Adriaan Schout is head of the European Studies Programme at Clingendael, an independent think-tank in the Netherlands. I interviewed him for the book project ‘Next Europe’ when Schout was in Brussels – this is in fact the first interview of the many to follow. Most of them will be published online as a short blog and a video report.
Schout has worked on European integration for decades, mainly focusing on market conditions and institutions. He became interested in the EU when the Treaty of Maastricht was launched, which was a breakthrough for the development of Europe’s internal market.
In the video, the researcher makes several strong comments on the current state of the European integration process. He thinks that the EU keeps running into problems because in ‘Brussels’ people consider policy decisions are enough. ‘There is an element of stupidity, gross underestimation of what we are actually doing, it’s like gambling with history.’
Many big projects in the EU are sold as a ‘simple plan’ where competition or the market does the rest, argues Schout. ‘But national policies, the institutions behind it, they all had to change, sometimes 180 degrees.’ This not only happened with the internal market, but also with the euro. ‘We thought it was simple, but what we see is that all the institutions behind the euro haven’t been adapted, and this leads to frustration.’
The other big danger for the EU is the trend towards centralization. According to Adriaan Schout, the European institutions are becoming more French-style rather than German or Nordic. ‘This is a monolithical, intransparent and non-accountable way of operating.’ The EU is on a path towards stronger centralization, with the Commission gathering data, analyzing them and forming recommendations, followed by monitoring. ‘In the past it were the member states who had to build their own structures. Now the EU with institutions like the ECB are taking over democratic functions of the member states. That leads to eroding national institutions and a huge tension between the EU and the member states.’
If the trend of the EU – and the ECB – becoming more French continues, Schout predicts, ‘Europe will lose its global competitiveness and that is the worst thing that can happen, also for security reasons.’ One positive sign is that there will be a lot of interest for the European Parliament elections in May 2014. The Dutch researcher hopes the discussion during the campaign will focus on the functioning of the European institutions, and that Europeans start building a new narrative for the EU. ‘Without this new narrative Europe will fail.’
Check out the video for the best parts of the interview (17 minutes)