AIMLESS UNION
MIROSŁAW PIOTROWSKI
All EU aims are failing one by one, and the most important event may turn out to be the exit of the Great Britain from the Union.
So far the European Union has been fighting for something. It had an aim. Not necessarily the good one, but it had. The aim was changing, underwent modification, but it existed. When Poland joined the Union in 2004, the most important aim was euro-constitution, that is, using an official language – accepting and ratifying the ‘Treaty establishing constitution for Europe’. However, this draft did not succeed in referendums in France and in Holland in 2005. Before EU creators of aims managed to overcome shock, it turned out that the Lisbon Strategy accepted in 2000 had no chance to succeed. It was drafted for 10 years, but already in the mid, that is, in 2005, the chief of the European Commission at that time, Jose Manuel Barroso arrived at the European Parliament and said that, unfortunately, the aim would not be achieved. I will remind that it concerned economic catching up and even overtaking the United States by the EU. Modification of aims was hardly effective and in 2010 the Lisbon Strategy ended with a complete failure. Since the year 2006 elaboration of the Euro-constitution has been a new aim and presenting it in the form of the Lisbon Treaty. Finally, it was ratified in December 2009 but soon it turned out that it was hardly on-date. The chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel has spoken about enacting the new constitution but the matter has become silent. Since the moment of joining the Union by Poland, we have been provided with the ideology of the so-called global warming. So, the aim was decreasing the emission of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by European countries. EU decision-makers knew very well that our actions would bring little effect, but as Mr. Barroso said, ‘we wanted to give an example to other countries in the world’. Enormous costs were ignored. The chief of the European Commission assured that the first effects of our actions would be visible not earlier than after 100 years. Also the Union began to withdraw from this aim. It happened as a result of the economic crisis in Greece, which had nearly influenced the finances of the whole community. Not long time ago did the EU leaders stand in the vanguard of a fight with the climate change, being a mutation of a fight with global warming, but also a specific protection, even promotion of the so-called sexual minorities, that is, LGBTI. However, the newly-elected president of the USA Donald Trump announced that his country would withdraw from the earlier climatic agreements, because of which EU climatic aims will become pointless. A similar situation concerns bilateral contracts, like, for example, Transpacific Partnership and Trans-Atlantic Partnership in the sphere of Trade and Investment. The latter one was to be the main aim in the current cadency of the European Parliament. So, all EU aims are failing one by one, and the most important event may turn out to be the exit of the Great Britain from the Union. Donald Trump expects the British example to attract others. In order to prevent it, EU decision-makers sign mutual agreements whose aim is the common defence from ‘the nationalists and populists’. However, it is only a defensive action. It is the first time since there has not been a positive aim on the EU horizon – it smells with decadence or maybe something more?
AA
„Niedziela” 07/2017