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EU Leaders Must Hold the Green Line

Dec 10, 2020 Pascal Lamy , Enrico Letta, Laurence Tubiana

The European Union has taken monumental steps this year to deepen the bloc's integration and solidarity in the face of not just the pandemic but also the climate crisis. By threatening to derail this progress, Hungary and Poland have placed a risky bet, and other EU leaders must call their bluff.

PARIS – Historians will no doubt look back on 2020 as a turning point for the European Union. But which of two competing headlines will capture this critical moment?

On one hand, the year could be defined by struggle and disintegration: the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU; conflicts over migration policies; Hungary and Poland blocking the EU budget and COVID-19 recovery fund over the new rule-of-law conditionality on disbursement of Union funds. On the other hand, 2020 could go down as the year when Europe decided definitively to pursue a green, decarbonized economy, a renewed sense of solidarity, and deeper integration in order to shape its economic recovery.

With a critical European Council summit this week, it will be up to the EU’s heads of state and government to decide whether they will remain committed to the Union’s core values. This past spring, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed to establish the recovery fund, thus laying a foundation for Europe’s future. This proposal marked a significant departure from traditional EU policy – especially from the German perspective – because it envisioned common borrowing and a transfer union beyond the existing EU budget.

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Eastbound and Green in Europe PS OnPoint
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Eastbound and Green in Europe

Laurence Tubiana hopes the EU can work with China in leading the world toward a more sustainable development model.

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Europe’s Faustian Bargain
Thierry Monasse/Pool/Getty Images

Europe’s Faustian Bargain

Melvyn Krauss explains why EU leaders are about to trade rule-of-law guarantees for north-south solidarity.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 2 Comments on this article

Bob Smith Dec 11, 2020

The decision has been made: so much for holding that vaunted "green line." Hungary/Poland 1, EU 0.
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Bernhard Kopp Dec 10, 2020

This comment was removed by a moderator. Replies to this comment may also be deleted. Please note that we moderate comments to ensure the conversation remains topically relevant. We appreciate well-informed comments and welcome your criticism and insight. Please be civil and avoid name-calling and ad hominem remarks.
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Bob Smith Dec 10, 2020

The authors of this piece are a positive "dream team" of Eurocrats! Bravo. And, like faithful servants of the EU, they have laid out the standard EU line: that mean old Hungary and Poland need to be punished for violating something call "rule of law." What exactly this "rule of law" consists of they prudently avoid saying, perhaps because they themselves don't know, other than they know that they just don't like Orban and the Polish leaders, both of whom, they also prudently avoid mentioning, have been elected and reelected by wide margins in their respective countries. The solution to this impasse is simple: the EU should stop meddling in the internal political affairs of member states. When they drop their bluff against the Poles and Hungarians, then these two governments will allow regular EU business to proceed. The miscreants here are EU politicians who apparently fear actual democracy, not the Hungarians or Poles.
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