The other view … of EU politics

The other view … of EU politics

Following the recent discussions at the European Parliament and the European Council on the election of the new President of the European Commission and later on the same week the discussion in the EU Parliament on Youth Employment, one could certainly gain a lot; not so much regarding feasible proposals on how to tackle hot issues like youth (un)employment, but surely a lot on how politics function today.

When referring to politics, many make the distinction between European and national politics; I, personally, have not experienced such distinction. The time that EU politicians were considered as second class politicians to the national ones is over, for good or for bad reasons. Nowadays, the national politics feed the European agenda and vice versa. Even in the occasion of UK, and despite the fact that many have rushed to rule out the Brits as the losers of the European “Job sorting”, these will be proved wrong. Soon the big players will be dragging their fit to persuade UK to stay on board; not sure they will succeed. In the case of extreme right politicians who search for ways to differentiate themselves as self-proclaimed euro sceptics, the emphasis is on how to use the European platform for domestic gains and vice versa.

Though many have prematurely predicted that the presence of the strengthened extreme right in the European Parliament would bring a change to the way politics will function in the European bodies, the reality seems to be different from the very beginning.

The rhetoric of Marie Le Pen inside and outside France is perhaps a good example to demonstrate what is really on stake. What is hidden in her rhetoric is the racist and often fascist nature of her political proposals. What is clearly visible in her rhetoric is her claim for the highest political post in France.  Some years ago these agendas were the other way round. Therefore, it is worth asking the question from where Ms Le Pen draws her political strength, nerve and ambition.

Let’s think of big European portfolios. If we take the most agricultural regions of France as an example, where Ms Le Pen scored highly in the last elections, one could also see that these are areas which have actually benefitted highly from European funds through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Why then, agriculture employees who benefited from EU, vote in favour of a proclaimed “Eurosceptic”?

Whatever it is the answer to this question, what is really true is the fact that Ms Le Pen has introduced early enough European politics in her national agenda, only to cash in later in the elections using the argument that European politics have actually failed! How can this “clever” and very dangerous approach to politics poison social policies at national and European level? Similar picture we have in the UK. This time is not coming from the UKIP but from the Government itself; under the pressure of the UKIP. Reading through the Review of the Balance of Competences recently published for different portfolios, you can see the flow of influencing agendas in UK. “Need for sufficient recognition of local and regional circumstances on the basis that one size does not fit all but also emphasized the desirability of maintaining a level playing field” This is written by the British authorities knowing very well that a domestic scheme for agriculture (equivalent to CAP) would not produce the same sort of gains for the UK sector.

Back to Le Pen now. With the momentum Le Pen has, she exerts a lot of pressure on every other political power in France and in Europe. This leads to coalitions, which in other times would be considered as unthinkable! The elections of Mr. Juncker and Mr. Schultz, as President of the European Commission and President of the European Parliament respectively, are a simple proof of such coalitions. Is this the end? No, of course not. We are doomed to see similar coalitions at different levels, both nationally and at European level.

Though forming a coalition is not necessarily a bad approach, the fear that these coalitions will not have the clear political stigma that citizens have asked for during the last European elections, that is, a better Europe for all its citizens, is more than evident! This strange chemistry will only bring strange politics, which will not be able to address the real problems of our societies. The new way of performing (a)politics, which naively many have rushed to welcome, will show that it’s only a matter of time that people like Le Pen will soon lead the way. And they will do that by bringing more misery and hate!

 

July 2014

Talking about subsidiarity in education in the EU…

The recently launched UK call for evidence on the government’s Review of the Balance of Competences, between the United Kingdom and the European Union, is yet another act of defending national competence in education… or maybe not?

This Review, according to the UK Government, will “provide an analysis of what the UKs membership of the EU means for the UK national interest. It aims to deepen public and Parliamentary understanding of the nature of our EU membership, and provide a constructive and serious contribution to the national and wider European debate about modernising, reforming and improving the EU in the face of collective challenges. It is not tasked with producing specific recommendations or looking at alternative models for the UKs overall relationship with the EU”.

The whole UK approach is interesting for different reasons: political, historical and educational.  One can read already in the Review the structure and exhaustive presentation of what Education and Training means at the EU level in a chronological perspective. Interesting it is also to observe how the UK sees the cooperation with EC and OECD. Actually, there is so much cynicism in that text that any person who works in the European institutions could easily feel threatened!

However, I have not read the Review just to be informed about what the UK feels about the EU in the field of education. Furthermore, I am not interested to read the review to see if there is a positive or negative balance of competences in the field of education between the EU and the UK. What I am interested about is subsidiarity in education and what is actually the driving force behind it, not only in the UK or the EU, but in many other federal national or multinational structures.

The principle of subsidiarity in the EU is used to set the frame of competence. Under the principle of subsidiarity, where the EU does not have exclusive competence, the EU can only act if it is better placed than the Member State to do so because of the scale of effects of the proposed action. Competence in relation to education is supporting. This means that both the EU and the member states may act, but action by the EU does not prevent the member states from taking action of their own.

But why countries defended so strongly this competence? I quote from the Review: “from the early days of structured cooperation amongst countries in Europe, there has been a strong political desire amongst governments to retain the organisation of education systems as a national competence. Education was absent from the 1951 European Coal and Steel Treaty and from the 1957 Treaty of Rome”. Those were the times that European societies were coming out heavily injured from the ashes of the Second World War. Education was the pillar on which the states held the cohesion of their societies. The reforms of the decades to follow until the 70s were described by values and a strong social sensitivity. They were meant to reconstruct the lost identity and help form the new European borders. This role for education could only come from the country or from the region itself.

Policies always serve to manage change. But how exactly this management occurs can vary greatly from policy to policy. After the wave of conservative reforms in education led by Thatcher in the UK in the 70s, there was a significant shift of the interest of education policies. Education is no longer a commodity but a product that sees, slowly slowly, some of its parts fitting into the rules of freedom of movement and services agreements within the EU. The first community action programme on education was adopted by the Council in 1976 with a view to its subsequent inclusion in the treaty. This contained six priority areas for action: education of the children of migrant workers, closer relations between education systems in Europe, compilation of documentation and statistics, higher education, teaching of foreign languages and equal opportunities. From the outset, this was sensitive territory for some member states. In 1992, education was incorporated into the EU Treaties via the Maastricht Treaty.

In the aftermath of these reforms, education was never the same. Organisations like the OECD developed their own programmes to measure the ability of students, teachers and adults to participate fully and successfully in the society. The measurements of OECD feed numerous studies, which examine the impact of education and skills in growth. “In the long run it is human capital of nations that drives economic growth. And it is economic growth that determines the pattern of incomes across nations”. These words come from E. Hanushek in his chapter “The Cost of ignorance”, where he continues to make clear link between the importance of education policies and growth: “… the gains are large enough that we should be willing to consider more radical changes than a small adjustment in class size or worrying about exactly what the math curriculum is”. Hanushek is a strong supporter of the idea that nations need to pay more attention to their teachers.

Having said all that, the question why member states today defend their competence in education remains very blurred ad controversial. If it is claimed that education is not about values anymore, but all about supporting economic growth, why then this is not part of the bigger group of portfolios where a central authority at EU level could be more efficient?

I understand of course that this argument is not enough to change things; nor I share the view that education can be amoral. Though, whatever my view on education is, or no matter if policies in education today are those that they should have been, or whether the role of education is the one that will really push societies forward, we need to be sincere. Education cannot be exploited. Regarding the effect of our policies, as long as the politics remain “apolitical”, we will have the same paradox phenomena and the same unaffordable results. On the one hand, to support national competence for education to promote economic growth and, on the other hand, to have strengthened internal market… It’s a joke!