French The Left MEP: EU must stop false promises to candidate countries

The European Union must stop making false promises to candidate countries and focus on existing members as enlargement offers no real chance of strengthening the bloc’s position internationally, according to French MEP Manon Aubry in an exclusive interview with Euractiv.

Aubry, a member of the left-wing populist party La France Insoumise, was elected to the European Parliament in 2019 and assumed the role of co-chair of The Left, and she has been charged with running the national campaign for the 2024 EU vote.

One year after Ukraine and Moldova applied for EU candidate status, the European Commission recommended opening accession talks, much to the chagrin of Western Balkan countries, some of which waited over a decade for the same progress.

But Aubry was clear that the reality for Ukraine and Moldova is not quite how the EU seeks to position it, and “as it stands”, she will not support their EU membership. But she was clear that member states “must maintain military, financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.”

Going a step further, she added that enlargement would not strengthen the EU’s position on the international stage, especially if there is no harmonisation of social, fiscal and environmental standards.

“Rather than making false and unrealistic promises of membership to candidate countries, let’s strengthen our cooperation with EU neighbours,” she said.

Recently, the EU unveiled the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans that will see €6 billion in loans and grants given to countries to carry out reforms and bolster their economies ahead of long-promised membership.

Solidarity with Palestine

But solidarity with Ukraine must also be extended to “the people of Palestine”, she said, calling out a lack of cohesion in the approach of parties and member states to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas versus the stance taken towards the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“When the EU justifiably adopts 11 packages of sanctions against Russia, the liberals, the right and the far right refuse to call for a ceasefire in Gaza,” she said.

Aubry added that this results in a situation where the EU “de facto gives a blank cheque to Netanyahu to continue committing war crimes,” she said.

Between this lack of support and the rise of the far-right in Europe, “we are experiencing a tipping point in trivialising the far-right and demonising the left in France”, she warned.

The MEP explained, however, that it is not realistic or achievable for the EU to reach a common position on foreign policy matters, as the extreme divergence of views regarding the UN resolution in favour of a ceasefire in Gaza showed.

But it is not just member states that have differing views, Aubry explained, pointing to the recent stances taken by European Commission officials.

“The unilateral positions of certain Commissioners on the suspension of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, or the unconditional support of President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen for Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu, were major political errors,” she said.

Democratising

Aubry also has issues with the lack of transparency in the inner workings of European Union institutions.

From a democratic point of view, Aubry says she is “struck by the total opacity in terms of how the EU operates, where all negotiations take place behind closed doors”.

“Opacity is a real poison that lobbies use to set the rules. Transparency is the mother of all battles”, Aubry added.

To address this issue, she argued it would be “absolutely necessary to ban” additional remuneration for MEPs while in office because “if we don’t improve transparency, we won’t change the common stereotype that all politicians in European politics are corrupt”.

In this context, is institutional reform of the EU structure necessary? “The truth is, we need to rethink everything, from strengthening the powers of the European Parliament to abolishing unanimity with regards to tax policies,” she said.

However, the tightening of fiscal rules and the increased pace at which free-trade agreements are being signed foreshadow a “violent backlash”, warned Aubry, who will be the lead candidate of the left-wing party La France insoumise (GUE/NGL) in the 2024 European elections,

In her view, the EU is a victim of “structural incoherence: We can’t tackle the climate issue head-on without challenging current economic dogmas”. To move forward, Aubry recommends “breaking with free trade, austerity and the all-encompassing market, to instead impose protectionism, solidarity and common goods”.

“This is the three-pronged vision I’ll be putting forward for the 2024 European elections,” she said.

Reindustrialising

For the EU to move forward, one of its priorities is to develop an independent industry. To this end, Aubry said, the EU should have new resources “financed in part by a European wealth tax and a European tax on windfall profits “across all sectors”.

She also suggested allowing the European Central Bank to lend directly to member states.

She dismissed the notion that some of these measures might be “federalist”, implying more power for EU institutions at the expense of national governments, describing herself as a “euro-realist”.

“The EU is the result of a collection of power relations that we must accept to build a more social, ecological and democratic Europe,” she explained.

Progressive bloc

To counter the “reactionary bloc being formed between the European People’s Party (EPP), Identity and Democracy (ID), the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and some of Renew’s liberals”, Aubry calls for the creation of a “progressive bloc” with the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D), but on condition that they “break their historic alliance with the right-wing parties”.

To support this bloc, La France insoumise and The Left can, according to their co-president, count on their track record: “the defence of hub workers, the end of legal impunity for multinationals, the fight to take energy out of the markets, etc.”, she defended.

During the next term of office, “we will continue to carry the voice of those who are heard too little within the often out-of-touch European institutions”, she concluded.

[Edited by Alice Taylor]