Our World in 2018

EUROPE’S FUTURE
Business as usual, or will we adapt
to the rapidly changing world?
By Ingeborg Grässle
At the beginning of last year, many
pundits predicted a dire 2017. And
what did we get? No victory for
the far right, but a sweeping success of
the pro-European Macron, no large-scale
increase in the number of migrants, but a
decrease of immigration. The emergence of
a closer military cooperation within the EU,
further steps towards a joint protection of
European borders. Most importantly, in 2017
Europe attained solid economic growth,
and unemployment levels decreased in all
member states. As a result, at the end of
2017 we had a strong euro and renewed
economic stability.
Thus, at the beginning of 2018, there is a
renewed belief in the European idea, and we
witness a strengthened Europe.
How can we take advantage of this new
situation? What are the main challenges
that Europe facing? What do citizens
expect from Europe?
2018 will be the last year before the next
European elections, and hence a year of
intense activities. The discussions on the
next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF),
which will set the EU’s budget for the period
2021–2025/6/7 and define the priorities
on which Europe wants to spend its funds
in those years, will dominate the work of
the Parliament. Since the UK, a major net
contributor to the budget, leaves the EU, the
struggle for budget allocations will be even
more severe than in the past.
-Will we once again extrapolate past
spending, or will we be able to redirect our
funds, in line with today’s needs, to face
those challenges everybody is talking about?
Can we continue to spend 50% of the EU’s
budget on agriculture and the rural areas,
Ingeborg
Grässle
Ingeborg Grässle is
a German Member
of the European
Parliament (EPP),
Chair of the
Budgetary Control
Committee, Member
of the Committee
on Budgets and
Member of the
delegation for
relations with the
People’s Republic of
China.
knowing that more than 80% of those funds
will benefit a rather small group of large
landowners?
- Can we continue to allocate more than
40% of all funds via national envelopes to
structural policy projects whose usefulness
remain too often doubtful, according to
various reports of the European Court of
Auditors?
- Are we able and willing to resist the
well-oiled PR machinery that will advocate a
continuation of existing programmes, and
are we intelligent enough to allocate far
more funds to those activities our citizens call
for: protection of the EU’s external borders,
addressing the migrant crisis, a stronger and
better external policy, a more secure Europe,
and protection against terrorism?
- Are we prepared to deal with the
new challenges from globalisation? Which
resources will be available to bolster
innovation and digitalisation within the EU?
Recent reports on e.g. Chinese trade policy,
but also the American tax reforms, show the
urgency of devoting more attention to the
protection of intellectual property, and to the
safeguarding of our industrial and banking
sectors.
As chair of the Committee on Budgetary
Control, I see the need for a profound review
of the sectors and activities on which the
EU wants to use its budget. The world is
changing fast, Europe is changing fast, new
challenges ask for our involvement.
- Security: are we willing and able to
support a nascent European army? What
funds are we willing to allocate? Will this
become a common European undertaking,
or will we continue on an intergovernmental
way? Are the 27 willing to go as far, or will
this remain an intergovernmental sector,
with just a marginal role for the EU and its
budget?
26 2018 | OUR WORLD