Reuters — “Europe is our common future,” European Union leaders will declare in Rome on Saturday, in a grand statement of ambition that they hope can help hold the EU together following the shock loss of major power Britain.
At 836 words — about two pages — the document is 26 percent longer than a 50th birthday text issued in Berlin a decade ago.
“We, the representatives of 27 member states … take pride in the achievements of the European Union… we commit to the Rome Agenda and pledge to work over towards:
1. A safe and secure European Union: a Europe where all citizens feel safe and can move freely, where our external borders are secured and where migration is managed humanely and effectively …..
2. A prosperous and sustainable European Union: a Europe which creates growth, where a vast and developing Single Market and a stable and further strengthened single currency opens avenues for growth, innovation and exchange; a Europe promoting a sustained and sustainable growth, through investment, the implementation of structural reforms and the completion of the Economic and Monetary Union; a Europe where economies converge; a Europe where energy is secure and affordable and the environment clean and safe.
3. A social European Union: a Europe which promotes economic and social progress, a Europe which promotes rights and equal opportunities for all; a Europe which fights discrimination, social exclusion and poverty; a Europe where young people receive the best education and training and can study and find jobs across the continent; a Europe which preserves cultural diversity and promotes our cultural heritage.
4. A stronger European Union in the world: a Europe ready to take more responsibilities, and committed to strengthening its common security and defence; a Europe with a more integrated defence industry; a Europe protecting a rule-based multilateral system, proud of its values and protective of its people, promoting free and fair trade, defending the rule of law; a Europe committed to building new partnerships – including with Africa – and promoting stability and prosperity in its neighbourhood and globally.
We will
• pursue these objectives, firm in the belief that Europe’s future lies in our own hands;
• work together at the level that makes a real difference, be it the EU, national, regional, or local, fully in line with the principle of subsidiarity, and in a spirit of loyal and close cooperation, both among Members States and between them and the EU Institutions;
• promote a more effective and transparent decision-making process;
• work together to promote the common good, on the understanding that some of us can move closer, further and faster in some areas, keeping the door open to those who want to join later, and preserving the integrity of the single market, the Schengen area, and the EU as a whole. An undivided and indivisible Union, which acts together whenever possible, at different paces and intensity whenever necessary.
And no one could disagree with the fine sentiment expressed in the document; if only it reflected reality.
The message of Rome is “unity”, after British voters opened what many in the EU fear is a Pandora’s box of secession. “Solidarity” is a buzzword amid a simmering row over who should take in refugees and who pays the bills for the Union and the euro.
The final version of the document document, according to Reuters, addresses a row over calls for a “multispeed Europe” that the eastern, ex-communist members saw as a way to cut off subsidies and power.
The founding six members and the EU executive think faster integration can deliver the prosperity and security that disillusioned voters want.
Rings rather hollow in the week Brexit becomes real. The document risks a hubristic echo of another “unbreakable union” — the Soviet one, which survived barely a decade beyond its 60th birthday, Reuters comments.
