If the future of the European Union depends on the white paper Jean-Claude Juncker presented to the European Parliament on Wednesday, then it is time to go to the muster stations and start lowering the lifeboats. The white paper is more style than substance — a momentary triumph of presentation, perhaps, but the shine will have worn off the fancy graphics before March 25, when the great and good convene in Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of what became the EU.

In view of that rendezvous in Rome, the spinmeisters and communication gurus whose thumbprints are all over this white paper should have warned Juncker against his over-use of the phrase “Quo vadis?” To the speechwriters, it’s just another way of asking “Whither Europe?” but a Christian Democrat like Juncker might be expected to remember its supposed origin: When St. Peter encountered Christ and asked quo vadis? the response he received was Eo Romam iterum crucifigi — “I am going to Rome to be crucified again.” A prophecy for the EU, perhaps.

The Parliament was the wrong audience, since Juncker was trying to pick a fight with the EU’s member countries, but it does have its uses. The MEPs’ responses swiftly laid bare the chief weakness of Juncker’s five-scenario approach: It is an open invitation to reductionism. The Eurofederalists cheered for option five. The Euroskeptics condemned options four and five. Some MEPs scolded Juncker for lack of courage because he had not chosen between them. Others applauded his restraint. But the structure became the talking point, rather than what the European Union should stand for.

The white paper itself says that: “Too often the discussion on Europe’s future has been boiled down to a binary choice between more or less Europe. That approach is misleading and simplistic.”

Juncker offered a more graduated (quinary) choice, but it’s still misleading and simplistic. And even though the white paper offers the get-out clause that “there are many overlaps between each scenario and they are neither mutually exclusive nor exhaustive,” the effect is still to discourage honest intellectual engagement.

Snapshots send signal

For each scenario, the white paper sets out a description of what the EU might look like in 2025, the pros and cons, and a grid showing the impact on policies, plus “illustrative snapshots.” These snapshots are the best clue as to what the Commission leadership thinks about each scenario: tendentious both in their selection and description, some would make even a management consultant blush.

On trade agreements, for instance, the status quo scenario would mean: “The ratification process is lengthy and often delayed by discussions and disagreements in some national and regional parliaments.”

Under the “Nothing but the single market” scenario, however, “the EU fails to agree on new trade agreements as member states are unable to agree on common priorities or some block ratification.”

Under scenario four, “Doing less more efficiently,” trade is one of the policies that the EU27 decide to prioritize, so, by definition, “The EU is able quickly to negotiate and decide trade deals.”

And under scenario five, “Doing much more together,” trade agreements are “actively pursued” and “initiated, negotiated and swiftly ratified by the EU on behalf of its 27 member states.”

The reader is not to ask how this utopian state of affairs in scenarios four and five came to pass, for these are circular arguments and will not unravel. The scenario defines how things will develop; if things were to turn out differently, it would not be the same scenario. Nevertheless, one begins to doubt the distinction between political choice and wishful thinking.

Reflection may come too late

In fairness, it should be acknowledged that the Commission has promised to publish in the coming months five reflection papers on social policy, globalization, economic and monetary union, defense and the EU’s finances. Those might belatedly provide greater intellectual substance to go with the white paper, but it will probably be too late: The reductionism will have taken hold.

There were no such complaints from Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the Parliament’s liberal group ALDE and arch-evangelist for “more Europe,” to whom Juncker’s white paper is milk and honey, because it gives him the chance to argue for giving the European Union “more capacity,” by which he means more power. Verhofstadt himself has a limitless capacity to take the EU’s past defeats and failures (to which he has contributed) and turn them into reasons for strengthening the EU, no matter what the cause of those defeats might have been.

On such occasions, his enthusiasm serves to highlight Juncker’s hesitancy. Elena Valenciano, a Spanish center-left MEP, counseled Juncker against “melancholy” and accused him of appearing sad. And it is true that there is something downbeat about Juncker’s style of scenario-planning, which smacks of preparing for disaster. The white paper’s first pages set out a bleak future in which Europeans are outnumbered and outgunned — even if they stick together, and especially if they don’t.

So how could it be otherwise, given the adverse circumstances — the U.K.’s vote for Brexit, populist parties on the rise elsewhere in Europe, Russian aggression, Islamic extremism, China on the rise and an unwished-for U.S. president? Intriguingly, one possibility was offered by Martin Selmayr, the head of Juncker’s private office, as he reproved a skeptical journalist on Twitter. He alluded to “An open EU of values. A rules-based international system.” Indeed, and that should have been the enduring message of the white paper, rather than the five scenarios.

Ten paragraphs from the end of the white paper’s text (discounting its annexes), there are indeed some sentences about Europe’s values: “We want a society in which peace, freedom, tolerance and solidarity are placed above all else. We want to live in a democracy with a diversity of views and a critical, independent and free press …”

One way Juncker might have done things differently would have been to start with the defense of liberal democracy (and yes, that would have meant challenging Hungary, Poland and Romania). Make the case for a rules-based international system: one that is strong enough and agile enough to protect Europe’s liberal democracies from internal and external threats, whether those be Russia, Islamic extremism, climate change or the oligopolistic powers of American IT companies.

That, surely, is the challenge the EU’s national governments must face up to — Juncker was, at least, right to direct his strongest words to the member countries. How, in the absence of the rules-based international framework the EU provides, would the nation-states defend their citizens? Curiously, that was one scenario that Juncker chose not to describe. Brexit may yet do the work for him.

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