It doesn’t really matter whether a new crisis-beating EU strategy bears some resemblance to the largely forgotten Davignon Plan. The important point is that Europe should be seen to have set out a common framework for addressing the slowdown. Eurocrats insist that the necessary policy instruments and rules are already in place, but that is to ignore political reality. Unless the EU’s internal-market rules can be made more flexible, member governments will flout them.
The crisis has also underscored a longer-term need for a more concerted EU approach to industrial policy. There is a growing awareness in Europe that the crisis is set to reshape our industrial base as Asian countries take over many advanced technology fiefdoms from the EU and the US.
But Europe’s 10-year-old Lisbon strategy to secure global high-tech leadership is widely discredited, which is a further reason to include a large research and development component in any EU-wide industrial program.
Presentation is an essential part of any political process, and it’s the part where the European Commission is least competent. Industrial leaders and ordinary citizens alike want to be told that the EU is working on a policy approach that looks farther ahead than the gloomy present. Verve and fanfare may be alien to Brussels, but what is urgently required is a sense of political showmanship that restores confidence in the European project as well as the economy.
Giles Merritt is secretary-general of the Brussels think tank Friends of Europe and editor of the policy journal Europe’s World.
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