Strengthening Europe’s Limited Power

Indeed, according to a , three-quarters of the French public doubt that the euro was an initiative worth launching. But exactly the same proportion opposes leaving the common currency. The message to EU institutions is clear: It may have been a mistake to give you this task, but the decision was made, so your role now is to make the euro work.

In other words, Europe’s citizens will certainly not endorse plans to broaden the scope of EU policies and authority; but, by the same token, they are well aware of the need for an EU that delivers on the obligations that it does have.

Shortly before his death, Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, a former ECB board member and Italian finance minister, put the matter clearly. Limited power, he said, is often confused with weak power, which lacks the tools needed to act within its sphere of authority. But it is the sphere of authority that should be limited, not the power to act within those limits.

Europe’s leaders should adopt that maxim as their motto: This is not the time for more Europe; it is a time for a Europe that fulfills its mandate. That may imply stripping out unnecessary tasks for which the EU either lacks legitimacy or is not well equipped. It may also mean giving the EU the power needed to succeed at what it is already in charge of doing.

This pragmatic agenda may look unexciting. It probably is. But it also probably offers the best chance to reconcile Europe’s people with the EU.

Jean Pisani-Ferry, the French government’s Commissioner-General for Policy Planning, is a professor at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. He is a former director of Bruegel, the Brussels-based economic think tank.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2014.