Reaction of Jeremy A. Rabkin to Andrew Moravcsik’s article on the collapse of the Constitutional treaty

I agree with Andy Moravscik that more “participation” is not, in itself, a cure for what ails Europe. I’ve always regarded the “democracy deficit” as a symptom rather than a cause of the underlying problems with political integration in Europe. And I can’t dispute Moravscik’s underlying point that people would argue less about the EU if they took less notice of it.

But I don’t agree that Europe will achieve stability by disaggregating the constitutional treaty into smaller pieces and calling them “adjustments.” European integration flourished in the decades when economic growth and international stability – imposed by the clarifying simplicities of the Cold War – had narrowed the range of relevant policy debate in Europe. I don’t think that is where Europe is today. In consequence, I don’t think we can expect Europeans to continue to defer to policies presented as the fruits of “consensus” or technical expertise – rather than disputable political decisions, forcing attention to the underlying question, who decides?

Start with the economy. The core states, France, Germany and Italy, have been plagued by low growth and high unemployment for more than a decade. Moravscik may be right that the EU itself does not prevent governments in these countries from undertaking reforms that would alter their economic prospects. But there is little political support in these countries for paring welfare spending and labor market controls in ways that might help. Voters in these countries want more protection, not less – from low-cost producers in Asia and from immigrant workers, competing for jobs in Europe.