Barroso warns of declining support for EU ahead of election
The lack of support to European Union institutions may become a threat to European integration itself, Commission President Jos Manuel Barroso warned in a major speech delivered at Berlin's Humboldt University on the occasion of Europe Day.
Barroso, whose second term as Commission President expires in November, named three gaps in the functioning of the EU. His warning comes two weeks ahead of the European Parliament elections, that will be held across the Union on 22-25 May.
First, he saw a governance gap, because in his words member states on their own no longer have what it takes to deliver what citizens need, while European institutions still lack part of the equipment to do so. He then mentioned a legitimacy gap, because he said citizens perceived that decisions are taken at a level too distant from them.
Third, he said there was an expectations gap, because people expected more than the political system can deliver.
Barroso added that there was no automatic way for the 28 member countries to agree the tools to repair these gaps at European level. He argued for national governments and mainstream parties to show greater political will for EU cooperation.
No treaty change, no institutional engineering can replace the political will for Europe, he said.
Any political project needs a minimum of sustained support, Barroso insisted. Just two weeks from the European elections, the Commission President spoke in critical terms of the centre-left and the centre-right political forces in EU countries, whom he said should leave their comfort zone and confront the growing voices of euroscepticism and even europhobia.
Instead of abandoning the debate to the extremes, mainstream political forces have to recover the initiative and make the case for a positive agenda for Europe, both at the national and the Union level, Barroso said.
He regretted that in many cases, the mainstream forces had internalised populist arguments rather than countering them. He provided no details, but the episode in which he attacked the British Conservatives who he said were looking like UKIP, the Eurosceptic party of Nigel Farage which according to polls is likely to win the EU elections is still vivid [read more].
Barroso described the essence of the European project comparing it with the digits normally used to describe the evolution of internet.
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Barroso warns of declining support for EU ahead of election