The European Union must stop making false promises to candidate countries and focus on existing members, as enlargement offers no real chance to strengthen the bloc’s position on the international stage, according to French MEP Manon Aubry in an exclusive interview with Euractiv.
Aubry, a member of the left-wing populist party La France Insoumise, was elected to the European Parliament in 2019 and took on the role of co-president of La Gauche, and she was tasked with leading the national campaign for the 2024 European elections.
A year after Ukraine and Moldova applied for EU candidate country status, the European Commission has recommended the opening of accession negotiations, to the dismay of Western Balkan countries, some of whom have waited longer of a decade to achieve the same progress.
But Aubry made clear that the reality for Ukraine and Moldova does not exactly match how the EU seeks to position them, and “as things stand” she will not support their position. EU membership. But she made it clear that member states “must maintain their military, financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.”
Going further, she added that enlargement would not strengthen the EU’s position on the international scene, especially if there was no harmonization of social, fiscal and environmental standards.
“Rather than making false and unrealistic membership promises to candidate countries, let us strengthen our cooperation with our EU neighbors,” she said.
Recently, the EU unveiled the Western Balkans Growth Plan, which provides €6 billion in loans and grants to countries to carry out reforms and strengthen their economies ahead of their long-promised accession.
Solidarity with Palestine
But solidarity with Ukraine must also extend to “the Palestinian people”, she said, denouncing the lack of cohesion in the approach of parties and member states to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas , in relation to the position adopted in the face of the Russian invasion of Hamas. Ukraine.
“When the EU rightly adopts 11 sanctions packages against Russia, liberals, the right and the far right refuse to call for a ceasefire in Gaza,” she said.
Aubry added that this results in a situation in which the EU “de facto gives Netanyahu a blank check to continue committing war crimes,” she added.
Between this lack of support and the rise of the far right in Europe, “we are experiencing a turning point in the trivialization of the far right and the demonization of the left in France,” she warned.
The MEP explained, however, that it is neither realistic nor achievable for the EU to reach a common position on foreign policy issues, as shown by the extreme divergence of views regarding the UN resolution in in favor of a ceasefire in Gaza.
But member states are not the only ones with divergent views, Aubry explained, highlighting recent positions taken by European Commission officials.
“The unilateral positions of certain commissioners on the suspension of humanitarian aid to the Palestiniansor the unconditional support from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, were major political mistakes,” she said.
Democratize
Aubry also has problems with the lack of transparency in the internal workings of the European Union institutions.
From a democratic point of view, Aubry says she is “struck by the total opacity of the functioning of the EU, where all negotiations take place behind closed doors”.
“Opacity is a real poison that lobbies use to set the rules. Transparency is the mother of all battles,” added Aubry.
To solve this problem, she argued that it would be “absolutely necessary to ban” additional remuneration for MEPs during their mandate, because “if we do not improve transparency, we will not change the common stereotype that all European politicians are corrupt.” .
In this context, is an institutional reform of the EU structure necessary? “The truth is that we need to rethink everything, from strengthening the powers of the European Parliament to abolishing unanimity in tax policy,” she said.
However, the tightening of budgetary rules and the acceleration of the signing of free trade agreements portend a “violent reaction”, warned Aubry, who will be the lead candidate of the left party La France insoumise (GUE / NGL ). in the 2024 European elections,
According to her, the EU is the victim of a “structural incoherence: we cannot tackle the climate issue head-on without calling into question current economic dogmas”. To move forward, Aubry recommends “breaking with free trade, austerity and the all-encompassing market, to impose protectionism, solidarity and common goods”.
“This is the three-part vision that I will propose for the 2024 European elections,” she said.
Reindustrialize
For the EU to move forward, one of its priorities is to develop an independent industry. To this end, Aubry said, the EU should have new resources “financed in part by a European wealth tax and a European windfall profits tax “across all sectors”.
She also suggested allowing the European Central Bank to lend directly to member states.
She rejected the idea that some of these measures could be “federalist”, implying more power for European institutions at the expense of national governments, describing herself as a “Euro-realist”.
“The EU is the result of a set of power relations that we must accept to build a more social, more ecological and more democratic Europe,” she explained.
Progressive bloc
To counter the “reactionary bloc which is forming between the European People’s Party (EPP), Identity and Democracy (ID), the European Conservatives and Reformers (ECR) and part of the liberals of Renew”, Aubry calls for the creation of a “progressive bloc”. with the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D), but on condition that they “break their historic alliance with the right-wing parties”.
To support this bloc, La France insoumise and La Gauche can, according to their co-president, count on their record: “the defense of hub workers, the end of the legal impunity of multinationals, the fight to withdraw energy from the markets” . , etc.,” she defended herself.
During the next mandate, “we will continue to raise the voice of those who are too little heard within the European institutions, which are often disconnected,” she concluded.
(Edited by Alice Taylor)
