Osoby zainteresowane problematyką UE .

Młodzież szkolna i akademicka.

• uczczenie 50-lecia podpisania Traktatów Rzymskich
• przybliżenie mieszkańcom Lubelszczyzny problematyki i kierunków rozwoju wspólnej Europy
• aktywizacja uczestników obchodów i zwiększenie zainteresowania Wspólnotą Europejską

23 Marca 2006r.

Program konferencji
Część I
Aula Wydziału Politologii UMCS
Plac Litewski 3, Lublin

10.45 - 11.00 - Rejestracja uczestników;
11.00 - 11.10 - Powitanie zaproszonych gości - posłów do Parlamentu Europejskiego, przedstawicieli administracji centralnej i samorządowej, przedstawicieli środowiska akademickiego i naukowego lubelskich uczelni, organizacji pozarządowych i instytucji zajmujących się na Lubelszczyźnie szeroko rozumianą tematyką europejską;
11.10 - 12.00 - Panel dyskusyjny - przyszłość Unii Europejskiej - "Razem od 50 lat - kierunki rozwoju na przyszłość";
12.00- 13.00 - Panel dyskusyjny - przyszłość Lubelszczyzny w Unii Europejskiej;
13.00 - 13.30 - Wystąpienie Przewodniczącego Rady Fundacji Polskiej Akademii Nauk o/Lublin - prof. dr hab. Jana Glińskiego oraz prezentacja multimedialna Pawła Chojnackiego - Wiceprezesa Fundacji pt. "Nauka i przemysł innowacyjny a Lubelszczyzna jako partner w Unii Europejskiej";
Część II
Spotkanie Szkolnych Klubów Europejskich
Sala Błękitna Lubelskiego Urzędu Wojewódzkiego
Ul. Spokojna 4, Lublin

13.30 - 14.00 - Rejestracja uczestników;
14.00 - 14.10 - Powitanie Szkolnych Klubów Europejskich;
14.10 - 15.00 - Debata na temat szans polskiej młodzieży w integrującej się Europie z udziałem zaproszonych gości;
15.00 - 15.15 - Przerwa;
15.15 - 15.45 - Wystąpienia zaproszonych gości, Prof. Zbigniewa Zaleskiego Posła do Parlamentu Europejskiego, przedstawicieli: Europe Direct - Lublin, Fundacji Polskiej Akademii Nauk - oddział w Lublinie, Lubelskiego Urzędu Wojewódzkiego, Urzędu Marszałkowskiego Województwa Lubelskiego, Urzędu Miasta Lublin;
15.45 - 16.00 - Ogłoszenie wyników konkursu plastycznego dla młodzieży na plakat poświęcony 50. rocznicy podpisania Traktatu Rzymskiego oraz wręczenie nagród;
16.00 - 16.45 - Wystawa nadesłanych na konkurs prac plastycznych;
16.45 - Uroczyste zakończenie spotkania dla młodzieży; 

Część III
Wieczorne spotkania artystyczne połączone z debatami o przyszłości Unii Europejskiej
Filharmonia Lubelska

19.00 - 20.30 - Koncert symfoniczny orkiestry pod dyrekcją Piotra Wijatkowskiego. Po koncercie odbędzie się spotkanie zaproszonych gości połączone z dyskusją i wymianą poglądów na temat przyszłości Unii Europejskiej.

Profesor Zbigniew Zaleski
Poseł do Parlamentu Europejskiego

Przyszłość UE

Półwieczne doświadczenie UE ujawnia możliwości kompromisowego budowania rozszerzonej wspólnoty, chociaż liczba problemów i barier wzrasta. Upłynie trochę czasu na to, aby Unia 15 i Unia 27 funkcjonowała w harmonii i syntonii. Jeżeli wskaźniki gospodarcze pokazujące zysk u dawców nett oraz u biorców, to prognozy gospodarcze są pozytywne. Gorzej w obszarach wartości i ideologii, w których ma miejsce ścieranie się poglądów poszczególnych frakcji, grup, ugrupowań. Dobrze jest, że mamy forum ogólnoeuropejskiej dyskusji, jakim jest Rada czy Parlament Europejski. Jest to jedyna droga wypracowania celów i strategii dla Europy.
Rozwój Europy nie będzie miał charakteru rewolucyjnego a raczej żmudne
posuwanie się na wielu drogach jednocześnie. A wyzwań jest wiele. Unia może wiele dokonać w sprawach zagranicznych, bo jest dużym partnerem, ale pod warunkiem, że będzie mówić wspólnym głosem.
Nie będzie proste uporanie się z określeniem tożsamości czyli osobowości
europejskiej. Eksperyment tworzenia nowego człowieka już mieliśmy, zatem
budowanie przyszłości na zakorzenionych historycznie podstawach uważam za jeden
z istotniejszych czynników powodzenia przyszłej Europy.
Nie zrobią tego instytucje europejskie w Brukseli. Przyszłą Europę mają i będą
tworzyć jej mieszkańcy, znowu pod warunkiem że będą się komunikować i mieć wolę
realizacji wspólnych celów. Nie jest bez częściowej prawdy zasłyszana opinia, że Ryanair robi więcej dla przyszłości Europy niż instytucje brukselskie. Ludzie muszą
się spotykać, poznawać w pokojowych warunkach i zmierzać do wspólnego celu. A
ten nie został jeszcze jasno określony i każdy z nas jest proszony o wkład do jego
konstrukcji.


Notes for the presentation of György Schöpflin MEP at the conference

"European Union, 50 Years Together, Hopes of Our Common Future"

Lublin

23 March 2007


European Union membership has had a remarkably varied set of impacts on the identity of its members. Some have rejected it, others embraced it and used it to enhance their pre-existing identities. In this sense, the EU has been used instrumentally in both positive and negative directions. For Ireland and Finland, joining the EU has been a major opportunity to transform their national identities; for Britain, at any rate for England, the EU has become the negative criterion of self-definition.

This is possible because of the central creative ambiguity at the heart of the European project. From the outset, the founding fathers left the outcome open. It was left vague as to what the end of integration - the ever closer union of the basic treaties - would actually look like. There is nothing written into the machine code of the integrative process to say how and where it would attain its final state.

Europe and the European Union are two separate though linked identity construction processes - constructed through discursivity and engagement. Any engagement with an institution or an ideal or a process will give rise to intended and unintended consequences which affect identity. The identities so constructed may appear fixed and immutable, but from the perspective of sociological reality, they will shift in time and place.

Precisely because the European and the EU identities have few identity stabilisers - mythic narratives, symbols, rituals, boundary mechanisms - the choices for identity constructors are extensive and can seem even Protean, though this is only a semblance, for there are limits, as there are to all identity construction processes. The European identity, then, remains contested and constructed along different axes, with different axiologies, producing collisions and intensifications.

Europe, however we seek to define it, exists at two distinct levels. There is Europe as an ideal - this is the "ever closer union" - which is open-ended and flexible, though this flexibility is much disliked in some quarters as vague and unsatisfactory. This is the British, certainly the English position, which objects to making unknown commitments. Europe-as-ideal can also be elaborated as a cultural and moral project, as a great and growing diversity of cultural practices, albeit possessed of a family likeness. This ideal would include, say, human rights, democracy, the market and more recently concern for the environment. Environmental protection was certainly not a part of the founding project, but there has been no difficulty adding it, given the open-endedness already mentioned. Europe can also be defined as the outcome of centuries of history, of religion, high culture and popular culture.

On the other hand, there is also a Europe of the European Union, with its institutions, institutional regulation and bureaucratic norms, with both benefits and obligations. Thus transfers of money from richer to poorer Europeans can be legitimated by various pre-suppositions. There is a shared European interest, involving, say, new markets. Or there is a Europe of shared values and solidarity, a moral obligation of care. Or there is a tacit commitment to some kind of equity within Europe as a value in its own right; equally, this can be argued on prudential grounds, that major inequality creates a potential instability. Or, the transfers can be argued on the basis of cultural intimacy, contributing to the success of a Europe as an area of shared practices and common goals.

These two levels - Europe-as-ideal and Europe-as-European Union - are connected in a myriad ways. Nevertheless, there are those who reject this distinction, insist that Europe is only or primarily an economic sphere, believe that Europe is to be valued on the basis of costs and benefits. Then there are those who confuse the two and hold the other level responsible for some failure in the other.

What is important to grasp is that the two ideas of Europe are not mutually exclusive, but exist in a kind of creative tension - in reciprocal potentiation - mutually reinforcing one another or shedding light on the weaknesses in the other. Europe, in this sense, is a construct with both political and economic dimensions and both are needed if Europe is to prosper.

The key here is the unnoticed and intuitively contested emergence of a European political space, what I would call the European polis. There is an exercise of power autonomously of the member states that takes place by its own rules and regularities. All this power is derived ultimately from the member states, but once the power has been transferred, it cannot readily be clawed back.

In this sense, some of the state sovereignty of the EU members is now located in the EU and EU power impacts on the members without the latter's say-so, through the acquis communautaire, for example. Note that this power is consensual and the EU has no instruments of coercion, only of suasion, pressure, authority and influence. This is a radically different concept of power from that formulated by Weber. This is the EU's soft power. It follows that this power is inherently democratic, because it is consensual.

The 2004 enlargement should, therefore, be assessed against this background, two-and-a-half years on. (The 2007 enlargement does not change matters qualitatively.) First of all, the existing institutional structure of the EU has coped with the enlargement, but it is creaking a bit. Parliament has absorbed the new members reasonably well and they have adapted to the new institution and its informal rules reasonably. The Council of Ministers, however, has become even more formalised than before and by repute, the new members have not really been integrated into COREPER. The Commission, with 27 Commissioners, is clunking along, but it is difficult to make it function coherently.

The Constitutional Treaty would have resolved some of these problems of institutional effectiveness, and perhaps it will yet. Of the former communist states, Poland and the Czech Republic have failed to ratify so far, though even there, public opinion is better disposed than the governments. Note that the troika presidency, which operates in the spirit of the Constitution, has been put in operation by the current German presidency, bringing the Portuguese and Slovenes on board.

What happens to the Constitution is still open, though the Germans are keen to have something in place well before the 2009 elections to the EP, as not having a settlement would allow every Eurosceptic to muddy the waters. Contrary to British assumptions, that the existing text should be pruned, the current idea that is gaining ground is that of the Constitution-plus, including new provisions about social Europe and climate change, for example, not least as a way of persuading the French and Dutch electorates to think again.

This is an innovative way of approaching the problem - not cutting the text, but adding to it. This development is very unwelcome in the UK, where the dominant view is to accept only the most minimalist changes, despite the fact that the existing text is a very British one in its assumptions and provisions. Yet, clearly there is a head of steam behind the Constitution that London never expected - the ratifications continued despite the French and Dutch votes, the text was not "dead". The January 2007 meeting in Madrid of "the friends of the Constitution" was successful in resetting the agenda.

Does Europe actually need more integration? Yes and especially yes if one comes from a small state. The large states assume that they can do without. Yet even the pragmatists discover that they need European level initiatives if policies are to work in a globalised world. There are a number of fields in which the state level is inadequate - energy security, the fight against organised crime and terrorism, food safety, consumer protection, the environment to name but some. Interdependence is high and without some European commitment, the problems become insoluble.

A word on enlargement. Enlargement has been described as the EU's most successful policy, in stabilising potential members through conditionality. Soft power is paramount here. One can establish four categories of future members: (1) South-Eastern Europe will gain membership at some future date, though a decade seems the minimum. (2) is the Euro-Russian borderlands, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova. Here the question is, whose zone of influence should it be, Europe's or Russia's? Probably, these states too will be accepted as members, but it's a long way down the line. (3) Turkey. Turkish membership is possible, but no enlargement to date has produced as much opposition in both elites and public opinion. Besides, the Turks have done nothing like enough to persuade European opinion of their European credentials. (4) Southern Caucasus is a distant possibility, though brought closer by energy needs and the importance of the Georgia-Azerbaijan energy corridor to balance Gazprom. These states will have to do a great deal to convince Europe that they are, indeed, European, whatever their social reality.

The idea that there should be some kind of an intermediate status between membership and non-membership is gaining ground. Neighbourhood agreements go only so far. Some kind of a European Political Area could be established, though this will be seen by some as second class membership - something that will have to be avoided most carefully.

A further thought about enlargement is appropriate here. In common with most EU initiatives, enlargement has been very elite-driven. Yet enlargement of the EU simultaneously means the enlargement of the demos, whose consent to this has to be obtained - this has been greatly neglected to date, but must become part of the process. Referenda are not the answer, because they proceed from the assumption that there is a homogeneous "people" ready to answer yes or no to the question put to it. We know that this is not what happens in practice. Much closer cooperation with national parliaments and direct engagement between the EU and the European demos point towards different solutions.

In conclusion, a few thoughts about the impact of the new members on the European Parliament. We have a presence and this is recognised, but when we try to introduce new ideas, new discourses, I have a sense that we are talking to ourselves, that the members from the older states are not that interested. Two areas are especially salient. By and large we have a much less dewy-eyed view of Russia and its policies under Putin. Both the Commission and some of the members continue to believe that they can do business with Russia and discount Putin's steady extension of Russian power. The Baltic Sea pipeline is an example. This has begun to change thanks to Russia cutting off oil supplies to Ukraine in January 2006 and, more recently, to Putin's Munich speech. But the West's default position seems to be that Russia will revert to the easy-going ways of Yeltsin.

Second, there is the problem of history. If united Europe is to have a united future, then both West and East must take on a great deal more of the other's history, but the old members are reluctant to take on these forms of knowledge. Equally, the new members have still to absorb the history of European integration itself, as a way of understanding what drives it. We still lack an automatic insight into the Jean Monnet paradigm and the process of elite cooperation that it generated. Clearly pragmatism is not enough, and both sides, elites and public opinion, have much to do before the 2004 enlargement reaches a satisfactory state of integration into Europe-as-ideal interacting with Europe-as-EU.

HAMMERSTEIN - MINTZ David

A POLITICAL EUROPE: TO BE OR NOT TO BE

Everyone knows the basic problem of the European Union. It is repeated over and over on every issue. It is the tension between the common interest of Europe and particular interests of its member states. The common interest is Europe's answers to problems that go beyond the capacity of the states to solve. The particular interest is the great resistance of the States to lose some of their control and recognise that Europe's commonality is of a very different nature than the singular needs of each European nation.

Europe was born in order to create common structure for the states that form it. Nevertheless, the natural growth of this common house has been stunted and derailed by the States that have limited its capacity and range. On one hand we have a number of young and fledging European institutions and on the other we have a growing or even asphyxiating control of an intergovernmental system that only attempts to cut up the pie according to national interests and alliances. Today we are in the midst of a very serious crisis. As the philosopher Jorgen Habermas has stated: "The member states are further than ever from pursuing a common project".

The Commission has tried work in favour of common interests. It was allowed to act on issues like internal market, the environment and Euro but many other important issues were reserved to the competence of the member states and the intergovernmental approach.

Once numerous areas of common interest were given theoretical autonomy their real activity was slowed or literally stopped by the member states. The Director of the European Bank is being opposed more and more by the Eurogroup of finance ministers, the High Representative for the common foreign policy is crippled by the lack financial and personal support from member states and the supposed European political parties are little more that their names, given that they lack common leaders, common electoral lists or common voters, measures that could move European citizens toward European politics and common interests.

How can we get out of this crisis of democratic legitimacy and of inoperancy?
The solution cannot be one of retreat and renationalization, leaving the EU as little more than a glorified common market. The way forward is more democracy, more rights and more harmonisation.

We are convinced that the reasons leading towards a Constitution for Europe are more than ever justified: the European Union needs a constitutional settlement which strengthens parliamentary democracy, transparency and the rule of law, anchors fundamental rights, develops citizenship and enhances the capacity of the Union to act effectively at home and abroad. During the last two years of period of "reflection" or should we say "siesta" (inaction), following the rejection of the Constitution by the French and the Dutch citizens, it became quite obvious that most governments - but actually also the EP or the Commission- were neither willing nor able to enter into a serious dialogue with the European citizens as promised, nor to make concrete proposals of how to get out the crisis caused by the stalling ratification process.

The German presidency is now in the very difficult position to reconcile the positions of those countries who want to keep the Constitution as untouched as possible, those who want to get rid of it as soon as possible and those who want to reduce it to some institutional aspects in order to guarantee the basic functioning of the European Union. The method (Sherpa method) chosen by the Presidency, namely again secret negotiations among high officials behind closed doors, is more than questionable. But Germany counts very much on a good atmosphere at the celebration of the 50 anniversary of the Treaties of Rome. The so-called Berlin declaration then adopted should build the bridge towards a solution on the Constitution.

It is however clear that the constitutional crisis can not be solved by a bluff, not with non-binding protocols, not with solemn declarations, not with Mini-Treaties. The crisis can not be solved by a minimalist agreement which would inevitably increase the deception and the diffidence of the European citizens, but only by a courageous step forward.

One of the preconditions to be able to make that step is that governments realise that a Constitution is by its nature a matter where public debate and association of parliaments are indispensable. It is not astonishing that we owe the main achievements of the present text to the dialogue of the Parliaments in the Convention.
And without such a dialogue, a way out of the constitutional crisis is hardly conceivable. The disdain by the governments of the public and parliamentary nature of the constitutional process and the refusal to accept law of the majority (be it a "super qualified" majority) also among Member States is indeed the fundamental democratic dilemma of this crisis.

The Constitutional Treaty as it stands should and can be improved, although its main achievements must be preserved. Therefore, we reject any attempt to restart negotiations concerning a new treaty from scratch. There are two possible methods by which could be proceeded. At the end of June 2007 the German presidency should be able, in close cooperation with the European Parliament, to formulate a clear mandate on the extension of the reform. If it turns out that the mandate is too large, then a Convention should be called in to elaborate the reform. If the mandate is focused on some essential points, then the IGC could work in a sort of co-decision procedure with the European Parliament, and agree on the necessary improvements. During this phase Parliamentary Forums should accompany the negotiations in order to guarantee the involvement of national parliaments.
Recently there was a meeting in Madrid of the 18 countries which ratified the Constitution (plus Ireland and Portugal) seem to be ready to take the lead to get out of the impasse, towards a "Constitution plus". These 18 represent the large majority of Europeans.

We also believe that if the changes, and hopefully improvements, are to be submitted to a new ratification process, and then they should be submitted to a European-wide referendum. What we would like to review - even if we are aware of the lack of consensus around them- concern the strengthening of the democratic dimension of the decision-making process (no legislative act and no decision on foreign policy without co-decision of the EP, the full competence of the European Court of Justice on all legislation, the end of unanimity vote for all decisions, including the revision of the Constitutional Treaty), a more clear role of the EU in social, environmental and foreign policy.
We also believe that we should not be afraid of promoting a large public debate: Member States and the Commission were committed since 18 June 2005 to organize a debate on Europe, with all Parliaments, parties, civil society, trade union and social partners, but it never really took place. We are convinced that such a public debate would help and not hinder with progress towards a more efficient and democratic EU.

Nevertheless, I would not want to give an overly negative impression of the European project. Despite all the difficulties the EU has achieved incredibly positive results in its 50 years of existence. Millions of europeans have benefitted directly from its policies.