How are European liberals doing?

The Berlaymont building in Brussels where the European Union Commission is headquartered hosts a media briefing at noon every day. It is generally simultaneously interpreted into English and French, but on May 29, simultaneous interpretation was serviced for 12 languages including Greek.

“A structural reform and sound finance are the fundamentals of a healthy economy. Europe has to take an action to get out of the crisis.”

After EU Commission President Jose Manuel Durao Barroso announced the “Moving Europe beyond the Crisis: Country-Specific Recommendations 2013,” a reporter asked, “An EU Commissioner said France is zero percent ready for reform in an interview with a German newspaper. What do you think?”

Barroso seemed to take a step back but said, “I do not comment on a comment.” “However, France,” he said, “has to regain competitiveness by cutting public spending and labor costs in return for delaying less than three percent financial deficit rule for two years.”

After a four-minute long answer, the other reporter said, “For French media, please tell me what you said in French again.” The crowd in the press room burst into laughter. Barroso said “Of course!” and gladly repeated what he said. As France took more than half of the hours of the press conference, other countries were able to avoid humiliation.

Unemployment rate in France jumped to 10.5 percent, its highest level since 1996. The president’s approval rating is a historically low of below 24 percent. The French people jokingly say that baby-making is the only one that works best in their country.

If the EU asks the Socialist administration, which stresses the role of the government, to cut down public spending, this could sound like forcing it to give up social democracy. The recommendation for structural reforms such as labor flexibility and cutting pensions means scrapping presidential election pledges. The party has to die to save the country.

French President Francois Hollande angrily said in a joint media conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Paris the next day, “Reform is what we do and the EU cannot order us to do.” However, Merkel got him in the way, saying, “We introduced flexibility in our labor market in a reform. Which is better for youths -- flexible jobs or no job at all?”

The French president in dilemma reflects the dire situation of the liberals in Europe.

France was one of the three countries where the central leftists gained power in the election among EU states in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and the eurozone fiscal crisis (The other two countries are Malta and Slovakia). When the financial crisis was spreading, neo-liberalism seemed to have fallen apart but more people chose the right-wing government in elections.

European socialist parties and intellectuals in a sense of crisis gathered and held a “Liberal Governance Forum” in Copenhagen, Denmark in April. They agreed that the failure to gain votes is because they lost public confidence for sticking to the socialist economic policy of “a large government and a small market.”

Their conclusion is unexpected and new: they have to cope with globalization and aging society and learn the market to use it for society. It is quite opposite to what we have heard in Korea. Last week, the U.K.’s Labor Party, which participated in the Copenhagen conference, seemed to break with the past, saying, “We will keep the balanced finance rule after gaining power.”

Many Korean liberals are trying to learn from Germany. They claim that Korea has to study German socialist market economy make the economy revive only by democratizing the economy such as eliminating the positions called non-regular workers and labor unions’ engagement in management.

They do not seem to know that Germany has changed. As Merkel said, the core of the German economy is labor flexibility. A decade ago, the German Social Democratic government had the “Hartz Reform,” which made it easy to lay off and hire workers. As a result, Germany boasts the lowest unemployment of 5.4 percent in Europe.

If opposition Democratic Party and other liberal parties, which consider taking out the term “liberal” from their names, really think for the country and the people, they need to persuade the Korean Federation of Trade Unions. The Democratic Party would be better than the ruling Saenuri Party in asking the labor union to accept labor flexibility and management to end discrimination against part-time workers. If the government takes the lead in striking a big deal ensuring the government to provide unemployment benefits and career changing training, it can prove its ability better than any other party.

Liberalism and social democracy did not die. The dream, whether it is European or Korean, for an equal and better-off society does not disappear as long as our heart beats.

The problem is foolish conservatives who call for the solution of the 1970s when complete employment was possible in the 21st century. Korea should not follow the German Social Democratic Party garnering less than 30 percent support for the September general elections due to ideological dispute even after the success of the Hartz labor reforms.