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From Kohl’s Two-Speed to Merkel’s Multi-Speed Europe

A few Europeans leaders have called for a “multi-speed Europe” at a mini-summit at the Palace of Versailles on Monday. present at the summit were host Francois Hollande, the French president, Angela Merkel, Germany’s Chancellor,  Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

The four came together in the opulent palace near Paris to say that some stronger countries should be able to move quicker than others.

The leaders said the bloc could lose its momentum without the changes they propose, and Hollande has warned the future of the union itself is at stake.

Francois Hollande said: “Unity is not uniformity and this is the reason why I call for new forms of cooperation (…) that we could go quicker and stronger with some countries without excluding others and without having others who can oppose.”

Angela Merkel said: “We must have the courage that some countries precede if not all want to participate: a Europe of different speeds is necessary, otherwise we will probably get stuck.”

Their meeting comes ahead of an EU Council meeting in Brussels this week and the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome on March 25.

At the summit, the four leaders in fact strengthened their intentions for a multi-speed Europe. A Europe of “variable geometry” or “Core Europe” that is the idea that different parts of the European Union should integrate at different levels and pace depending on the political situation in each individual country. The multi-speed Europe is currently a reality, with only a subset of EU countries being members of the eurozone and of the Schengen area. Like other forms of differentiated integration such as à la carte and variable geometry, “multi-speed Europe” arguably aims to salvage the “widening and deepening of the European Union” in the face of political opposition.

The four leaders in Paris did not reveal how this will happen. Neither did they disclose which countries will be allowed to drive on the European highway at 300 km/h, at 150 at 110 or whether some countries would not be allowed to use the highway at all.

Politico called the leaders The Formidable 4 and commented:

“The gathering was a notable, if symbolic, show of muscle and solidarity by the four wealthiest and most populous EU countries, and signaled their resolve in forming a unified core of continental continuity after Brexit.”

The Brussels’ based newspaper noted that the EU is a club that enjoys breaking down into cliques, at times overlapping mini-coalitions based on shared geography or interests.

“There is the Visegrad Group of emerging Central European powers — Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. There is the so-called Club Med, often led by Greece, of sunnier southern nations. There are the tiny Baltics who share much in common, especially a keen wariness on Russia. And there is the Nordic Council, cool-tempered in climate and demeanor (whose members include non-EU Norway and Iceland).”

Back in the 1990’s, German Chancelor Helmut Kohl and French President Francois Mitterrand were struggling for a two-speed Europe . But the two had a train in mind and not several vehicles driving at different speed on the Europe highway. Kolh-Mitterrand vision had a few selected ones sitting on the ‘core’, A’ class on the Europe train, and the kindergarten kids in the back.

The concept entered the political discourse when in 1994 – still at a time of the EU12 – the German Christian Democrats Wolfgang Schaeuble and Karl Lamers published a document in which they called for a Kerneuropa (= core Europe). This idea envisaged that “core Europe” would have a “centripetal effect”, a magnetic attraction for the rest of Europe.

I don’t know what happened to the Kohl-Mitterrand project. I supposed the vision derailed together with the train, after the European Union lost its magnetic attraction due to technocratic bureaucracy and Schaeuble’s stubbornness to want to be the absolute ruler of the eurozone.

PS top priority in the multi-speed Europe should be to boost the coats production…

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2 comments

  1. No matter what they call it (multi-speed or multi-party, or wonderland), the land of Adolph will once more put a dynamite in Europe ready to explode.
    The other “Europeans” (UK excepted) are still asleep in their stupidity for the third time in the last 100 years. I will perversely enjoy to see them getting their comeuppance. History does not forgive amnesia and ignorance.

  2. It was a private party and you were not invited. So 4 of the “wealthiest and most populous EU countries” (three of which have serious economic and political problems) are going to decide the fate of the rest of the EU countries? Good luck with that.