Europe: quo vadis - where are you going?

In the nineties, everybody was enthusiastic about Europe. A lot of things were changing. We witnessed the unification of West and East Europe. We saw the introduction of a European standard for mobile phones. We got a free trade market, free and guaranteed competition between European companies, and the introduction of a single European currency, the Euro. New member states arrived and poor regions received European support.

Now, twenty years later, we don’t perceive a lot of things moving. The mobile phone roaming tariffs are going down – but very gradually. Behind the scenes, product regulation and harmonisation is still taking place, but most people don’t notice. Europe is now imposing austerity measures on the member states, and this causes nothing but pain. Europe still invests in R&D, but the budgets are very fragmented. Large investments in infrastructure are staying behind, even if you would be able to prove the long term benefits (e.g. reduced traffic jams). You can say that Europe has done a lot of things at the economic side, but the process is slowing down because the economy is paralysed.

At the social side, not so much has happened, at least in my perception. Social security, health insurance, unemployment allowance, child allowance, pension schemes, etc… are still national matters. As a consequence, you still have to change health care insurance and child allowance fund every time you start working in a different country. It is still an administrative burden. You have no idea what your pension will be if you have worked in more than one member state. I had hoped for more progress in these areas. The reason why this is so complicated, is clear: the member states still want to keep control over the money they spend. Each member state continues with its own taxation scheme and as a result, we still have huge taxation differences between member states. Strangely enough, no European politician considers this as a barrier to free competition.

The European delegates (Commission, Council, Parliament) are still determined by the national member states, so that only national interests are protected. If it continues like this, the European construction will fail. The first cracks in the building are already visible.

I also refer to "In Europe".

Picture from Rostislav Glinsky / Shutterstock.com