Making Brussels into an imperial capital
On Thursday, the vice-president of the European Commission and the minister-president of the Brussels-Capital region revealed plans to extend and revamp the European quarter in Brussels, providing much-needed new offices and buildings for the institutions of the European Union. Skyscrapers may even be on the cards, as well as an extensive facelift for the whole area. This should be welcomed. Brussels is the de facto capital of the European Union, and should inspire Europeans as much as Washington inspires many Americans, and Moscow stimulates many Russians.Indeed, so influential has Brussels become in recent years that it is now comparable to Washington in political importance, having a similar number of journalists, lobbyists, think tanks and political consultants. While London, New York, Paris and Tokyo may rank supreme for economic power and cultural reach, it is Washington and Brussels that are the political powerhouses of our age. Both cities may one day be joined by New Delhi and Beijing as the twenty-first century moves on, but for the time being, the two imperial cities are the centres of global power; one is the command centre for the United States, and the other is the core of the burgeoning power of the European Union.
The Berlaymont building, which houses the European Commission, is the centrepiece of the European quarter. Refurbished in 2001, it is clad in glass and built in the shape of an irregular cross. Across the road sits the bulky Justus Lipsius building, which is home to the Council of the European Union. This is a rather austere edifice, with lots of concrete and brown marble walls. It resembles in some ways a modern fortress, and has a large helipad on top. Although home of the European Union’s principal legislature, it is a rather unattractive place; ultimately, it should be removed and something better put in its stead. A little further across Leopoldpark is the new and monumental Brussels section of the European Parliament, which is divided into two parts, the Paul-Henri Spaak building and the Altiero Spinelli building. This is a vast complex, with five office towers, and a large oval hemicycle—where the Parliament sits. It is by far the most impressive of all the European Union’s buildings, and towers above the city, frequently reflecting the sun in all directions. A number of smaller European Union administrative offices are also dotted throughout Brussels’ European quarter.
Satellite image of the European quarter, Brussels
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The problem is that other than the Parliament and the Commission, none of these buildings are either large or grand enough to offer much inspiration. While some of the buildings of the European quarter rise above Brussels like crystal edifices—decked in steel and glass—the buildings on either side of Rue de la Loi cannot possibly be compared to the imposing buildings on Whitehall or Pennsylvania Avenue. Unlike the beauty of London’s Westminster Palace, Berlin’s Bundestag or Washington’s Capitol, the European Union’s centres of political power are not iconic but functional. As such, Europe’s capital does not have the imperial aura and grandeur of a truly monumental city, which damages the visibility and international identity of the European Union itself. This has to change.
Part of the proposals outlined on Thursday plan to prevent further ghettoisation of European institutions in the European quarter, suggesting instead that new European buildings should be spread out across the city. This is a mistake. The European quarter should remain centralised, reducing transport times, and increasing the visibility of the institutions themselves, all clustered in one area. In fact, the entire district should be redesigned, and new buildings constructed more suited to the task of representing the greatness of the European continent. Wide boulevards are needed, as well as monuments and palaces for cultural stimulation. Let us have a ‘Monolith of Unity in Diversity’, a ‘Statue of Peace’, and a ‘Monument of Liberty’, espousing the values to which we as Europeans all stand. Let these monuments outshine anything before them, and let them be an inspiration to all the world.
The task of building a capital city worthy of the European Union in Brussels will be no easy task. London, Washington, Paris and Rome were not built in a day, or even a year. But should we so desire, our continent’s capital could become a beacon of hope in an unjust world, and a showcase for all that is best in contemporary Europe.
UPDATE (19th Sept. 2007): Having spoken to a few colleagues, I would like to take this opportunity to clear up any confusion this article might cause. I would like to point out that I am in no way advocating that Brussels should ‘control’ the Member States in the way empires have in the past. Rather, what I am advancing is that Brussels needs the ‘grandeur’ of other capital cities, many of which were designed and built during the imperial age (e.g. the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries). I invoke the words ‘imperial city’ for no other reason other than to suggest that the European Union’s de facto capital city should assume some of the characteristics of London, Paris and Washington; that is, grand architecture, monuments and statues, which will remind present and future generations of what we as modern Europeans have achieved.
11 comments:
James Rogers, by all means more trappings of power, but when the EU member states keep tripping over modest constitutional reform?
Clearly, a lot of inner construction work needs to be done, as well, starting with democratic accountability.
Regards
Ralf Grahn
James, with due respect, this is a bit surreal - this whole idea of discoursing the EU as an imperial project without discoursing the most potent force in modern politics: Nationalism.
Presumably, you imagine nationalism is still a throwback from years yore?
Hamjatta
Ralf: I completely agree with you. I hope one day that we will have a directly elected European president, and that the European Parliament will have more authority. But these things must be done incrementally and gradually...
Hamjatta: I think you misunderstood my point. It was not that the European Union should become an imperial empire, and that Brussels should become its core; rather, it was that the European institutions in Brussels require a certain ‘greatness’, much in the way that institutions in London, Washington and Paris do. I think the Foreign Office, Treasury and Parliament in London or the Pentagon, Capitol and White House in Washington have this ‘greatness’. They are icons of prestige and authority, and inspire people from all over the globe. This can be seen from the number of people taking photographs of them every day of every week. The European Union needs similar buildings in Brussels, constructs that reflect its identity and its values. Functional buildings are insufficient.
James, i get the proximate point about erecting structures and infrastructures that go beyond serving functional purposes and which symbolically capture the capabilities of the 'new' Europe ala imperial capitals like London or Washington.
But i am linking this very argument to the core thrust of most what you have been arguing here since i started reading your blog: that is to say, you're (pace Cooper and now Barroso)ontologically interpreting the EU as a form of empire. (See, for instance, your following posts: "The Birth of a new Rome?" [12th July, 2007] and "Towards a New 'New Imperialism'".)
If you are arguing that both Cooper and Barros have got it right because either (a) the EU OUGHT to be an empire of the sort they describe or (b) the EU already IS such an empire: then you're obliged as a scholar to contend with forces that ontologically compete with such a perspective. The key ontological constraint/rival to the EU-Empire project/perspective is the most potent of all modern forces: nationalism. You need to engage with nationalism. At any rate, you need to demonstrate in what ways the 'new' Rome will countervail the rise of a 'new' nationalism that finds succour in being explicitly opposed to the Cooper-Barroso argument.
After all: what killed the European Constitution? And what is likely to kill off the Reform Treaty?
Hamjatta
Hamjatta: I do not see the European Union as an empire. I see it as an emerging confederation, or perhaps, even a federation, where powers are shared between the Member States and the central institutions in Brussels. I do not think empires are compatible with modern democratic values. Any comparison on my part is merely to add something ‘extra’ to what has often become an abstract and dull debate. And in any case, I see empire and federalism—at least in some ways—as coterminous, much as people did in the distant past. It was after all Thomas Jefferson who declared that the United States would become the most powerful and extensive empire in the world’s history.
Nonetheless, no matter if an empire or a (con)federation, I completely accept that forces hostile to European integration, particularly those from a nationalist perspective, are formidable foes. Yet I do not accept those forces, especially nationalism, to be eternal or essentialist. Nationalism did not exist three hundred years ago, and emerged in Britain, Netherlands and France, before spreading across the world. In other words, it can be transcended, and is not necessarily permanent. But, as it happens, I actually think nationalism is a positive thing, particularly if it takes on a civic dimension, much as it has in America, Britain and France. Ethno-nationalism, on the other hand, must be shunned and marginalised. No good has ever come out of that.
Further, I think nationalism emerged in opposition to an opponent or an enemy. British and French nationalism were articulated in opposition to one another, and American nationalism was built in opposition to Europe and imperialism. I argue, therefore, that as opponents and enemies rise around Europe, that the perceived dangers will pull all European Union Member States together, especially because their economic systems are so entwined. This is not to say that there will ever be a European nation, but rather, that a ‘European’ identity and national identities will come to stitch through one another. In other words, the European Union will and must become a shield and sword for its Member States, enabling them to retain a major global role, as well as affording them protection against foreign threats.
I take it then that you disagree with Barroso and Cooper that the EU is a form of an Empire. Very well.
Your writings (as i have cited them) would suggest otherwise, it seems to me. But i'll take your word for it that you subscribe to a form of confederalism.
I still maintain, though, that the biggest obstacle to the 'Global Power Europe' project is not simply rising Great Powers in the East (mainly) and attendant geopolitical threats (or opportunities) thereof -- i concede that these geopolitical threats (or opportunities) and the distribution of power in the 'post' post-Cold War international system could potentially incentivize Europeans to continue pooling their sovereignty for the purposes of creating more 'voice opportunities' (to borrow from Albert Hirschman) in the new international dispensation. But the threat of a 'new' nationalism that interprets the EU as a malevolent force and an existential threat to the 'nation' would appear to challenge the aforementioned 'incentive' . And, in the long run and assuming democracy continues to interrogate the EU Project (as it did with Maastricht, the Constitution and possibly the Reform Treaty), the EU would either be (a) severely retrenched due to the guerrilla attritions of nationalism in the guise of democracy (or simply allied with democracy) or (b) the EU Project continues to splutter but is crippled by the reinforcement of heterogeneity - and the rivalrous consequences of such a heterogeneity - that the encounter with nationalism (allied with democracy) would inflict on the Project.
You asserted: "Nationalism did not exist three hundred years ago, and emerged in Britain, Netherlands and France, before spreading across the world." This is demonstrably false. It is true that it is modernity that made nationalism such a potent force in politics. Indeed, both Ernst Gellner and Tom Nairn have scrupulously documented and argued how industrialisation and the unique modern conditions of European urbanisation created present day nationalisms. But, as the scholarship of Anthony Smith has demonstrated, the roots of modern nationalism lie in old pre-modern ethnic fealties and sentiments. These have survived centuries of empires and other peer-competitors for human loyalty. I do not see how something as artificially induced and elite-driven as the EU can inflict mortal wounds on nationalism.
Personally, i'm skeptical whether we can have a future EU that is a conventional superpower (or great centre of power; that is, a genuine peer-competitor to the US as presently constituted) such as present day USA or even what the Soviets managed to achieve within the distribution of power during much of the Cold War.
Hamjatta
Hamjatta: As we agreed, there are powerful opposing forces. But it is precisely those exhausted and short-sighed forces against which those advancing the project must struggle. I know and have made crystal clear who I am batting for, so I don’t see any further need to spell it out, or why.
I do not think it is ‘demonstrably false’ to say that nationalism emerged three hundred years ago. I do not think there is any evidence that people thought back then as many do today. There were certainly bonds that united peoples into communities, but those simply were not the same as modern nationalism, which is attached to an imagined national community. The modern nation was created on such an extensive reach and scale through surfaced turnpike roads, canals, safer sailing ships, railways, telecommunications, national military service, newspapers, compulsory universal education, and the like. These things started to emerge in Northern and Western Europe about three hundred years ago. ‘Classical’ nationalism probably reached its climax in the early twentieth century, when young Britons, Germans and French went off to kill one another in the names of their respective lands. Would our generation do the same today?
Subsequently, it could be possible that as space and time are compressed further, larger communities may emerge. Perhaps—and I say this reluctantly—something comparable is occurring in the European Union today, especially if promoted by central institutions and governments. English is fast becoming the European lingua franca, while the internet, low-cost airlines and high-speed railways make movement across the continent possible like never before. Maybe they will have a comparable impact to compulsory education, turnpike roads, and telegraphs, but on a pan-European scale. I do not think this will do away with the traditional nations of Europe though; what it might do, however, is provide another layer of identification for European citizens, much as English, Welsh and Scottish identities have existed alongside a British national identity. Indeed, many homogenous European nations, from the Netherlands, Switzerland and Spain contain other smaller ‘national’ units, and have coexisted with their nation-states for many decades. If this is possible in those, it must also be possible on a European level.
You may be sceptical on the ability of the European Union to become a modern global power, but to try is better than to fade into irrelevance. For that will be our future without more European integration, particularly in the areas of foreign, security and defence policy.
James this is interesting, architecture is very important in creating a mindset, especially when creating an identity for 27 nations, with more to come. However, you really should visit Strasbourg, unlike Brussels, the European institutions there were well designed and their layout very well thought out in advance as opposed to Brussels which is cramped and an awful place with an underground system reminiscent of a mortuary. I write this reminding you that I am one quarter of Belgian blood. Strasbourg on the other hand is beautiful, an ancient city, smaller, quieter with more hospitable residents and less social problems than Brussels. The European buildings nestle between rivers, parks and trees. As opposed to the institutional area of Brussels which reminds one more of an abhorrent mirror image of streets that are treeless and soulless, like New York.
When talking to the MEP’s staff they all prefer Strasbourg, the Parliament’s cafeterias are better in Strasbourg also. Strasbourg represents the synergy of the ancient with the ultramodern and it has been done very well, it also is representative of the Unity in Diversity concept of a multinational border city, with people still living there who experienced the many wars of nationalism that were the reason why Europa was incarnated to once and for all banish that monster from our continent. Although it may be unrealistic to hope that Europe becomes an Empire, (a now, quite un-European concept), our post-modern example of Venusian internationalism has far more credibility and international appeal, than the now corrupted so called American dream/Imperium, which has faltered to the extent of destabilising the entire international order.
We may well evolve to become the World’s post modern Athens as opposed to the American attempt at the new Rome. The task will eventually fall to Europe to carry forward the great enlightenment project hoped for by the Founding Fathers of the United States, but to do it in our own European way, and not to repeat the mistakes of either our British Empire or the misplaced attempts at establishing an American Empire.
As Europe gradually gains confidence with its new role in the world, we will inevitably shape the destiny of other nations and peoples, not because we in Europe have a desire or need to impose or will, but because we in Europe are respected throughout the world and even emulated, as a unique experiment in the uniting of nations and peoples in the cause of peace and socially responsible freedom.
Jan Mortier
Jan: Thank you for leaving a comment. Your point about Strasbourg is well taken, but a consensus seems to developing that we cannot have several different centres of political power. The circus of the Parliament changing between two cities every year is wasteful, time consuming and polluting. Brussels will likely become the Parliament’s home in the near future; the ‘One-seat’ campaign has been pressing for that. Besides, this was my whole point, that we need to make Brussels into a city suited to the role and status of capital of the European Union; as you point out, that has yet to be achieved.
Regarding your other points, I do not, as I said above, want the European Union to become an imperial empire. I certainly want it to be able to wield credible and effective military power though. Dreams and hopes of ‘Venusian internationalism’ are all very well, but that is all they are: Dreams. I don’t think the United States has destabilised the world order (insofar as any ‘order’ actually exists), and our own security—as Europeans—depends on American strength. Mars is always more important than Venus. I also do not want Europe to become Athens, while America becomes Rome. For anyone with a cursory reading of ancient history will remember that Athens was enslaved by Rome.
Powers unable or unwilling to maintain an assertive foreign policy, and those who collapse into delusions, will inevitably fall from the top table of world affairs. No European should want that.
I have to say that both the article and this discussion is a real food for thoughts for me as a politics student. To add my bit to the discussion on nationalism; I personally do not take nationalism (or rather I would say - patriotism, or communitarianism) as a force threatening the unity of Europe. Rather, I would say that this resurgent sense of the importance of one's cultural identity - as is now case in Scotland or more recently in Montenegro or Kosovo - might not be against but precisely for a stronger and united Europe - for true 'unity in diversity.'
This effort to once again reassert one's ties is I think a clear reaction to the liberal policy to assume that 'there are only individuals' or 'there are no differences amongst us - we are not French, English or Welsh but human' - as mentioned by Alasdair MacIntyre in the book 'After Virtue.' In addition, rather than being violently self-asserting or separationist, it seems that many regions or nations are just looking back to their 'roots' from which they were separated. The only exception to this might be Poland, but I believe the situation their recent brand of Euroscepticism was mainly due to the Kaczynskis, not because of the political culture in Poland as such.
All in all, European Union might become precisely that possibility how to overcome today threatened sovereignty of the nation-state. On the one hand, the European nations or regional communities might gain a new identity and rights in this new federative Europe and on the other, the federative Europe would be able to unite them and give them common goals in the fields as foreign policy and security.
I.e. united Europe not as a force of centralization suppressing all differences, but a Europe elevating them but at the same time understanding that our existence and politics cannot be reduced to a 'petty' nationalism, but most be transcended in an effort to cooperate and work together in order to build a 'better future.' As James said, we 'have to try our best.'
Petit pays, petit esprit.
Small country, no vision.
Unfortunately the Belgium governments have prouved over the time how narrow-minded they are, by letting real estate speculators, well to paly their games.
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