Last one to leave please turn out the lights
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By Juha Akkanen
Even as a joke, the Lisbon Strategy of the European Union is a poor one.
In 2000, the leaders of the member states of the European Union decided that the Union would be the most competitive economic zone by 2010. For quite a few years it has been clear that this will not happen. The EU will not catch up with the United States, and China will soon start breathing down our necks, and after that, India.
How are we supposed to compete with a team like this, with players like Italy on our side? According to the World Economic Forum, Italy’s competitiveness is at the same level as that of Botswana. Italy takes as indifferent a view of the criteria of the growth and stability pact of the euro zone as it does toward other EU rules, but things are not much better in Germany or France either.
The basic idea of the whole EMU area seems to be that the last one in line should pay. During the past couple of years an unpleasant feeling has gained strength: that it is Finland standing there bringing up the rear - the spot for the cheerful payers.
We Finns have paid our war reparations to the Soviet Union, and the costs of the bank crisis of the early 1990s as well. Should we also foot the bill for the Italians’ habit of living beyond their means?
A similar way of thinking is suggested in France’s demand for a globalisation fund for the EU. The idea is to set up a fund to help those areas which suffer as a result of the transfer of jobs to China. In other words, the other EU countries should pay if we don’t want to even try to adapt to the changes in the world economy.
As the criteria of the EMU zone shackle the economic policy of Italy, thoughts have been raised in the country to disengage from the euro and revert to the lira, which would make devaluation, which has been frequently used by Italy, possible again as a means of rectifying the economy. One can only warmly support the idea of Italy leaving the euro.
It’s not as if Italy did not have any inheritance left to squander. Nevertheless, its national self-esteem is at a higher level than it can afford on the basis of its present achievements. The same disease afflicts at least France and Spain.
In the autumn in China our local interpreter expressed surprise that citizens of the Nordic countries and the Dutch speak such good English, while the French, Italians, and Spanish do not. I explained that the latter are former great powers, and that therefore, they do not feel that they need to know foreign languages. Her surprise was genuine: do France, Spain, and Italy really feel that they are great countries? The interpreter’s 1.3 billion compatriots gave some foundation for her astonishment.
The arguments of those who are critical of the EU and the euro are starting to sound embarrassingly to the point. When the Finnish markka was tied to the ECU, the forerunner of the euro, it was claimed that without a larger frame of reference, the Finnish national currency would be like a wood chip floating on the waves, susceptible to attacks by speculators. Take a look at Finland’s western neighbour Sweden: are things going badly there?
Before almost all of the former Eastern Europe was taken into the Union at one go, Finnish membership was defended by claiming that by staying outside, we would have found ourselves in the wrong reference group. What sort of bad company would Switzerland, Norway, and Iceland have been, compared with Bulgaria, and Romania, for instance, which will be EU members a year or two from now?
The Chinese and Indians are still hungry to get rich. West Europeans have already had their fill. The large countries of Southern Europe want only to pick the chocolate nuggets from their breakfast rolls.
In the former Eastern Europe - the present new member states - there is no shortage of citizens who are hungry for success. Perhaps they will be able to keep the wheels of the economy turning if they are given a real chance, instead of trying to maintain an upstairs-downstairs system. Nor have the new member states joined the Union simply to act as a labour reserve, or to serve the old member states.
When the reserve power of the new member states has also been spent, what will be needed is something to keep us from being completely overrun in global competition.
Immigrants will inevitably be needed to do the work that Europeans, who are very conscious of their prestige, will no longer do. They will also be needed to take care of us, because Europe is growing old at an alarming pace.
The more one studies Chinese affairs, the grimmer Europe’s future will seem. Asia will take back its previous position as economic powerhouse of the world yet. The 19th century was the European century, the 20th was the American century. The OECD has predicted that this century will be that of Asia.
The European Union, for its part, could come down from the Lisbon Strategy to take up realistic goals.
Sometime around 2020 it would be possible to hold an EU summit. There the political leaders of the member states could jointly declare that in 2050 the EU will still be an area where it is worthwhile to engage in economic activities other than just tourism, related accommodation and catering work, and care for the elderly.
Let the meeting take place in Italy, and let the plan be named after the venue - the Naples Strategy, for instance.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 7.12.2005
JUHA AKKANEN / Helsingin Sanomat
juha.akkanen@hs.fi
