Home What future is there for the European Commission within the big redefinition of the Transatlantic Relationship? (Sep. 2016)

GEAB Special file

The monthly bulletin of LEAP (European Laboratory of Political Anticipation) - 14 Aug 2020

What future is there for the European Commission within the big redefinition of the Transatlantic Relationship? (Sep. 2016)

Since its creation, the Global Europe Anticipation Bulletin has been designed among other things to inform European public opinion and decision makers about the fact that the global geopolitical reconfiguration vitally requires a profound change of the EU. The United States, structural associate of the European project since its origin – but mostly since the fall of the Berlin Wall – has also changed its role and place in the world. And now, with the global systemic crisis, its transformation emphasises even more the EU’s urgent need to adapt; in terms of its nature, purpose and external relations. But most of all, its need to reform its most emblematic administrative body, the European Commission.

Visible Deterioration of the Transatlantic Relationship   

A period of thirteen years will have passed since the Franco-German refusal to follow the US in its Iraq war in 2003[1] until the “possibility of Trump” for the US presidency at the end of 2016. In the meantime, the transatlantic relationship has witnessed all kinds of hazards: starting with great moments of apparent symbiosis (Sarkozy’s election as head of the most anti-Atlanticist EU countries in 2007; the communion against Russia in 2014) and ending with deep questioning (NSA’s spying scandal[2] and anti-TTIP campaigns[3]).

Nevertheless, we currently see some of the rupture indicators intensify, which question several particularly fundamental points of the transatlantic relationship. Here are the most common:

. the action taken against Barroso in response to his hiring by Goldman Sachs: Barroso was a president of the European Commission known as blindly and unconditionally pro-Atlanticist. He was hired by Goldman Sachs which was notoriously responsible for the misleading investigation of the Greek debt case in 2002, as part of the decision to integrate the country into the Eurozone[4]. Some time ago, this kind of scandal could have been missed; but this time, not only has the media jumped on the topic, but also the Commission has reacted by withdrawing Barroso’s privileged entry access as a former president[5]; a group of officials even signed a petition entitled “not in our name”[6].

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Contents

The corona crisis has been the trigger for the EU to finally start issuing common bonds. It was a modest and hard-won step forward. In the midst of the flames, [...]

The editorial GEAB team decided to share, exceptionally, with its readers an excerpt of the as yet unpublished document entitled "Community or Empire"; a book written by Franck Biancheri in [...]

A long time ago, in 1998, Franck Biancheri, our regretfully departed director of studies, signed an anticipatory article entitled: « 2009, when Europe ends up in the hands of the grandsons [...]

This anticipation is not very original but it must nevertheless be faced with all the lucidity required. It is hardly a hypothesis, but rather a certainty: the allied European far [...]

The financial crisis followed by the debt crisis has led to a substantial change in the mandate of the European Central Bank (ECB) and to more political provisions. The ECB [...]

There is a lot about epilogues in this issue! In the case of the EU (a phase in the construction of Europe which came into being on 7 February 1992 [...]

There’s no need to wait for the results of the election to anticipate some of the major features of the new Europe that will be established after June 2019. Certainly, [...]

The prospects for social reorganisation that can be imagined from the current health crisis are enormous. We have, therefore, decided to focus on Europe, about which we are much more [...]

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