PROGRAMME OF ACTIVITIES OF THE COMMISSION UNDER THE PRESIDENCY OF ROY JENKINS
by Altiero Spinelli
SUMMARY: The European Parliament discusses the programme of activities of the new Commission under the Presidency of Roy Jenkins, which took office on January 1978.
Spinelli analyses (as he does in his speech in November 1978 to the CESPI conference on the theme: "What kind of Europe"?) the failure of the grand economic design pursued by western countries in the fifties and sixties.
Spinelli makes a fuller analysis in May 1978 in his publication "PCI, che fare?" (Einaudi, 1978, . 41-59). In "Speeches in European Parliament, 1976-1986", Pier Virgilio Dastoli Editor. (EP, 14 February 1978)
Mr President. First of all, I should like to say that I understand and sympathize with President Jenkins, who took on a thankless task in coming here to submit this annual report on the activities of the Communities work and on the work programme of the Commission for 1978.
We have no right to express doubts about the usefulness of these reports since they describe in an orderly manner the activities of the directorates-general of the Commission and keep us informed of the action to be taken during the year under this or that head. Knowing the Commission I am sure that, at the proper time, it will put forward these proposals. But what we do not know (and the report does not enlighten us on this point) is whether in the Council, as the decision-making body, there is the slightest intention of thinking about the proposals which will be put before it during the course of the year.
In my view, we ought to ensure that the Commission's annual work programme should become the Community's work programme without necessarily committing the Council. Do not misunderstand me, I am not suggesting that the Council should pledge itself in advance to approve each and every Commission proposal. It may not approve them; any government could bring in a bill and see it thrown out by the legislature. But we should like to know that, during 1978, the Council will take a decision on all these proposals. Otherwise, at the end of the day, the Commission will be able to say that it is not its fault if no decision has been taken on all these subjects and it will be right. In that case, however, the statement of its work programme next year will obviously be of even less interest than in the previous year. In my view, these programme statements should become more interesting and important every year.
In the programme address giving us a report on the day-to-day administration of the Community, there is a great deal of detail and information on interesting and valuable initiatives which we hope will be carried through, but the key is missing. As things are, the Commission should start a debate here and tell us the hard facts on the present position, with all its weaknesses and possibilities and how far it extends. It should propose that two or three suitable subjects should be tacked, that the necessary sum should be provided for the purpose and the national revenue subdivided between the Community and the Member States. In this way we should know that the Commission, the Council, with the decisive voice, and Parliament, with the powers vested in it, were committing themselves to achieve something during the year.
Although there was no hint of anything of the kind in President Jenkin's address, I see in the memorandum supplementing his work programme address that something along these lines has been thought of where it says: 'With a view to the joint Council meeting of Foreign and Finance Ministers to be held on 3 April, the Commission intends to put to the Council some general thoughts on budget policy for the next few years'. It is then explained that the Commission will recommend that national budgets should be relieved and the Community budget correspondingly increased by transferring certain policies to it.
However, I am astonished to see that the Commission intends to hold this discussion on 3 April, with the Council; unless I am mistaken, the budget authority consists of the Council and Parliament, so the discussion should take place not only with the Council but also with Parliament. If it undertook to consult Parliament, the Commission would be free to take all the steps necessary to obtain the financial resources which will be required. Otherwise we shall have a repetition of the pitiful budget debate we had this year when, at one time, Parliament was fighting for a Commission which had given up fighting and defending its proposals and, in the end, as a sort of final deal, agreement was reached on any figure without any general concept of the Community's basic needs and without any commitment regarding the new issues such as regional policy, energy policy, industrial policy or a revised agricultural policy.
We must know in advance what we have to deal with in a given year, or we shall do too little, miss our objectives and arrive too late.
We should know in advance what the financial dimensions of the Community are going to be in a given year; we should know how much money we can expect to have and the revenue from tax, because otherwise we shall no longer know where we shall end up or what purpose the Community serves.
Having said this, I must make another point clear. I agree that the Cornmunity's big problem continues to be the fight against inflation and unemployment and that this calls for a series of measures and, basically, for fresh impetus to be given to economic and monetary union. At this juncture people are beginning to say things which carry a certain weight but which may become so many empty words unless backed up by clear ideas. President Jenkins, especially, pointed out very clearly in his Florence speech that, between 1950 and 1960, the Western countries worked to a grand economic design and this enabled the whole economy to make remarkable advances for almost twenty years, despite the inevitable shortcomings and deficiencies.
President Jenkins summed up this productive outburst very accurately when he said that at that time our countries set themselves the objective of giving the working class in the West something like the same standard of living as the middle class.
This involved a major development which, seen at its worst, is called consumerism but which has nevertheless produced deep and widespread changes in our societies. In some countries, such as Italy, the changes occurred in conditions of chaos, in others things went better but, in any case, changes there were.
Today, however, we are not only faced with the fact that energy costs and will continue to cost more: the important new factor is that this grand economic design has burned itself out. We have now unleashed inflation (because inflation was unleashed by our internal crisis, the rise in the price of petrol being purely accidental) but the grand design no longer exists. Should we re-shape it? Should we evolve another one out of it? Should we lay down the standard of living of the upper classes as the target for the working and middle classes? No, we have recognized the bad features of this whole development , and they are so serious that we tend to forget its good ones. We know that this can no longer be the grand design.
The more one thinks about it, the more one realizes that the commitment which the developed countries, especially Europe, should undertake is the preparation of a vast, far-reaching plan for the development of all the developing countries, which in the end means transforming our industries on the basis that we shall, for a considerable time, be principally suppliers of means of production and machinery and not, as we used to be in the past, of finished or unfinished products. The task of the 200 million Europeans, the 200 million Americans and the 100 million Japanese is to involve themselves in the work of radically changing the lives of a thousand million other human beings who live in such precarious conditions, and this means that our activity must be centred On policy relating to the Third and Fourth World.
I believe we can derive satisfaction from our achievements, such as the Lomé Convention, because they are models which can be developed and copied but I do not believe that, at the moment, we are capable of seriously discussing or planning the grand design for world development and our commitments in relation to it; we shall not be grown up so long as we regard this commitment as a sacrifice rather than a step in our own development which is essential for the expansion of our own economy, and is closely bound up with the economies of others.
To my mind this is the crux of economic policy and industrial policy for the next few years. If we take a wide view we shall find an answer to the problems of steel, textiles, and the more highly developed industries; if not, we shall be faced with a number of different problems but have no idea of the picture as a whole.
I am not suggesting that such an approach is wholly absent from President jenkins's report, but it is not emphasized as one of the crucial questions or as a challenge which all our countries have to take up.
Having made this clear, I have two further serious criticisms to make, the first of them about the way in which the negotiations are being conducted for the enlargement of the Community. Others have referred to the way in which we deluded those countries when we assured them of entry into the Community once their system of government became democratic. But today I am told that substantial progress may have been made in the case of Greece by the end of the year. But why, by the end of the year, will Greece not yet be in the Community?
I also hear that we shall be starting negotiations with Spain only at the end of the year - a whole year in which anything may happen, in Spain and else where. Do we have to wait for the end of the year before beginning to discuss what fate, what answer we have in store for Spain's application? No. These countries, which are part of our world and need us for their development, cannot wait so long and, whether we do it or you, Mr Jenkins, as President of the Commission, we must sound the alarm and say: 'Take care, we are losing time, we are letting opportunities go by, and we may regret the way in which we are handling this question'.
The other point deserving serious attention is the question of the revision of agricultural policy. You, Mr President, and your Commission had referred to something more than controlling prices and talked about steps taken to change agricultural policies so as to maintain unity and Community preference while getting rid of the unwanted surpluses which had developed. When you tell me that low prices have been proposed, my answer is that year after year I have seen the Commission submit proposals for low prices but year after year I have seen these prices rise quite enough in the course of successive debates. In view of that, the fact that Mr Gundelach has proposed low prices is in itself no guarantee at all.
The proposals ought to have provited for machinery for price formation in which the producers themselves are involved and which compels them to take some responsibility - unlike what happens in the present situation where, once prices have been guaranteed, producers don't care what happens afterwards so
long as those prices are paid.
I am very uneasy about the future of policy on Mediterranean products. judging by certain hints I have received. I am afraid we are about to decide in favour of enormous price guarantees in order to consolidate the southern agricultural structures - those inside the Community and those about to come into it - giving the sort of guarantee which was given for cereals, meat, butter and milk.
A Mediterranean agricultural policy ought essentially to be a policy of reorganization of the Mediterranean regions , whether in Member States, the associated States or States about to come in, and it should provide for a re-organization which lays down what activities are to be undertaken and not the machinery for storage which guarantees everything, or the machinery for destruc-tion which also guarantees certain rates.
The agricultural policy for the Mediterranean ought to be something approaching a policy on the grand scale of regional industrial development and of re-organization of agricultural structures and should not be a policy of prices for agricultural products in the South. If we do not act on this basis and allow only those directly concerned to have their say, we shall be left with the same deplorable results we have had on previous occasions.
Because of this I think the Community ought to be talking in rather different terms than those you used, Mr Jenkins, at the end of your speech, which created the impression that relations between Commission, Council and Parliament are almost idyllic. In my view, you ought to be pointing out that the present institutional machinery will prevent us from making progress; we shall make a little only if, without wasting time, we start giving the Commission the powers of government and restricting the powers of that all-powerful and powerless body, the Council.
The Community must be made increasingly aware of this and it must be brought home to our States and the Council. To use a phrase from the British political world of 1911, the Council 'must end or mend' but it cannot go ahead in the same way as it has done until now, because it is the Council which is to blame when things are done slowly and piecemeal or done badly or, even more frequently, not at all. The problem of the institutions is one which, as President of the Commission, you must constantly bear in mind, though the fight against the opposing forces will be a long one.
My final comment concerns the importance of relations between the Community, especially the Commission, and the trade union movement. I should like to begin not on the basis of general principles but of an item of fact from Italy which is, however, of considerable importance for Europe as a whole. All the Italian trade unions, in an effort which those who know the working class movement will be able to appreciate, have for the first time succeded in getting all their members to discuss and, at a series of meetings, agree to a programme of austerity, self-denial and heavy sacrifices. The programme was not imposed by any conservative government or reactionaries recipe; the trade union movement understood what was involved and was able to overcome the opposition which arose largely within its own tanks. Obviously, a commitment of this nature deserves a fitting response and those sacrifices must be used to carry out a policy which bears the mark of development and progress; in other words, these sacrifices must
have a meaning or they will be pretty hard to make. The political interests concerned are now discussing how this can be achieved and I should like to thank the President of the Commission for the judicial terms in which, unlike certain friendly governments, he referred to the efforts being made in Italy to unite all the democratic political forces who want to put our country back on its feet.
But the Community, too, must make an effort, it must be able to speak to the workers and to the unions. I quoted the case of Italy because it is the most strikking example at the moment but the same applies to all the other countries. We believe that the Community must try to do this and our group, or at least the majority of our group, have fought and are fighting to strengthen the Cornmunity and to support every attempt made by the Commission to introduce a change. But, in order to do so, we must realize that the battle is dangerous and difficult and we must not delude ourselves that we are coasting along to a safe harbour labelled 'end of 1978'.
