Quest for right path at EU summit in Brussels
The EU leaders plan to discuss the Union's economy and commit to further structural reforms at their spring summit in Brussels. Another item on the agenda is the white paper presented by EU Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker. Europe's press stresses the urgent need for constructive proposals for the EU's future but voices disappointment with Juncker's various scenarios.
Multi-speed Europe will help only a few states
There is no sign of a solution for EU's future that could help all member states, Dnevnik laments:
“A multispeed Europe will only cause more confusion. It would also intensify the search for alternative state alliances, which would deepen the rifts in the EU. Then we can forget the goals of a common EU foreign policy and strengthening the Union's position in the world and only hope that the stability of the Eurozone will be preserved. It's clear as day that the EU cannot go on in its present divided state, because to continue this way would be like a slow and painful death. But at least for the time being a multi-speed Europe won't help all 27 member states after Britain's exit. It would only help a handful of states and their willing satellites. ”
Cooperation hard to coordinate
A multispeed Europe poses many practical difficulties, Dagens Nyheter writes commenting on the EU summit:
“The EU Commission paints a future in which member countries can form coalitions aiming at enhanced cooperation in certain areas. Some could work together on issues regarding tax loopholes, others on defence. Still others could perhaps construct a sort of European FBI. ... The key question with so many different agreements, however, is how they are to be organised. What use is an European FBI when only Portugal, Finland and Romania take part? Smaller countries will lose their influence in an EU with parallel agreements. Unfortunately, there is a lack of brilliant alternatives to the proposals of the EU Commission.”
Europe needs an employment union
The EU should continue its success story in the area of employment, representatives of the French Council of Economic Analysis write in La Tribune:
“The global situation urges us to close ranks, and not to undo sixty years of integration. ... After the banking and capital markets union, Europe must initiate an employment union and launch an ambitious programme aimed at converging labour markets. In particular that includes the harmonisation of social legislation, the introduction of a European labour contract, improved professional training, the development of systems providing information on job opportunities, the transferability of welfare entitlements and a European unemployment insurance.”