Opinion
Europe's future more likely to lie with universitities than farmers
Let us leave aside the vexing problem of the Lisbon treaty. Despite the raging torrents of words that have cascaded over the political pages like so many streams in flood, we are really no further forward. The crumpled brows of Brian Cowen, the Irish Taoiseach (prime minister), are still a tangle of perplexity and may well remain so for some considerable time to come.
Nevertheless, I doubt his reflections have been helped by the curmudgeonly exchanges between Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President - and current President of the European Council - and Peter Mandelson, the commissioner for trade, which have resounded like salvoes in some great sea battle.
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Mr Sarkozy fired first - accusing Mr Mandelson of upsetting Irish farmers (and thereby precipitating the recent Irish No) in his over-zealous pursuit of a world trade deal. Once the smoke had cleared, Mr Mandelson fired his own 32 pounder, accusing the French president of undermining his negotiating stance as he steers towards the Holy Grail of a new world trade order.
Mr Sarkozy's shot fell somewhat wide of the mark. Even if we suppose that the entire body of Irish farming voted No en masse (for which there seems little evidence) it is not clear how these few tens of thousands of votes could have substantially altered the referendum result.
Presumably, he also blames Mr Mandelson for popular French prejudice against the Lisbon treaty, for he unexpectedly admitted that a French referendum on the treaty would probably have been lost as well. As a commentator I may offer such an opinion; I hardly expect the French president to confirm it.
Still, Mr Mandelson has more reason to feel aggrieved with Mr Sarkozy than the other way about.
A very great many people have been delivered from poverty through trade. Most leaders, in both the developing and the developed world, believe that a successful conclusion to the current round of world trade talks would continue this process, accelerating the reduction in the numbers of the poor, the starving, the illiterate.
The tail wagging the dog
Collectively, the European Union certainly thinks so and has determined a common negotiating stance that includes opening its markets and reducing agricultural subsidies.
But rather than supporting this jointly agreed position, Mr Sarkozy is now undermining it, and at a crucial time too. He alleges that whatever benefits a deal might bring to the world's oppressed peoples, it would entail a 20 per cent cut in French agriculture and the loss of 100,000 farming jobs. This, he pledges, he won't allow.
Mr Mandelson disputes these figures. In any case, as world food markets have been turned upside down by shortages and soaring prices, a new assessment is in order.
But whatever the details, a public spat between the president of the European Council and a powerful commissioner over such a major issue is, I believe, unprecedented and likely to do Europe's standing no good at all in world councils. Nor does it augur well for the smooth running of the European project.
Moreover, it is a singularly unfortunate distraction from the vital business of securing Europe's competitive place in the world against the background of our ageing population and the new global economic and environmental challenges.
The parlous plight of small agricultural communities in many European countries is undoubtedly important, but at times it seems that agriculture is granted disproportionate importance - the tail wagging the dog.
Unless we manage to get the large economic and environmental issues right, then we shall be in no position to support agriculture. If we do get them right then we may be able to put agriculture on a sound footing as well.
Protecting a rural pattern
By coincidence, I attended this week a gathering at my old college. We were discussing whether the expensive collegiate system and a teaching method based on one-to-one tuition could survive in the modern cost-cutting world. Should colleges not be asked to make the same sacrifices as agriculture? The answer of course is ‘no.'
Europe's institutions of higher education are already in a parlous state. As a continent, we fare abysmally in world rankings: Of the fifty most highly rated institutions in 2007, only eleven are in EU countries.
The US can claim almost twice that number. Furthermore, if we remove the eight UK institutions from the list, we are left with only three from the 26 other EU nations.
Incredibly there are no German or Italian or Spanish or Belgian or Austrian or Swedish or Irish universities on the list. Put another way, if the institutions of every country that joined the EU prior to 2004 were as successful as those of the UK, then Europe would have 50 rateable institutions.
Europe's oft repeated goal is to have the most competitive and dynamic knowledge based economy in the world.
"Our universities are crucial," said the education commissioner, Jan Figel recently, "to growth, jobs and social cohesion." The idea of the university was conceived and developed in Europe, so why are we fast being overtaken by the Pacific rim, from where 15 top-rated universities - including four now from China - hail?
Our relative academic decline is certainly a question of funding but partly a lack of connection between academia and the outside world.
The outside world has not always appreciated the value of broad education and pure research (as opposed to advanced training and technological development). Universities have not always appreciated that their survival as centres of excellence and knowledge depends on active support from the wider, wealth-generating community.
As many as 50 per cent of alumni from American universities contribute to the further development of their institutions. I don't know what the percentage is for Europe but I suspect it is no better - and maybe a good deal worse - than Britain's eight per cent.
This is therefore the background against which the Sarkozy-Mandelson spat needs to be judged. What exactly does the president of the European Council think that he is doing in threatening a trade deal that will, among many other things, help Europe to provide the finance for its universities, which in their turn will drive the knowledge based economy?
Protecting a rural pattern of life that delivers excellence in food and a lifestyle that many of us hold dear is of course important. But Europe's future is far more likely to lie with its universities than with its farmers. Anything that obscures that message is a distraction.
The author is an independent commentator on European affairs
Disclaimer
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author's, not those of EUobserver.