WHERE does the Euro-elite wind down after those arduous battles over budgets and directives? Some choose the Château Sainte-Anne, with its stately grounds and sports facilities, originally provided by the Belgian government for the relaxation of diplomats and Eurocrats. Others prefer the older and snootier Cercle Royal Gaulois Artistique et Littéraire at the opposite end of the Rue de la Loi from the European institutions.
Such exclusive venues could almost be a metaphor for the European Union itself. Membership is much sought-after, and the admission criteria are exacting: applicants to the clubs need sponsors and must often hold university degrees (ambassadors, educated or not, are automatically invited to join both the Château and the Cercle). But in one important respect, at least, the clubs are different from the EU: members who turn out to be undesirable, or impecunious, can be suspended or thrown out. Sadly, admits Anne Buisseret, director-general of the Château Sainte-Anne, some members have indeed been blackballés.
Not so the EU. No state has ever been ejected. The most serious frown came in 2000, when member-states gave Austria the cold shoulder after the far-right Freedom Party, led by the late Jörg Haider, was brought into its ruling coalition. Brussels soon decided that this semi-isolation was counterproductive. The EU does have a provision for political sanctions, including suspension of voting rights, for a “serious and persistent” breach of European values. But this is regarded as a nuclear weapon, never to be used. Voluntary exit has been no easier. Until last year's Lisbon treaty, which gave countries a legal way to depart the club, the EU was like the Hotel California: you could check out any time you liked but you could never leave. In practical terms, it still is.
This means that, oddly, it is harder to influence insiders than outsiders. The EU has great power to transform the internal workings of countries seeking membership. The so-called Copenhagen criteria demand of candidates that they have functioning market economies and institutions that can guarantee democracy, the rule of law and the protection of minorities. But once countries join, the EU's means of enforcing such requirements are comparatively weak. This is something of a paradox, given how deeply the EU permeates the lives of its citizens. This week, for instance, the EU extended its reach by establishing Europe-wide bodies to regulate banks and other financial institutions.
In fact a big stick is rarely needed. Where members have chosen to pool their sovereignty, such as on competition, the EU polices mostly by consent, like the British bobby who patrols unarmed. Wayward members can usually be brought into line by public exposure and the odd lawsuit. Where states remain sovereign, they guard their prerogatives and the EU must stay out.
But on at least two issues, such genteel methods are proving inadequate. One is the deportation of Roma from France. The European Commission plainly disapproves; its president, José Manuel Barroso, said this week that states should not “reawaken the ghosts of Europe's past” (although he declined to name France). Surely, mutter diplomats, any country seeking to join the EU that had ejected Roma as noisily as France has would have its application held up. One asks: “If the Copenhagen criteria were applied to EU members, how many would pass the grade?”
The other question defying EU enforcement is the euro. The Greek crisis cruelly exposed the EU's inability to police the budget-deficit limits imposed by the stability and growth pact, which is meant to underpin the single currency. Now the EU is looking for more credible punishments against rule-breakers.
Germany is toughest, suggesting that offenders' voting rights should be suspended. But this would require a formal treaty change, which few are willing to consider after the long travails over Lisbon. Others suggest financial penalties, such as holding back cohesion and structural funds, even support for farming and fisheries. But this runs into several objections: taking money away from a country that is critically short of funds would exacerbate a crisis; and withholding money from poorer countries could undermine the EU's political cohesion. Countries are already seeking exceptions; France, for instance, says cutting farm subsidies would be illegal. In fact, the stability and growth pact does provide an option for financial penalties to be imposed on rule-breakers, but they have never been used.
What is lacking is not so much sanctions as political will. In a union of sovereign states, there are limits to the opprobrium that can be expressed and the penalties that can be imposed. The EU, explains one Eurocrat, “is not a club but a family—a Maltese one, with no divorce.” This clan is often unfair. Two new members, Romania and Bulgaria, have had EU funds docked because of problems with corruption. Bigger, older members would not be treated the same way. Germany and France were the first to breach the deficit limits, and changed the rules to suit themselves.
And yet, for all the rows, there is no ostracism; even the most reckless will, in the end, be helped in times of need. The EU would like to treat fiscal irresponsibility as a form of juvenile excess, best addressed by closer monitoring and early intervention, perhaps with some mild punishment, in the hope of averting serious trouble later on.
In reality, the most effective discipline has been external—the financial market. That, not European exhortation, is what forced Greece and others to adopt overdue reforms this year. Yet the prevailing view in Brussels is that the market is a beast that must be tamed. If European states voluntarily submit to the rod, it will be because of their terror of the wolf-pack, and their fear that even the family will not be able to protect them.