Redacción-Aquí Europa
In an exclusive interview, Nicolas Schmit, current European Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs and PES candidate for the European Commission, warns of the risks of frozen conflict in Europe and the vulnerability of democracy to internal threats. Schmit says “the stakes are high” ahead of the June elections.
What do you think is at stake in these elections and how do the Socialists intend to respond to the geopolitical, economic and social challenges facing Europe today?
I think the stakes are high this time. In every election politicians say that these are the most important elections in history. But this time, really, these elections take on a very special dimension because, first of all, the world is upside down. And especially in Europe, we are experiencing something we never expected.
There is a war on our borders, and this is the geopolitical dimension, but there is a war on our borders in Ukraine. There is another war in the south, in the Mediterranean, in Gaza and in the Middle East. So this is an important issue where Europe has to be a player. And Europe has to get stronger, geopolitically speaking. But to be strong geopolitically, you have to be strong internally.
And that is the internal dimension of Europe, which means that first we have to consolidate our European project because we have forces that say, well, why do we need this integration? We want to go back to much more national approaches. They are not exactly saying that they would like to dissolve the European Union, but the idea is at least to weaken and destroy it. And this is the biggest danger.
I always say it. Polls are polls and elections are elections. So we have to look at the elections, not just the polls, but we cannot ignore the polls and the polls are about the extreme right. Populism is at a very high level at the moment
This is an issue where we have to convince the citizens that finally the populists, they do not have a project for Europe. They just want to destroy or at least dismantle Europe. That is not the project. And that is why we, as social democrats and socialists, know that we have to strengthen ourselves internally as well.
First of all, democracy in Europe. Democracy is under attack not only by Putin and from outside, it is also under attack from within. We have at least one Member State where democracy is no longer the norm. Hungary is no longer a normal constitutional state, a democratic state, so there is an attack from within.
The second is the economy. We are going through a major change from an economic point of view, also globally, but we have a big project which is the transformation of our economy by decarbonisation, which is a big undertaking, big investments needed, changes in our society, not only in the economy.
We have all seen what is happening with farmers because they think that the biggest danger comes from our Green Deal policy. No, the biggest danger comes from the climate and also from a bad organisation of agricultural markets where farmers work hard and are not paid for that work. So this is the socio-economic dimension that we have to rebuild.
We have to help our industry adapt to this new context. We also have to make sure that the inequalities in Europe, the social injustice in Europe, are reduced, that we have better convergence, not only economically between different parts of Europe, but also socially. We recently had the Tripartite Social Summit, where the social partners are also there, and many said that the issue is that there are so many differences between different parts of Europe that, for example, many young people leave their home countries because the wages are so low.
So we really have to work on better wages, more convergence, upward convergence between parts of Europe. That was my job in this Commission. I just mentioned that we have adopted a directive on minimum wages, precisely with the idea that we need this social convergence.
On relations with Latin America, I believe that Europe should be a natural partner for Latin American countries that are facing big problems. There is populism in Latin America. We see it now in a southern country, in Argentina, a very special political orientation, I must say, and I think it should be a good example to say, never try, never try.
I think we have a lot in common with Latin America, not only the language, but also the culture and many other things.
Which social rights do you think will be most under attack if the extreme right wins a majority in the next elections
I think this is very clear. We see what happens when the far right and the right are in coalition. It is the dismantling of fundamental social rights in the area of social protection. This is what is happening now in a northern country, in Finland, where social protection such as unemployment benefits and so on is being dismantled.
The welfare state is under attack. This is also happening in Italy, by the way. The first thing the Italian government did was to skip the minimum income for the most vulnerable.
The second thing they do is to dismantle the rights of trade unions. That’s what’s happening now, obviously, in Finland, because they reduce the right to strike, they limit the right to strike, which is a fundamental right also in the charter. So they try to reduce it because if you dismantle this welfare system, there is a risk of strikes. So it’s better to dismantle also the right to strike. So it’s much easier to dismantle everything else and also the collective bargaining system to weaken the collective bargaining system, which is finally the basis for better wages.
Well, we have a directive not only on the minimum wage, but also on collective bargaining. And now in this country, it turns out that they are dismantling the collective agreement or collective bargaining, or at least weakening it.
Many of the far-right parties are promoting fear of immigration. So what is the socialists’ response to this fear, to this problem that is changing our societies?
It is not an easy thing, I must say, because the issue of immigration has been transformed into a kind of toxic political issue by the extreme right. And the big mistake is sometimes that the right-wing parties, not the conservative parties, have adopted more or less the same language. So now the dominant language is the language of the extreme right.
We have seen in France that there is a law on immigration that was an initiative of the Macron government and that has been voted not only by the conservatives, but also by the extreme right. So this is a real danger.
As long as we have a pact on I’m not saying there is no problem. Obviously there is a problem. There are two issues. First of all, we have to control migration better. So we have to create the instruments to better control migration. This is what the Migration Pact aims to do. Hopefully in April we will vote on this pact to better coordinate, to put in place measures to better control.
The second has to do with values and rights. It is simply unacceptable that the rights, the fundamental rights, the human rights of migrants are not respected. That is why I am very critical of all kinds of agreements with authoritarian regimes, whether in Tunisia or Egypt, to say: we pay and you take care of them. This is not acceptable because we have no guarantee that the basic fundamental rights of these people are respected.
And they are sent somewhere in the desert. And what happens afterwards is that they die in the sea or they die in the desert. Unacceptable for us.
But we really have to find a way to control it better, because, on the other hand, we all agree, even Meloni, even Orbán knows that they need migration, because they are looking for migrants coming to Italy, coming to Hungary to work because they have labour shortages.
They have understood that there is a need. So we have to find a way to better organise legal migration. We certainly have to fight against trafficking, smugglers, people smugglers. I totally agree with that.
Finally, people smuggling has become the most profitable business, better than any other kind of business. This is unacceptable. A way also in which people die because the smugglers don’t care about that.
So I think we have to oppose a policy, an organised policy, but one that respects the values of Europe and the right of every single person and the dignity of every single human being.
One of the most important things that the European Commission has been stressing is Ukraine. Do you think that, in the next four years, five years, Ukraine can be a member? For example, if the war lasts 10 or 20 years, which is not very long for the Russians, do you think that during the war it is politically viable to join?
I would not say that in the next five years Ukraine will be a full member of the European Union. I would be very cautious about that. But it is clear that there is an opening of negotiation, a process with the objective of joining the European Union and becoming a full member. I would be very cautious about defining the timetable or the deadlines. So that is one issue.
Secondly, I hope that this war will not last ten or twenty years. That is why we have to support Ukraine by all means and we have to give them everything they need in terms of armaments, in terms of ammunition.
Otherwise, we run the risk of having some kind of frozen conflict, which would be the worst thing we could imagine, because it would be a frozen conflict in Europe. And with all the possibilities of the Russians putting permanent pressure not only on Ukraine, but especially on Europe as a whole.
So we have to really support Ukraine and the enlargement process and Ukraine’s accession to the Union. Obviously, we also need to help Ukraine to modernise and democratise its institutions. And there is, I see very clearly, a weak point in our European construction, which is the democratic aspect and the defence of the rule of law.
Now we have tried to improve it. We have seen it with Hungary, Poland, but it is not at the level it should be. Why? Because we were naïve, because we thought that, once democracy was established, it would be forever. And this is not true. Democracy is always fragile. Why? Because democracy can be abolished from within.
Democratic rights can be used to abolish democracy. History tells us that. But we had forgotten this. Now we know it. And that is why we need a much stronger framework to defend precisely the rule of law and democratic rights. And this applies, obviously not only to those who are here now. We have article seven, but article seven is unanimity minus one.
If there are two countries, it is obviously difficult to have this unanimity minus one, because there is another one that we add with Poland and Hungary. So article seven is a good article, but in the end it is not very operational.
That is why we have to build a solid framework for democratic rights. And we also have to help Ukraine and the other members because there are other candidates, the Western Balkans are there.
Do you think that the EU gives the image of the current EU as a double standard entity? For Ukraine to join the European Union, like any other country, it has to fulfil some requirements related to democracy, the Supreme Court, separation of powers, and so on. Following some of the assessments that the European Commission has been making, the issue is that some of the Member States, and you mentioned one or two, are inside and do not respect these rights that you are demanding from Ukraine.
We know that not everything is perfect in some of the Western Balkan countries. There are also regimes that are not really democratic, I would say, and that is why there should be no double standards. But I think Ukraine has already come a long way. They are not there yet. They are at war.
We have to support them. I have said that, but now we have to encourage them and support them to build really stable and strong democratic institutions. No double standards.
Do you not think that the situation is exceptional and requires an exceptional urgency procedure for Ukraine to give at least a prospect of membership, and not the classic one we all know?
I believe that the proposals being made by the Commission are already a kind of exceptional way of bringing the candidates into the European Union. It is not simply a matter of negotiating and, at some point, becoming a member. I think we have to find a much more progressive way of bringing Ukraine into the European Union. It will be a different way of managing the membership process. So, in that sense, it would be exceptional.
The fact is that we cannot isolate Ukraine from everybody else because, unfortunately, we have another region in Europe, which is the Western Balkans, which is also under strong pressures, not directly with the war, although we know there was war a few decades ago and there are pressures from the Russians, pressures from the Chinese, pressures from the Turks, but also from France.
We have to balance this with Ukraine. But it is clear that the signal and the engagement we have with Ukraine has to be absolutely respected. And there has to be this process, progressive, to bring Ukraine into the union.
If Donald Trump wins the election in November, what should Europe do differently from the US this time?
There are important elections on 9 June, and there are perhaps even more important elections in November. And it is clear that we cannot simply exclude that sometimes elections do not deliver the result that was expected. And that is why Europe has to be prepared, because with a new administration in Washington, obviously there will be important changes and Europe has to be prepared.
We cannot change the outcome of the elections in the US. We will not have, I think, a big influence on the new administration, which will be the Trump administration, which will be very different, I’m afraid, than the first Trump administration.
So Europe has to be prepared in terms of a tough negotiation with the United States on trade, obviously, because Trump is going for a very tough protectionist policy, especially in relation to China, but also with Europe.
By the way, everything that the Americans are doing with China has a direct impact on Europe because the Chinese cannot export to the US, they will try to export to Europe. The second has to do with security. Now, I’ve heard you apparently say, no, I didn’t mean that about NATO and so on.
But I think we cannot trust. So Europe has to invest now not only for Ukraine, not only for Putin, but we have to invest more in our own security. That is clear. There is no other option. We have to accelerate the modernisation of our military and, above all, we have to better integrate European defence policies.
It is not that Europe spends so little on its defence, but the point is that we have 27 different defence policies and a lot of money is wasted because the systems are so different. So I think the integration of our defence is absolutely key and we have to invest a lot in our defence industries because it is important, as we see now with Ukraine and the difficulties in supplying ammunition, for example, but not only ammunition.
We have to invest more in our defence industry. So I think this is an answer, I would say a little bit independent of what happens in November in the US. I’m still a little bit optimistic and I think in the end Americans will reflect when they vote. Sometimes it doesn’t happen.
But I hope that this time it will happen, that in any case Europe has to take into account that there is an evolution independently of the outcome of the US elections and Europe has to stand up for itself much more.
