[War] France: One Code to Rule Them All

[Daniel Garcia]

"France:  One Code to Rule Them All"
President Zoé Ampère, French Republic
April 1st, 2013

(OOC:  I wrote this instead of doing other things I really should be  
doing...  :) ).

[This letter is directed to the EU member state governments, and is  
generally private though some of the general outlines of what is said  
will and should make it to the press.]

Dearest Colleagues,

The recently concluded Beijing Conference between the East Asian  
powers of China, Japan, and Russia has raised the prospect of a new  
economic bloc which could conceivably, assuming that the directions  
signaled by the Conference are followed through to their stated  
destinations, pose a significant danger to the place and position of  
the European Union, particularly in economic affairs.  The possible  
dynamical combination of Japanese capital, Chinese labor, and Russian  
resources has the potential to dramatically shift the economic center  
of the world sharply away from Europe, to the detriment of the  
European economic position.

The European Union was born, in a historical sense, out of efforts to  
pool economic resources and capital in the aftermath of the Second  
World War.  The first fifty years of this collaboration led to  
significant and even spectacular economic gains.  The reasons for  
this are wide and varied, but include the fact that the institutions  
which would eventually become the cornerstones of the European Union  
were a force for economic liberalization, fair competition, and free  
markets and trade.

Since the 1990's, Europe has faced a relative decline in economic  
power.  The expansion of the European Union has helped to disguise  
this fact, and indeed some relative decline should be expected as  
many of the poorer states in the world develop economically.   
However, this decline has also partly been relative to other  
developed nations, including and in particular the United States of  
America.

There are many things that this decline can be attributed to, but one  
of them must sadly be the European Union itself, and in particular  
the increasing bureaucratization of the EU governing bodies.  Since  
the 1990's, large quantities of legislation have been passed in the  
member states to comply with European Union law.  This explosion in  
law has led to a vast increase in red tape.  In short, the European  
Union, instead of acting in its historical place as a champion of  
economic growth and liberalization, has worked in effect, though not  
in intention, to diminish economic growth.

The French government is deeply concerned about these trends.  In  
some political groups in France, this has led to dissatisfaction with  
the European Experiment (OOC:  Note that, among other things, this is  
a veiled reference to some reasonably strong Euro-skepticism among  
the ruling party and some lose to the government.).  The French  
government believes that a new approach is desirable in light of  
these issues, and would like to make a general proposal.

One of the larger roadblocks to economic activity in the European  
Union is that, despite the drafting of many laws at the European  
level, it is in the end up to the various member states to implement  
the European legislation.  This can result in subtle but important  
differences in law between member states.  This is not an efficient  
procedure, even taking into account the desire of many member states  
to "opt-out" of certain portions of European law.

The French government would like to propose that the European Union  
adopt a more uniform law code, at least in economic and business  
law.  This code would not necessarily need to be in force in its  
totality in all member states, but would instead serve as a uniform  
framework.  Some portions of this code would be mandatory for all  
states, and others be optional in adoption.  But, the key to this  
scheme is that the member states would not create their own  
interpretations of the wider European law, but simply confirm, via  
ordinary legislative procedures, the validity of the code, or those  
portions of it which are mandatory or desirable.

The advantage of this scheme is that a business would only need to  
know, understand, and consult one body of law with which it would  
need to apply to its operations so that it might operate across the  
whole Union.  And in the case of those portions of the code which are  
not mandatory for member states, a business would only need to know  
that a certain portion of the code is not operative in a given member  
state and thus choose to alter its operations accordingly.

The French government believes this proposal, which is in part daring  
and in part a logical extension of and remedy for the current system,  
is at least an important starting point for discussions on how to  
restore the competitiveness of the European economy.  Moreover, it  
would be an important step towards revitalizing the European Union as  
a vehicle for economic growth and liberalization.  Finally, it could  
serve to address concerns of those portions of the European  
electorate who are growing ever more skeptical at the ability of the  
European Union to make a meaningful, positive difference to the lives  
of the people of Europe, heading off the possibility that such  
skeptics could gain power and influence within a major European  
government.

Such a reform would also boost European economic competitiveness and  
economies of scale and help stem Europe's relative economic decline.   
This must be seen as particularly important in light of the prospects  
for a high degree of economic cooperation to develop in East Asia.   
Though these prospects are only that, prospects, their realization,  
even if partial, could detrimentally affect Europe's role in the world.

Sincerely,
Zoé Ampère
President of the French Republic


ACTIONS:

1)  Privately (but not necessarily secretly) circulate the above  
letter to the EU member governments.

2)  Tentatively propose a European uniform code of business law.

3)  Warn in a vague and veiled way of the rise of Euro-skepticism,  
particularly with an eye towards France.