Belgium stands alone in its defence of Europe

Belgian politicians are increasingly on their own in their almost religious defence of bigger, bolder Europe, argues Luuk van Middelaar.

The other day on the Dutch TV talk show Pauw & Witteman, a huge political gap was revealed in the political landscape of the low countries. Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian prime minister who is now running for the European parliament, was explaining how only Europe can save the world from the financial crisis. More Europe was needed, Verhofstadt said, not less. An Obama-style plan on a European scale, led by a European economic government, is how he argues it in his new book, The way out of the crisis.

More Europe?

Both interviewers looked at him with complete bewilderment. It is a stance often taken by interviewers for dramatic effect, but this time the hosts didn't even need to act: they were genuinely amazed. More Europe? Surely that was the exact opposite of what people wanted? Didn't the people take every opportunity given to them to vote against Europe?

To make their point, the hosts invited Verhofstadt to watch a cascade of images of no-voters in France, the Netherlands and Ireland in referenda on the European constitution in 2005 and 2008. And didn't Europe's political leaders themselves want less rather than more Europe? Both Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel got into a nationalist frenzy over the credit crisis.

To top it off, there was video footage of Dutch finance minister Wouter Bos commenting on Verhofstadt's proposals. If we in the Netherlands want to give new impulses to the economy, Bos said, we don't need Brussels to do that; and if we want to invite the labour unions in figuring out a solution to the crisis, we don't need Brussels at all.

Verhofstadt was unfazed. Give it a few years, he said, and Sarkozy and Merkel and even Bos will come to realise that the solution can only come from Europe. It's just a matter of waiting for the crisis to really hit home. It was a reply based on an old recipe: if you can't prove your point in the present, appeal to the future. But when exactly will that future be upon us?

Different worlds

In Belgium, the entire political class is convinced that full steam ahead is the best possible approach for the European Union. European taxes, a European army, a European government - all the political parties are in favour, and better today than tomorrow. (Never mind that plans like these scare the bejesus out of voters in stubborn Ireland, and if over-publicised could jeopardise the very Lisbon Treaty that Belgian politicians so cherish.) Because of this consensus the European elections campaign in Belgium is not so much about Europe as it is about which of the two former prime ministers, Verhofstadt (liberal) or Jean-Luc Dehaene (Christian democrat), will come out as the biggest European.

The difference with the European elections campaign in the Netherlands is striking. All that politicians in The Hague talk about is how much less Europe they want.The parties are involved in a race to cut the biggest number of Brussels bureaucrats, to scrap the most EU subsidies and to do away with the most EU rules. It may come as a shock, but as far as Europe is concerned the average Dutch candidate would find himself siding with the extreme-right Vlaams Belang in a Belgian debate about Europe. Alternatively, the average Belgian candidate would make even D66, the most pro-European among Dutch parties, blush.

The same two countries that for years campaigned together for more Europe no longer understand each other; both their European campaigns have become thoroughly national. In Europe, Belgium feels it has a pioneering role to play (much as the Netherlands did for a long time on the global level). But in the current EU it is the national governments that make the decisions. They are the go-betweens between European decision-making and their national populations.

Yet in the Belgian capital the refrain is that the national state is dead, and that only Europe can save us. "We Belgians already know it, the rest will find out later." It is as if the failure to keep the Belgian state together is magically transformed into a deep wisdom that the Belgians want to share with the rest of us.

No Belgians, please

It seems that being prime minister of Belgium is particularly electrifying for someone's belief in Europe. When Verhofstadt became prime minister in 1999, he was on the fence about Europe; five years later he is a total believer. His predecessors, Christian democrat prime ministers Wilfried Martens and Dehaene, have both been in the European parliament for years. They are much respected there, and no doubt Verhofstadt too will grow into a leading MEP.

But it is precisely because of their almost religious belief in Europe that the Belgians are always passed over for the top jobs in Europe. Both Dehaene (1994) and Verhofstadt (2004) failed to get the top job in Europe - president of the Commission - because of British opposition.

How do these things work? In November 2003, Verhofstadt gave a speech at a liberal conference in Amsterdam in which he made a remarkable case for European taxation. In a play on words on the motto of the American war of independence, Verhofstadt said: "No representation without taxation. Only if Europe is able to levy its own taxes will it become a true democracy."

Verhofstadt's diplomatic adviser, fearing for his boss' career, had begged him in vain not to give the speech, or at least not in those words. The text made its way to the desk of the British EU ambassador in Brussels, Stephen Wall, who immediately faxed it to Downing Street 10 with the passage about taxation underlined. Exit Verhofstadt.

It is almost painful to see how out of touch the Belgian thinking about Europe has become with the European power balance and the developments of the past decades. The pioneer has left its followers behind. The national states have not disappeared but are actually in charge. Not the Commission has become Europe's proto-government, as Belgium had hoped, but the heads of government through the European Council.

If all EU countries go the way of Belgium, Europe will not become one - it will fall apart.