“Demain ne sera pas comme hier, il sera nouveau et dépendra de nous”[1]

Local elections are nearing. It is a moment for speeches and promises. For inaugurations and (particularly) wide political smiles. Time for new demands (and for the renewal of old ones), for stickers, electrical appliances (was it true?) and little flags. A time very often for a dangerous discrediting of the political system. In a context of deep changes in the role of local government (in which they can affirm themselves or not as promoters of development) and of great budget limitations, it is more and more important to define, together with the population and other actors of regional development, the priorities of public local action. What does the population want from its councillors? How to adjust public spheres to a world in transformation, allowing the Administration to be at the same time creative and renown? What is our collective project? What mobilizes us? These are some of the questions I would like to, at least see being considered and debated during the next electoral campaign. To decide about my vote, I am going to look for ideas and projects for the region. Someone who throws challenges to the population and to the actors of development. Who understands the importance of the economy and growing competition (increasingly also between local councils) in the caption and maintenance of knowledge, talents and investments. Someone who associates strategy and actors, public and private, cooperative and entrepreneurial. That says what he want to do and with whom he wants to do it with. That promotes the participation of actors, committing them and hold them co-responsible for the future. That understands that the collective intelligence of a region is far from just concerning the public sector. And that from that perception draws conclusions. Someone who, basically, believes, in permanence without hesitations that “tomorrow will not be as yesterday, it will be new and will depend on us”.

[1] Extract of “Phénoménologie du temps et prospective” (Gaston Berger, 1964).

NON

The French have said “no” to the European Constitutional Treaty (CT). And, at the same time, it seems they have said “no” to everything except to the CT’s text.
They said “no” to the French government and to Chirac (“Non à la Constitution, au government, à Chirac”, was one of the slogans used by the defenders of “no”), to the growing unemployment, to the enlargements of the European Union (EU) that limit the French privileges and to market liberalization. But it does not seem like they have actually said “no” to the CT’s text. This is so because, in spite of the CT being more than a mere compilation of the previous Treatises (the form in which it is being presented by labour in the United Kingdom), it is not, most definetely, responsible by the amalgam of French refusals. The CT collects the Treaties, making them more legible (in spite of the text still being very extensive and detailed) and brings about some novelties relatively to Nice (the reigning Treaty), but not as much as it may seem (nothing compared to the Treaty of Maastricht, for example). And, above all, it does not seem to be to those novelties that the French said “no”. Have they said “no” to the inclusion in the CT of the Fundamental Rights Charter? Have they said “no” to the new counting of votes in the Council (less polemic than the one it pretends to substitute, that is, the one agreed to in Nice)? Have they said “no” to the little novelties in terms of the exclusive competences of the EU and to the greater use of qualified majority voting? Have they said “no” to the clarification of competences delimitation between EU and the Members-States (SM)?
Have they said “no” to the possibility of a structured permanent cooperation between some MS concerning a Common Security and Defence Policy? Have they said “no” to the definition of relationship mechanisms between the EU and the MS that wish to abandon it? Have they said “no” to the new office of a Foreign Minister of the EU? Or to the new office of President of the European Council? Have they said “no” to the end of the 3 pillar structure and to the assumption of the EU as an entity which has its own juridical personality? I do not think so.But, then, if the French did not say no to the CT’s novelties, what did they say no to? In my perspective, unfortunately, the French said “no” to what the CT symbolizes, that is, to the continuation, at least in the current settings, of the process of European integration. And it is here that a very serious problem arises. Everyone seems to say that the French “no” represents the need to change the integration process in Europe (without understanding, in very concrete terms, what it si that it actually means: more protectionism? More subsidies? More taxes? Less enlargements’? More influence of the “big”? But influence of the “big” when it comes to the economy, the military, demography? Or to the importance they systematically attribute to themselves?). And very few seem to say something that seems obvious to me: the European integration process is an open movement (on what concerns the participation of states), reformist and demanding. If the French legally refuse it, it does not mean the European refuse it. If the French (understandably but unfortunately) refuse a European integration process that has always benefit them (look at the Common Agricultural Policy and the Single Currency, for example) but tends to benefit them less in the future, that does not means that the Europeans do not want it. The problem of the French “no” is french and european. But it remains more French than European. Europe does not have to change to satisfy the French. Europe has to evolve to correspond to the expectations of europeans. And if the Europeans are interested in trailing routes that the French do not accept, then the EU will have to confront the French with their options. If it does not do that, it will always be under threat of French veto and judgement.
Europe is not France. And this is the fundamental moment to make it clear. Mesdames et Messieurs, les portes sont toujours ouvertes.