National interest and the EU
As agriculture minister back in the early 1980s, former PM Costas Simitis often told journalists: «Do not exaggerate the reactions of the European Commission or bickering in the Council of Ministers. The Common Market (what the EU was then called) is a big give and take.» The 1980s rows between Margaret Thatcher and Helmut Kohl were legendary, but they neither caused the Common Market to unravel nor forced the British PM to sacrifice UK national interests. In fact, she won the UK an annual rebate over fierce European resistance. Gerhard Schroeder and Jacques Chirac recently clashed with the Commission, which does not want to bend the iron-clad rules of the Stability Pact. The two finally pushed through a more flexible interpretation of the pact. Penalties for violations will now be considered by politicians – in this case, member states’ economy ministers – and not by eurocrats in Brussels. When other governments have had to fight for the national interest, they generally have managed to get all domestic parties behind the effort, for what was at stake was not the government’s interest but the national good. Any failure to convince others over the propriety of their demands was neither a cause for celebration by the opposition nor worthy of a sneer from the media. Only in Greece do people celebrate over such a clash, dancing to the tune of entangled interests. These are the ones who also sneered at the late Andreas Papandreou’s efforts to start the EU-funded Mediterranean programs despite warnings that Greece would become the EU’s black sheep. In contrast, Schroeder and Chirac satisfied the demands of French and German unions by forcing the Commission to withdraw the so-called Bolkestein directive aiming to open Europe’s services market. But no French or German newspaper ever scoffed when their leaders took on the Brussels bureaucrats.
