The last European Parliament elections have been disappointing and not only because their result in France has been followed by snap elections for the National Assembly and a vote which has opened a period of political uncertainness. Once elected, the European members of the Parliament gathered to form parliamentary groups. Their members belong, each one in his country, to a party. We so would have expected that these parties had worked together to elaborate a program and to present it to the electors. It is the essence of the democracy. Nothing like that happened.

In France, the electoral campaign was focused on the country political situation and on the rivalries between the possible candidates at the next presidential election which is forecast in 2027. Nobody imagined that snap elections would occur the day after the results. Election was perceived as a kind of a full-scale poll about the government action and at no time about what was the purpose of the vote, i.e. the necessary decisions which were to be taken at the European level during the coming years.

Yet, these ones are essential for the future of the Union because the world has changed. The European construction is more indispensable than ever but the adopted principles in the past as the actions which are taken under them are not anymore adapted to the current situation. In front of the United States, the breakdown is obvious. It must not be limited to a comparison between growth rates. The productivity and the innovation capacities gaps between the two sides of the Atlantic, if they were not going to be at least partly filled, would provoke an irrevocable economic decline of the Old Continent.

The China new growth model, relying on big private groups having the capacity to export on the developed countries markets, put into danger the European industry. From low-cost suppliers, these enterprises have become dangerous competitors, in their own market and as exporters. European companies risk to lose the opportunities which had constituted major growth supports until now and to be competed on their local markets which will even more weaken them.

At last, developing countries doesn’t accept anymore the developed countries domination and their summit which has just happened in Kazan, in Russia, has been the opportunity to show that on the economic issues. Moscow was not isolated and the traditional rivals like China and India were now able to get on to promote the “multi-polarization” of the world. In this context, it is obvious that no European country is able, alone, to cope with such changes. The solution which is essential is the adoption inside the European Union, of measures which can answer to these new challenges.

Unfortunately, and it is one of the lessons of the last elections, in France and elsewhere, the European project is facing less and less support from the populations. The Union operating mode is more and more disconnected from their aspirations, due to the technocratic operating mode of the Commission and to the lack of debates inside the Parliament about the stakes which concern all the citizens as employment, purchasing power or immigration. The last electoral campaign is the illustration of that. Yet, the reforming issues are not missing.

There is first the ideological principle of free and not biased competition imposed by the Brussels administrations. It made a huge harm to the European industry. It is necessary to reform it. The example is given to us by the U.S. and by China which did not deprive themselves to directly support their enterprises. The interdiction of State aids is absurd when the issue is to allow a sector to restructure itself or to support innovation efforts. The hostile attitude regarding mergers and acquisitions which would allow to build large European groups able to impose themselves on the world market must be abandoned as the obligation for strategic public services to open themselves to competition. It is not rational that there are as many telephone operators in France than in the U.S.

The environment European policy must take into account its consequences on the sectors exposed to the international competition. The next mandates of the Commission and of the Parliament must give the opportunity of an evaluation of the norms and of the regulations imposed to enterprises and of a major simplification. The future of agriculture depends from it because the multiplication of the constraints provokes the discouragement of the whole profession.

The calendar imposed for the passage to electric vehicles, which is unique in the world, as the penalties which must occur in 2025 on the thermal engine cars sales, could lead to an industrial disaster in the whole Europe and especially in Germany and in France. That motorization does not meet the client support. Its cost, even after public subventions, is too high and above all, its real autonomy is still insufficient. Neither China nor the U.S. have adopted such constraining measures. It is so the duty of the Parliament to take this subject if the Commission doesn’t re-examine the calendar.

The principles regarding enterprises and household taxation must also be revised. It is not possible to impose to the eurozone members criteria about deficit and indebtedness and, in the same time to let to prosper within the eurozone tax heavens. The cases of the Luxembourg with its “mail-box” subsidiaries which allow companies to avoid tax and of Ireland, where, through the manipulation of transfer prices, major international groups localize artificially their profits, are unacceptable. The height, it is when they are taken into fraud and when, as it occurs in a recent case, an American company must pay a heavy penalty to the country which put up it, and not to the countries which have been the victims of that embezzlement of fiscal receipts.

The achievements of the CO2 emissions reduction objectives go through the electrification and by the end of the recourse to fossil fuels to produce power. A European power market must be instituted which will impose to each State rules regarding their energetic independence and the safety of their supplies, the availability of their power production system and the reduction of their recourse to fossil fuels. Communautaire financings will be engaged to protect household purchasing power and enterprises competitiveness.

At last, new criteria regarding public finances must be elaborated and after, discussed with the States in taking into account military expenditures, the particular status of the pensions systems and the financial assets accumulated by household in every country. The permanent debate inside the Union between the countries which thinks they are virtuous, the ants, and these which spend, the cicadas, lead only to one thing: to create useless discords which weaken everybody.

The Communautaire institutions so have a double task: to reform the model through the adoption of common policies which are adapted to the new challenges and to regain the support of people to the European project. If the first one lays on a deep analysis and on discussions inside the institutions with in the first position the European Parliament, the second one needs a completely new effort of explanation and communication in every State-member.

If we want that this effort is supported, it is essential that it is defended by officials belonging to European institutions in order it is better known and so recognized. Europe can then take a new expansion.  It has not any more the choice: to reform itself, to look for and to find the solutions corresponding to European people expectations or to disappear.