‘EU needs strategic review to deal with crises, job creation, immigration’

It is the assumptions and models, not the values and methods that should change inside the European project, former Labour prime minister Alfred Sant told European Parliament in Strasbourg in his intervention during the debate on the Luxembourg presidency.

“The signs are showing that the time has come for a strategic review of the European project. We need a strategic reflection on the assumptions, not the values; the models not the methods, of the European project. Among others, the reach and soft power of the Union; a new design for political coherence in Europe; immigration policies; the effects of globalisation; the mix of state and private sector; not least in the areas of job creation,” Sant said.

Sant said the results of recent national elections, in which populism and Eurosceptic forces were mounting a considerable showing, showed how the people were angling for this strategic review. “Clearly, when you operate in fire fighting mode, as Europe has been doing over the past months, there is no time to undertake strategic reviews. Yet the signs are that the time has also come for such reviews.”

Sant said that the Luxembourg Presidency and the European Commission had shown great determination in trying to steer the EU outside the refugee crisis

“However, from the smoothing over of the most recent Greek crisis to the refugee crisis, everything was done in fire fighting mode. Events, not the EU, were in charge. Unfortunately events may have shown that the assumptions and models we follow no longer fit the realities. They refer to economic and social realities of the past,” Sant said.

Participating in the debate were also Luxembourg's Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and EP President Martin Schultz. Main issues the Luxembourg presidency had to deal with were the migration crisis, the failure of EU secret services to cooperate in tackling terrorism and tax rulings.