A Europe that protects: recycling an old idea? Or an implementation?
(B2)" Europe that protects “, the slogan is not new in the mouth of a French leader.
The last to have used and imposed it as the motto of his European policy was a certain Nicolas Sarkozy. " We need a Europe that protects, a Europe that embodies something said the former president during the presidency of the EU in 2008. He even had certain identical subjects: the control of strategic investments, the directive on posted workers. Xavier Bertrand, his Minister of Labor at the time, showed at the time the same inclination to fight against social dumping by strengthening the directive on the posting of workers. The strengthening of European rules had stalled halfway.
Nor is it new in European terminology. " A Europe that protects was the slogan (1) of Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schlüssel on the eve of taking over the rotating presidency of the European Union in 2006.
A slogan that has remained without concrete translation so far...
The problem is that this word has often remained a slogan with no real translation. We sense in Emmanuel Macron, as in his German counterpart, Angela Merkel, the desire to include this terminology in a more concrete dynamic, whether on the issue of social dumping (the posting of workers directive), international dumping (trade rules) or security and defense issues.
A couple, a Commission, a context
There is a political will, specific, indisputable, in these two leaders ... as in Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission, who has a very different vision from his predecessor, José-Manuel Barroso. They are also helped by the general context: the financial crisis which is receding, internal and external threats which are increasing, populism and an extreme right which remain notable in several countries, a certain demand among other European countries to see the Franco-German couple regain its role of leadership... not to mention Brexit and a Donald Trump who is more aggressive on the world stage than Obama was.
(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)
(1) with “A Europe that listens to its citizens” and “A clearer Europe”.
