalances, capturing risks linked to extreme weather events, the risks and opportunities of non-bank financial intermediation aka shadow banking, and financial stability in light of the rise of AI, quantum technology and cybersecurity. In other words, all potential sources for the next financial crisis.
DRAGHI: FROM ‘WHATEVER IT TAKES’ TO A EUROPEAN VISION
That is how giving the Charlemagne Prize to Mario Draghi was justified in January this year. The prize, awarded in Aachen since 1950, recognises work done in the service of European unification, in reference to medieval King Charlemagne who had its own way of uniting Europe. Choosing someone with a strong economic track record sends the message that “Europe’s future and sovereignty rest on its economic strength”, according to the prize committee. But in Brussels, Draghi’s name is most frequently heard in conjunction with the eponymous Draghi report, one of the most selectively read pieces of Brussels bubble prose. There is something in his report for everyone, especially on kneejerk simplification which has become its main talking point, even if the topic appears in only one paragraph in the 70-page summary and in one of the twelve governance recommendations in the main report. As Draghi said in his acceptance speech this week, we have left “large parts of our economy entangled in layers of regulation”. But that’s all he said. Meanwhile, the former central banker warned that we have also “left the single market unfinished, capital markets fragmented, energy systems insufficiently connected”, echoing parts of his report that are less frequently quoted. It’s time for pragmatic federalism he argues, because “the world that once helped Europe generate prosperity no longer exists. It has become harder, more fragmented and more mercantilist”. Yet, the euro shows that deeper cooperation is possible and “those who were willing have moved on”. So perhaps indeed we need to do whatever it takes. But not only in the economic field, but even more so politically.