25 October 2012

John Wyles: What price solidarity?

At a roundtable organised by Friends of Europe, Heather Grabbe of the Open Society Institute posed the question: “Is solidarity the same between countries as within a country?” Given that solidarity is the rhetorical driver of so many of the Union's actions, it ought to be possible to find a commonly accepted definition that would help to answer Grabbe's question. A first cull would probably bring in Article 222 of the Lisbon treaty, which is usually referred to as the ‘solidarity clause', and which requires Member States to assist one another in the face of disasters, emergencies and crises on the European continent. But the treaty is vague on the detail and its focus on disasters and emergencies is surprisingly distant from the more usual invocation of solidarity as a justification for the EU's budgetary decisions. The European Commission's proposed outlays for 2014-20 would allocate 44 per cent of the total €1 trillion to “competitiveness and cohesion” – in many contexts, cohesion doubles up in meaning with solidarity. However, solidarity at the EU level is not plugged into the European social model as it is at Member State level. Here, solidarity is about redistributing income in favour of the disadvantaged through taxation and welfare spending. During our present hard times, it drags fairness into domestic political debates.

So what is the solidarity between EU countries to which so much lip service is paid? It is scarcely redistributive and does little to reduce income inequalities. Is it a principle or just a rhetorical device floating above political debate, to be applied as necessary to minor exercises in unselfish generosity by the richer Member States? Certainly, we ought not to entertain high expectations of solidarity policies. The Union's jobs and growth compact adopted in June does not carry a large enough budget to kick-start growth or to create many jobs. Competitiveness and income gaps between northern and southern countries remain stubbornly frozen. Worse, solidarity policies within Member States are also failing to deliver.

Nevertheless, it would be wrong to dismiss solidarity between Member States as total political fiction. There are times when it is inescapable, and those times are usually marked by a major crisis that risks deeply destabilising the European economy and the national interests of Member States. The bailout packages that have been brought in to save Greece, Portugal and Ireland from financial collapse as well as the permanent European Stabilisation Mechanism have required most eurozone Member States to guarantee loans of tens of billions of euros. The first €80 billion package for Greece, agreed in 2010, was financed by bilateral loans from nearly all Member States (even the UK contributed). Given that there is little likelihood of repayment for generations to come, solidarity with Greece will carry a price even if it earns little gratitude.

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