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Zuzana Čaputová
BUSINESS
Giving up five per cent of sovereignty There have been other benefits of EU membership. Unemployment rates have fallen, the number of people in further education has risen and governance has improved. Billions of euros have been spent on infrastructure projects designed to link emerging Europe with the rest of the single market. European Union membership – the goal, since 1989, of all emerging European nations – has been unquestionably positive. Why then, the current eurosceptic backlash? According to Boris Vujčić, the chairman of the Croatian National Bank, it's certainly not a question of lost sovereignty. “Yes, the EU does mean handing over some sovereignty, but no more than five per cent," says Mr Vujčić, who led Croatia's accession negotiations ahead of its own entry to the EU in 2013, "but then think about everything you get in return! Then look at Finland, look at Portugal. These are two countries which are different in almost every way, but both are EU members. They prove that it is possible to be a member of the EU and still be very different. The idea currently being pushed by the populists that being in the EU means losing your national identity is ridiculous.” Erik Berglof, director of the Institute of Global Affairs at
the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) believes that populism is being fed by growing inequality. "Income convergence has been uneven," he told a high-level conference in Vienna in April dedicated to the 15th anniversary of the EU's eastern expansion. "The high demand for workers in advanced economies has exacerbated negative demographic trends. Medium-skilled jobs are disappearing leading to a polarisation of jobs which increases inequality. All of these things feed populism which in turn can lead to a reversal of reform and deter investors." Mugur Isarescu, who has been at the helm of the Romanian National Bank for more than two decades, feels that gaps in convergence are a country level problem. "Without resolute structural reforms at the local level it is only natural that some countries will not benefit from EU membership as much as others. There is no substitute for coherent macroeconomic policy," he says, in what could be construed as a veiled dig at the current (eurosceptic) Romanian government's chaotic economic policies. The blame game Another school of thought is that the European Union has become a convenient scapegoat for unpopular decisions in member states.
"It is politically easy to blame Brussels," says Mateusz Szczurek, a member of the European Fiscal Board (EFB)."In my time in the [Polish] finance ministry, I was careful never to do this. I never said that we need to take unpopular fiscal or budgetary decisions because Brussels wants us to. I always explained that we were taking these decisions because they were good for us. To do otherwise leads to Brexit." Mr Szczurek, who combines his role at the EFB with an associate directorship at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), also has advice for would-be EU members, particularly in the Western Balkans. "When it comes to the application of EU rules," he says, "make your reforms now. Don’t carry out your reform after you join the EU. Then it becomes too easy to blame the EU, something which is incredibly damaging in the long run." Mr Szczurek believes that the EU provides member states with what he calls a "wonderful" set of macro-economic tools that makes them unbeatable. If, of course, the will to make full use of them exists in member states. Europe's election Elections for the European parliament, scheduled for May 2326, will be a test of how deep-rooted anti-EU sentiment has become across the continent, not just