The general impression is that the EMU zone (which gathers countries belonging to, or potentially belonging to, the euro) suffers from a crisis of trust. How can we move forward with European integration when people lack trust in EU institutions? The facts may however be quite different: there is too much trust in the EU institutions and too much trust in the reform capacities in the EMU countries.
The guiding rule for EU-leaders has been to restore trust in the EMU and to get economic growth in the EU back on track. Many steps are being taken to rebuild trust ranging from fiscal compact and banking union, to measures to increase the relevance of subsidiarity. Overall, these measures and the fight for trust will – optimistically – lead to deeper integration.
However, the EMU zone may not suffer from a lack of trust. Paradoxically, this is bad news. First of all, there is generally more trust in EU institutions than in national institutions. Over the past few weeks, I sat in meetings with senior officials and politicians from different parts of the EU. On the question whether they would like to see the EU institutions take over economic tasks and develop into an EU economic government, the answer was decidedly ‘yes’. According to the responses, national institutions (including central banks), have been the cause of the economic and banking problems.
This trust in EU institutions is in accordance with the Eurobarometer which indicates that the people in 17 euro countries have (much) more trust in EU institutions than in their national governments. The bottom of the list with trust in national governments shows euro countries Spain (8% trust national government), Greece (9%), Slovenia (10%), Portugal (10%) and Italy (11%). Other countries with low national trust and higher trust in EU institutions include France (only 24% trust national government) and Ireland (18%).
The consequence of this situation is that there is not so much a lack of trust in the EU (and the related euro institutions) but a national trust crisis – and EU institutions are trusted to manage national economies. If the discussions of the past week are anything to go by, there is a majority of countries in the EU that would like to see the development of stronger European economic governance because they are themselves too weak to run their own economies. In the words of a minister from a country preparing for joining the euro: “the Commission can better decide what is good for us”.
The second reason why there is not a lack of trust in EU institutions is that the EU seems to suffer from traditional over-optimism. Judging by the hope that the EU is better in taking economic governance decisions than national governments closer to their voters, this over-optimism still exists. Greece, Portugal and East European countries were allowed into the EEC/EU. Similarly, accession into Schengen also proved quite easy. Membership was assumed to lead to reforms. In the same vein, despite an argument between monetarist and economic governance economists, euro membership was granted ahead of economic reforms, trusting that membership would do the trick. Hence, the EU has been gambling with economic history based on naïve trust in EU reform mechanisms.
Thirdly, countries have been trusted to be flexible and to develop. However, the French competitiveness index fell from 15th position in 2000 to 22nd in 2013. Italy’s competitiveness eroded as underlined by the drop from 24th position to 49th. Greece managed a slight but hugely painful improvement from 33rd to the 31st position.
Deeper integration is on the agenda. The EU Council meeting of December 2013 concluded additional steps towards banking union and economic contracts. The basis of the economic governance, however, remains a collection of mostly week states; states that seem to have given up managing their own economies and that place their hope in the EU. The EU might as well be doomed with this trust in the EU to solve national reform problems.
