The Last Days of Europe?
Anti-Europeanism in the United States, like anti-Americanism in Europe, has a rich history. But whereas European anti-Americanism seems motivated, paradoxically, by a lurid self-loathing, perhaps American disdain for the ‘Old World’ is motivated by something different. Americans have long predicted the eclipse of Europeans, often relishing the prospect. In 1816, for example, Thomas Jefferson, one of the so-called ‘founding fathers’ of the United States, stated in a letter to John Quincy Adams:Old Europe will have to lean on our shoulders, and to hobble along by our side, under the monkish trammels of priests and kings, as she can.
Nearly two-hundred years later, in 2006, Walter Laqueur, the well-known American historian, was writing the manuscript for his new book: The Last Days of Europe: Epitaph for an Old Continent. This is what he said in his book’s concluding paragraphs:
[The]...picture of Europe in the first decade of the new century...is a picture of gradual decline that offers little comfort to Euro-optimists. Future historians may well be at a loss to understand why the sorry state of affairs was realised only late in the day, despite the fact that all the major trends...—demography, the stalling of the movement toward European unity, and the crisis of the welfare state—had happened well before the turn of the century.
He went on:
The decline of the Roman empire has been discussed for centuries and it could well be that the discussion about the decline of Europe will last as long. Why was it ignored for so long? In part, this could be explained as the result of the fixation of Europe on America—America as a model and as a deterrent, America as a rival, opponent, and ally—at the cost of ignoring the rest of the world. But there must have been other causes, and they will be discussed for a long time to come. There are many fascinating problems. Was the decline perhaps inevitable? Was it reversible? If so, at what stage did it become irreversible?
Decline often proceeds not as quickly as feared; there are usually retarding circumstances. But it is also true that, for better or worse, the pulse of history is beating quicker in our times than in the Middle Ages.
There is a danger, after the threats to Europe have been neglected for so long, of throwing up our hands in despair and accepting with resignation its future role as a museum of world history and civilisation preaching the importance of morality in world affairs to a non-existent audience.
Decline offers challenges that ought to be taken up even if there is no certainty of success...The age of delusions is over.
Clearly, in rejecting the Treaty of Lisbon, the Irish are still trapped in Laqueur’s ‘age of delusions’. It may be the case that the Irish government put up a poor campaign to encourage their citizens out to vote ‘yes’, and that a ragbag gaggle of reactionaries and other oddities hijacked the vote by spreading myths, but the problem is deeper and more pervasive. Like Morcock’s ‘Dancers at the End of Time’, Ireland lives in a bubble, rich and seemingly secure, but, along with so many other Europeans, unable to see the challenges of the future: the re-emergence of great power competition, Islamism, global warming, and so on. The wealth unleashed by European technology and integration—and the open, global economy, on which we have constructed and now all depend—has made us strategically and politically impoverished. Pacifism and sloppy internationalism have crept in, and clouded many a European judgement. The outcome is a naïve belief in ‘peace’, ‘isolationism’, ‘neutrality’, or some such, leaving the Americans and other Europeans, not least the British and French, to provide security and protection for everyone else.
But Laqueur is only partially right. Europeans are not so much in decline, for they still have the choice to implement the reforms to remain relevant, prosperous and strong. However, an alternative future could be one where Europeans commit suicide. This will be accompanied by anxiety and a growing feeling of helplessness—which may already be emerging. In order to reverse this trend, we need bold leaders to sort out the constitutional mess of contemporary Europe, leaders ready to transcend petty national differences and work together in the only community and framework with the potential power to recapture popular imaginations and loyalties: the European Union. Here, it is critical that the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, presses ahead with the Treaty of Lisbon’s ratification, which he and his government have rightfully pledged to do. The Irish vote does not mean the treaty is dead yet; if the other twenty-six Member States ratify the treaty, we might be in a position to ask Ireland to vote again, implement the treaty’s articles through other means, or even ask Ireland to leave the Union.
If the project of European unification is blocked, our great continent—represented by monuments of unequalled scale; great ideas and ideologies; profound scientific breakthroughs and social innovations; and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge—will surely be pulled apart. A consequence would be that our enemies and other reactionaries would rejoice, whilst jumping up and down in celebration of Europe’s marginalisation and dismemberment. And what would be the greatest travesty of all? It would be that it was all our own fault—or at least Ireland’s.
38 comments:
The choice of the Irish electorate has to be respected.
But it would be absurd to let Ireland block the progress of the 18 ratifying member states (and the ones where ratification is in progress).
The Lisbon Treaty needs a few technical amendments to enter into force between the willing.
Then the road would be open towards future deeper reforms needed to realize more of the Laeken declaration's intentions.
You must be gutted. But your comment that the Irish are "deluded" shows why the people don't like the "Europeanists" or whatever you are calling yerselves now.
A little gutted, perhaps, but not as gutted as the anti-Europeans will be when the Treaty—or its contents—are finally pushed through...
This Times article seems to indicate that Gordon Brown is ready to abandon the Treaty. This would pretty much kill it. Or the EU would have to be restructured completly along the lines of a much smaller 'core' Europe.
Ireland lives in a bubble, rich and seemingly secure, but, along with so many other Europeans, unable to see the challenges of the future: the re-emergence of great power competition, Islamism, global warming, and so on.
Ah please That is just silly.
or even ask Ireland to leave the Union.
So should holland and France have left the union when they voted no?/
European politicians should get a copy of Huntington's Clash of Civilizations, read it and learn from it.
The Europeans are probably most caught up in ideological infighting of all important players on the world stage - but ideology is the struggle of the last century. Today pragmatism is wanted. The idea of different civilizations is real and important, and the European political class can no longer ignore it.
One lessen should be that Europeans feel that their fears are been ignored. A vast majority of Europeans are against Turkish membership and further immigration from Muslim countries. That may go against what many of us stand for, an open free cosmopolitan society, but by ignoring the European people, the EU and its main actors risk to alienate the people, which the in turn paints the EU as a cold bureaucratic block, which just stands for an elite.
Quote from the text:
"At a more basic level, however, Western concepts differ fundamentally from those prevalent in other civilizations. Western ideas of individualism, liberalism, constitutionalism, human rights, equality, liberty, the rule of law, democracy, free markets, the separation of church and state, often have little resonance in Islamic, Confucian, Japanese, Hindu, Buddhist or Orthodox cultures. Western efforts to propagate each ideas produce instead a reaction against "human rights imperialism" and a reaffirmation of indigenous values, as can be seen in the support for religious fundamentalism by the younger generation in non-Western cultures. The very notion that there could be a "universal civilization" is a Western idea, directly at odds with the particularism of most Asian societies and their emphasis on what distinguishes one people from another."
Many of these western values have been already compromised in Europe, through tougher laws, restriction on liberty of speech, dividing different people in different groups etc. Look at what happens every day in urban European areas, in court rooms, in the media, there is a clash of civilizations happening. But is is not identified as what it is, and wrong conclusions are drawn.
It should be clear, that I am not advocating nationalism as a solution, I call for pragmatism, for an end of ideological infighting. Europe should stand for something, it should stand for Europe and the West.
If there is another Mohammed-cartoon crises, Europe should stand behind its attacked member states, it is a mistake for Solana to publicly condemn the cartoons and to call for restrictions of freedom of expression. When the Baltic states suffer attacks from Russia, the EU should stand strong behind its members.
Only then the EU can be accepted as a defender of European interests and legitimize its position and standing. Maybe it is time for some to do some Max Weber reading, to understand this fundamental rule.
Simon: The trouble is that the Constitution was likely to be rejected in several other referendums had it been put to the vote in other European countries after the Dutch and French vote. I strongly disagree with referendums, but that is not the point. The point is that a serious number of Member States would not have been able to ratify the Constitution. The Reform Treaty was ‘Plan B’, and the significance is that all the other Member States seem set on ratification. If twenty-six say ‘yes’ and Ireland is left with its ‘no’, it only seems fair that something be done to stop the Irish problem. For it would not be right if 1.4 million Irish voters could scuttle a treaty accepted by the other Member States with a combined population of 494.5 million.
Anonymous: I do myself have acute fears over the failure of Europeans to implement policies that assimilate immigrants into European society. I strongly reject ‘multiculturalism’ or anything along those lines—this has failed, and seriously. But I absolutely do not think that Huntingdon’s arguments have much to contribute to the debate. To argue that the world is crystallising into intercivilisational struggle strikes me as a little absurd, not least because the conflicts in question are often within civilisational imaginaries, of which Iraq and Afghanistan are good examples. Wherever Europe and/or America intervene, it is to support or manipulate one of the sides in a foreign conflict, not to become directly involved per se.
Yet the citation of Huntingdon’s you provide does strike a cord, at least in the sense when regarding domestic European politics. Standing up for European or Western values—our values, which our forefathers fought and died for—must be our primary concern. If we cannot expand those values and principles in foreign climes, we must in the very least resolutely defend them with all our might at home. And anyone who wishes to implement some other form of social organisation (e.g. Sharia law) should be politely but firmly told to cease with their efforts or go somewhere else.
"The Irish vote does not mean the treaty is dead yet; if the other twenty-six Member States ratify the treaty, we might be in a position to ask Ireland to vote again, implement the treaty's articles through other means, or even ask Ireland to leave the Union."
"If twenty-six say 'yes' and Ireland is left with its 'no', it only seems fair that something be done to stop the Irish problem. For it would not be right if 1.4 million Irish voters could scuttle a treaty accepted by the other Member States with a combined population of 494.5 million."
I am sorry but this does not make any sense legally and reeks of arrogance: that is, the enforceability of EU treaties, or so-called primary legislation (as it is generally referred to in the jargon of the specialists), is not dependent on any majoritarian principles – it is sufficient that a tiny minority, like the 1.4 million Irish voters, can express dissatisfaction with a particular Treaty for said Treaty to be rendered null and void. That is to say, for a primary legislation like the Lisbon Treaty to become legally binding, it requires unanimity and not a mere majority – as you and many more pro Lisbon Treaty supporters (for instance, Will Hutton in the Observer yesterday) appear to premise your arguments on. But not everyone is that obtuse about the legal basis of enforcing EU primary legislation: the British Foreign Secretary is quoted in the Independent (16/06/08) as follows: "The rules are absolutely clear," Mr Miliband said. "If all 27 countries do not pass the Lisbon Treaty then it does not pass into law." So whether the Treaty was opposed by 20 or 20 million people is neither here nor there: without unanimity, there is no legal basis for the Treaty. More to the point, using stealth tactics in enforcing the Treaty – for instance, implementing aspects of the External Relations Agency (which the Commission is busy implementing disregarding the ratification process) – is illegal and would not be binding in the absence of a unanimous ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.
Equally, and I don't know how to put this more politely, but the pro Lisbon Treaty supporters (or more generally, the 'Europhiliacs') came across in the wake of the Irish 'No' vote as arrogant, condescending and completely disrespectful of a vast swathe of European opinion that is adamantly opposed to further integration – or further loss of sovereignty. In case the pro EU intellectuals don't get it, there is no chance of the EU becoming the power they envisage if it fails to win over 'European society' or opinion, such as it is. And their current efforts are a dismal failure precisely because it takes the support of 'European society' for granted or, in extremis, refers to it in condescending and contemptuous terms when they fail to get their way – as, for instance, with the Irish 'No' vote.
Another thing that struck me throughout this whole EU farce is that this ritual humiliation of the Eurocrats was entirely avoidable. Consider: there were two arguments advanced by proponents for both the rejected Constitution and the Lisbon Treaty – to wit, (a) the minimalist argument that without institutional reform and in light of EU27 or the most prospective EU-28/30, the institutions of the EU would grind to a halt or simply turn into a gridlock and (b) the maximalist argument that the Constitution or its alternative (the Lisbon Treaty) is vital if the EU is to become a superpower that can convincingly compete with existing Great Powers and emerging/rising Great Powers in the East. The minimalist argument is false: there is no evidence, to date, that EU-27 has resulted in a gridlock; and no is there convincing evidence that the present arrangements would not be able to cope with, say, three more states joining the EU. Instead, according to the most recent and rigorous study on this proximate question, that is, whether EU-27 will produce a gridlock, the EU is coping very well with its most recent expansion. Indeed, according to prof. Helen Wallace, of the LSE (a Europhile, by the way):
"The evidence of practice since May 2004 suggests that the EU's institutional processes and practice have stood up rather robustly to the impact of enlargement." (see Tony Barber, 'Enlarged EU is coping without treaty, says study', Financial Times, December 10, 2007)
Or as prof. Wallace puts it (with the customary and obligatory academic caveats):
"These precautionary comments notwithstanding, a relatively agreed overall picture emerges from across these studies. They indicate that the 'business as usual' picture is more convincing than the 'gridlock' picture as regards practice in and output from the EU institutions since May 2004. Some changes and variations can be observed, although not all of these can be tied to the impact of enlargement as such. It is also clear that there are some differences across policy domains, which need further exploration. These become more apparent once attention is turned to the implementation phase and the ways in which EU policies and rules are put into practice inside the new member states." (Helen Wallace, 'Adapting to Enlargement of the European Union: Institutional Practice since May 2004', pp. 4-5, TEPSA, November 16, 2007)
So the notion that failure to ratify Lisbon or even the Constitution would result in institutional gridlock is not based on a empirical observation but on a false supposition, in extremis, simply on a falsehood, that has been refuted by the evidence – at any rate thus far.
The upshot of this is that when the Constitution literally became a dead-end, especially when French and Dutch voters killed it off in their respective referenda, it became a tactical imperative to abandon the whole idea and simply wait until the dictates of necessity explicitly and self-evidently make the case for institutional reforms before prematurely embarking upon it again – as they did with the Reform/Lisbon Treaty. Experience teaches that, in politics, when you have voter anxiety (of the sort that you have currently vis-à-vis Euro-politics), it is almost always a bad idea to pitch a policy (especially a legalese-laden one like the Lisbon Treaty which isn't easily understood but easily misinterpreted) that adds to their existing anxieties. Since the gains from Reform Treaty, that is, from the minimalist point of view, are not huge and since lack of ratification would not induce a crisis, it would have been far better to graciously accept defeat after the Dutch and French referenda and simply abandon the Constitution and its accoutrements. This would have helped a great deal in dispelling the widespread, often legitimate, notion that the Eurocrats are a bunch of anti-democratic elites who would impose themselves on the rest of Europeans regardless of consent.
The maximalist position is more beguiling and seductive: it poses the big question of whether, as presently constituted, the EU or individual European countries are in a position to deal with the challenges of the 21st century. It argues, quite persuasively and to a qualifying degree, that a more robust EU is needed to absorb the shocks of systemic changes in the international system due to the redistribution of power from (mainly) the West to East. Where this argument fails, ultimately, is in facing up to the consequences of its premises: that is, people who advance this view, generally and publicly, do not admit that the upshot of their argument is that the EU would have to evolve into a Federal State or institutional ogre in Brussels – as the Eurosceptics convincingly argue. To be sure, not all supporters of the Constitution (or even the Reform/Lisbon Treaty) deny that the implication of their argument or position is a super-state that transcends the historic nation-states of Europe. But, in the main, this is stated sotto voce and in such an obfuscatory and dissembling manner that suggests either lack of conviction or simply an intention to be dishonest on the part of the advocate. The problem, principally, is that overwhelmingly Europeans do not want a Federal super-state that transcends their nation-state; and to get from the current association of independent sovereign nation-states (that configures the present EU) to the sort of federalism that is necessary to turn the EU into a global force would require more than the clumsy guerrilla insurgency the EU has up to now used against opposition to its advance. It would require, just as in the American case (but mutatis mutandis), some sort of force majeure to transcend the nation-state. Moreover, most Europeans are not convinced that the 'threat' from both Russia and China are sufficient grounds to surrender important aspects of their sovereignty to faceless bureaucrats in Brussels.
This takes me to a point I have noted which starkly contrasts earlier debates and advocacy of European integration of the 60s, 70s and 80s with contemporary ones. This is the lack of persuasive and farsighted public intellectuals who can engage the wider public – as opposed to the monologue pro- Europeans tend have with each other in elite institutions – and sell the idea of 'Europe' to them. These days we have to contend with 'intellectual' pygmies like Mark Leonard, Will Hutton (in the UK), who write superficially about the nature international politics as it relates to domestic concerns and constraints. More to the point, the problem with these advocates is not simply that they are lightweight – self-evidently that alone should discount them as good sources of sophisticated intellectual debate – but the degree to which they are dismissive of their opponents' arguments – in extremis, arguing ungraciously (parading a plethora of ungracious extrania) that people who oppose further EU integration are simply xenophobes with malevolent intentions bordering on fascism. In part, this helps explain why votes like the Irish 'No' comes to them as a surprise, especially when they deem those opposing them or refusing to accept their arguments as representative of the very people who have gained so much from membership of the EU. To make the pro- Europe voice be heard and intelligently debated would require more than the obfuscation, dissembling and downright arrogance of the likes of Hutton (especially in his most recent op-ed in the Observer). It would require, above all, the sort of intellectual rigour, sophistication and honesty that the likes of Alexandre Kojeve exemplified in the 60s when they were advocating for European integration.
Hamjatta
"People only accept change when they are faced with necessity, and only recognise necessity when a crisis is upon them." Jean Monnet
I think you are fundamentally right. Europeans have come to accept what has been created within Europe over the last five decades as if it was inevitable. Even anti-Europeans, who lament the EU and all its short comings are blind to the fact that everyday freedoms and the peace and prosperity had come about by magic.
We have to snap out of the short sightness, before a crisis becomes a disaster.
Hamjatta: Thank you for your extensive essay. I think you are deeply unfair to call those supporting deeper integration ‘arrogant, condescending and completely disrespectful’. I think this can be applied more accurately to the ragbag gaggle of anti-Europeans like, in Ireland’s case, COIR and Libertas. But that, I acknowledge, is not really the point. The point, as you rightly say, is that we face a serious problem when those involved in the debate on the pro-European side are unable or unwilling to articulate their views properly or coherently—and in a way to be understood by the general public.
But in this instance, I do not think that I can be accused of either. Please do tell me if you believe I fail in this regard. My arguments should be clear enough: the European Union must become a more unified polity—even more ‘state-like’ in function and scale—to enable all of us to deal effectively and decisively with threats and challenges to our way of life in the twenty-first century. The United Kingdom was put together similarly—and without democratic consent. Community building projects are not usually democratic projects; they begin when elite and intellectual groups respond to generalised dislocation, normally exemplified by some kind of external threat.
Those who fail to understand that Europeans are highly likely to face challenges, even dangerous threats, in the coming years are, in my opinion, either suffering from delusions or a certain naïvety. But my views on that are also crystal clear, and can be picked up in virtually any one of my articles on this website.
Next, I should like to take issue with your point about ‘Eurocrats’: who are these people? They seem to by a myth conjured up by the right wing newspapers, particularly in the United Kingdom (owned, incidentally, mostly by foreigners). Eurocrats do not exist. European integration is agreed upon by leaders and governments of Member States. ‘Brussels’ and public intellectuals may provide and condition an environment in which debate and deliberation can occur, but the decision is ultimately with governments.
Finally, you provide a very legalistic argument for the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. Indeed, from this perspective, you are correct. But as you may recall, we have been here before, not least with the Treaty of Nice, when Ireland rejected that too. A way was found to navigate around that problem, so I see no reason why a way around the current problem cannot also be found. I do not think it ‘reeks with arrogance’ to argue that, at some point, if a majority of Member States want to press ahead with integration, we have to be held back in perpetuity by one that does not.
Is it really that surprising that a 200 page "substitute for a constutution"-treaty, the vast part of which being policy agreements and details that have no buisness in such a document in the first place, was rejected? Couldn't they just bring in a vague, 20 page document that transfers enough power to the European parlament to have a body that can figure out those details with credibility, has something like a bill of rights, confirms the right to secession and could be understood by the majority of the people who are supposed to vote for it?
By the way: The idea to limit certain freedoms, have double standards, or regulate things that of no national concern to begin with, for the sake of a more "healthy society" is as European as you can be. Just look at all the kings, queens and churches that are still attached to our democracies in one way or another, the fact that denial of genocide is a crime in several European countries, or laws against the incitement of racial hatred.
Evil European: Yes, your point is valid. I am deeply concerned by the idea held by so many, that there is a natural unfolding of history. While there may be a progressive history, we should never, ever fall into the trap of accepting there is as such. Even the most confident of Victorian progressives clearly understood that human agency was vital. I think this is the point Robert Kagan tries to make in his new book ‘The Return of History’. It may caricature views like those of Fukuyama’s, but is, nonetheless, worth a read...
Anonymous: I think you are being a little naïve! The idea that the Member States will let the European parliament decide on the future of the Union is just plainly unthinkable. Further, and in many ways, unfortunately, I’m not even sure that the parliament has the longevity, credibility or authority to draft such a document. And I’m not really sure what, in your last point about kings and queens, you are driving at?
I see the international system returning to a Hobbesian state of anarchy. The relative power of the Leviathan (the US/West) is melting by the day. This new world could resemble in some ways 19th century Europe, when a few great European powers together defined world affairs in every sense.
If today’s Europeans want to play a role in this new world, then they need an EU that can act, that can coordinate foreign affairs, interventions, military and other power. Otherwise, so I fear, Europe could fill the role of 15th century Italy, which was then divided and weak and thus fell victim to several interventions of other great European powers. In other words: the question is, do Europeans want to be authors of future world history, or do they want to be bystanders; impotent figures on the world stage?
Europe thus needs some sort of a new framework. I was also disappointed to see that the Irish plunged Europe in this new crisis. But let’s be honest, EU leaders have failed to communicate what the treaty would stand for to the general public. Virtually nobody really knows in detail what it will change. It would have been the task of European politicians to communicate the main points.
So it was possible for the so called “eurosceptics” to come up with many half-truths and conspiracies about the EU, and people fell for it. One just has to have a look at sites like Brussels Journal, Gates of Vienna or EU Referendum to understand what I mean. What they have done, for example, with a lot success, is to suggest, that the EU wants to somehow bring huge numbers of immigrants from Middle Eastern countries to Europe. And then when you read the comments in big newspapers, or when you listen around in a pub or a bar, people reflect these fears.
They are also against a membership of Turkey or too many concessions to Islam. The EU should recognize these issues and provide solutions, thus it would legitimize itself in the eyes of the public. But because the EU often seems to act against the public will, it can easily painted as the “EUSSR” (or whatever the “eurosceptics” on the right and the left call it).
Now, I don’t want to concentrate too much on this aspect, but Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” seems to me to be quite right about much what is going on at the moment, and the European politicians should take that in account.
And here we arrive again at the point of European Identity. I agree with what you said, James, I also wouldn’t like to see too many imported alien concepts into the existing European Framework (like Sharia, or double standards regarding women and men etc.).
And it seems to me, that Europe doesn’t stand for much, even more lately, in a time when European politicians are busier to not offend anyone at all, then to actually create some substance. Now, I don’t have any solutions for that, but why not cite some Roman/Greek notions? Some reference to Enlightenment ideas (human rights, liberty, individualism…)? Europe must become conscious about its own identity.
I think it was Robert Kagen, who described, that Europe is in a post nation-state world, in which there are just soft power and institutions – Europe as Venus. And the US is still very much engaged in the realist notion of nation-states and conflicts – the US as Mars. Europe may wish that Fukuyama was right, with his idea of the end of History, and the end of conflicts, but he himself said that he was wrong, but when will Europe come to that conclusion, and starts to be again an actor in the REAL world?
Anonymous: You raise many points, and I agree with most. I’m not sure, however, that we can accuse the Union of not proclaiming its Enlightenment values; if you take a look at almost any European treaty, or statement (e.g. the Berlin Declaration), you will find these peppered throughout. And Europe’s Greek-Roman heritage was asserted very robustly at the start of the preamble to the old Constitution.
On the Kagan issue, you are almost right, although it was actually Robert Cooper, one of Javier Solana’s senior advisors, who made the claim first, at a meeting of the Trilateral Commission in 2000.
I would like to emphasise once more the point about understanding the public will and acting in favour of it: The Roman Republic wouldn’t have had to have fallen and be turned into the Roman Empire, given the Senate and other decision makers had in their times recognised the issue of land reforms in favour of the poor. But instead, soldiers who served long years in the army, came home and found their small estates sold to huge land owners.
The Gracus bothers—both tribunes of the people—were killed when they fought for this reform, later Sulla unconstitutionally declared himself dictator for several years to contain the popular hero Gaius Marcius and to reverse some concessions to the plebians. Some years later Caesar smashed republican forces in a civil war and declared himself dictator for life under the cheers of the plebians. Freedom and the republic were lost forever and his adopted son, Augustus, installed the Roman Empire.
And by the way, maybe Ireland should have had the choice between leaving the EU and accepting the Lisbon treaty in their referendum, this may would have prevented the coming uncertainties.
Thanks for the many references. What I meant though is, that maybe these values should be more visible; honestly, do you see the vast majority of Europeans recognise these values when they look at the European Union? Ask people what the EU symbolises to them, and in most cases you won’t get much of a response.
The US and many other countries are much more confident to show how they see themselves.
Why is giving the Parliament some degree of real power naive? It's not like the Council couldn't function and exercise an impressive amount of influence, like an upper house, or the system we have right now actually working in a satisfactory way. I'm not sugessting that the Council stays out of the process or the Parliament becomes overly powerful, but unless you give the whole process some sort of democratic legitimacy (which it's clearly perceived to be lacking, and rightly so) we'll end up at this point over and over again.
Besides it's a sure bet that if you leave further European integration to compromises reached by our governments, we're pretty close to the finish line anyway, since it's somewhat hard to make decisions that could cost you the next national election and we're at there point where certain decisions will inevitably cause some distress among voters. So it seems to me to be the only viable solution. The question as to whether or not the Parliament would be up to job shouldn't be a relevant issue since that would be nothing that can't be fixed.
To the church and quenn thing: one point was that you can't ask people, who want to implement Sharia law, to stop being idiots unless you get rid of your own medieval institutions, whether that's the Established church, monarchy, or restrictions of freedom of speech, otherwise you'll allways look as if you're holding Muslims to a higher standard than the rest of society. The other point was that certain aspects of Western values are, sadly one might add, not so much western as they are American and the European tradition much less liberal than most people seem to believe.
Sorry, I should have formated my last post a bit different. The points about the Roman Republic, Irelands referendum and the issue about European Identity are seperate points, they are in this context not conected, maybe I should have made that clearer. Thanks.
The first anonymous (I'd be grateful if you could leave a name, even if fabricated, to make it easier to identify to whom the response is directed!): On your point about kings and queens, I'm not sure it is comparable. While we may desire reform of pre-existing institutions and laws, which not longer reflect contemporary times, these are part of who ‘we’ are (or at least, were). It is altogether different for immigrants to come to European societies and then demand to have their previous country’s institutions or laws implemented here. Presumably, they should be willing to accept their chosen destination’s laws and legislation, or else look to move somewhere else? And surely, if they still desire to come to Europe, we should expect them to urge reform of unequal laws (like the Established church, where it exists), rather than seek to impose another set of backward customs?!
I'm not saying that the demand for (among other things) Sharia is reasonable, or not just plain scary for that matter. I'm saying that the idea of (slightly) different sets of rules for "different peoples"—whether the majority wants them or not—is a very European idea and deeply entrechend in what is genrelly regarded as "our values", partly reflected in the very bad idea to rest "our civilisation" on the shoulders of the theocratic empire of Rome and authoritarian Greek city states, and not say 18th century philosophy.
In terms of beeing comparable: I think it is in the sense that it demands exactly the same, an exeption from the general rule, and that the people enjoying those exemptions have been found to support these demands, so I'd wish people would look at our values much more sceptically, especially those that aren't that modern (or good) at all, but still held by many people, including politicians. Right now our own system feeds directly into the agendas of those fairly sinister characters and enables them to exert much more control than they have in the USA were no such institutions exist, so we're really digging the hole ourselves.
Kings and Queens: Not at all sure if I agree with the idea that we should have different laws for ‘different’ cultural groups within European society! This is surely ‘multiculturalism’ taken to its ultimate conclusion?! Indeed, the Archbishop of Canterbury recently made similar remarks in the United Kingdom, and caused a public controversy, not least because almost everyone disagreed! I don’t think expressing difference is really a ‘European’ value either—if we take, say Britain and France, surely asserting and spreading our values through what used to be described as the ‘civilising mission’ or ‘mission civilatrice’ is the European tradition? Isn’t that why the world’s two dominant languages are English and French, followed closely by Spanish and Portuguese? Isn’t this also why the Westminster system of parliamentary government and the French system have spread so far and wide?
James, I almost certainly wasn’t referring to you or even ALL pro- Europeans when I said certain reactions to the Irish were quite simply ‘arrogant, condescending and completely disrespectful’. I should clarify that my remarks were directed at the likes of Will Hutton and not all pro- Europeans. I should have been more specific about my accusatory remarks. Also, when I said that most of the pro- Lisbon supporters, or even those generally and ideologically supportive of the EU, were dissembling and obfuscating in their arguments and rhetoric, I wasn’t saying this was the case with ALL supporters of the EU. I think you are an honourable exception here: you have articulated your views with utmost clarity and anyone who spends 10 minutes on your website would be in no doubt as to what you think of the EU and its future.
To understand my point about pro- Lisbon Treaty supporters being ‘arrogant, condescending and completely disrespectful’, consider these execrable sentences from Hutton’s Observer column:
“What can't happen is that the treaty is scrapped, rewritten to accommodate changes to meet the will of Ireland's voters and then re-ratified in 27 countries.” (Will Hutton, ‘Europe must not be derailed by lies and disinformation’, Observer, Sunday, June 15, 2008)
“On top of these there is the political problem that the treaty can't be rewritten to accommodate specific Irish concerns because it already does; Ireland's 'no' campaigners told lies. The voters' great concerns had been met.” (Will Hutton, ‘Europe must not be derailed by lies and disinformation’, Observer, Sunday, June 15, 2008)
“It will have to ask Ireland to resubmit essentially the same treaty for a second referendum early in 2009, rather as Ireland held a second referendum over the Nice treaty in 2002.” (Will Hutton, ‘Europe must not be derailed by lies and disinformation’, Observer, Sunday, June 15, 2008)
The last quoted sentence is somewhat sublime: Hutton is arrogantly telling Irish voters basically to either vote the UNCHANGED Lisbon Treaty (if and when it is resubmitted for a referendum) or simply fuck off. The arrogance is splendidly summed up in his closing remarks: “But referendums work best for the demagogue, the dissimulator and scaremonger, as Hitler and Mussolini, lovers of referendums, proved.” My sense always is that when people invoke Hitler and Mussolini in contemporary debates, it basically and almost always means they have lost an argument and are simply resorting to ad hominem attacks to get their way. Naturally, if Hutton could be bothered to detach his lips from the posterior of the Euro-gravy-train and lift up his gaze, he would realise that a country like Switzerland (arguably better governed than most EU countries) thrives on referenda; as indeed does certain American states like California. The reason why a referendum is now essential in practically all EU member states is simply because whatever consensus that legitimated the EU in the eyes of ordinary people is simply dissipating and only a referendum can create it de novo. Ordinary people rightly ask, ‘what is the ultimate aim of further EU integration?’ and they are right to be cynical about the responses they have thus far received from the elites running the EU. In any event, given the yawning chasm between the elites who support the withering of the nation-states of Europe and an EU super-state in Brussels and the ordinary Europeans who are still attached to their nation-states and have not consented to being frog-marched into membership of a United States of Europe, it is of utmost necessity there is a vote on this proximate issue. Pro- Lisbon Treaty supporters are fond of delightfully pointing out the farrago of a coalition the ‘No’ camp is and, eo ipso, the muddled confusion behind opposition to further EU integration. What they fail to take account of is that if you aggregate the concerns of this seemingly incoherent farrago of the ‘No’ vote alliance, the vignette that emerges is one which illustrate one underlying theme: the sense of powerlessness, the sense that power is slipping away from them without their consent and the sense that further EU integration would simply translate into the death knell of their nation-states and the hard won relative political autonomy that comes with it. This CORE concern, whether it is based on a confusion or simply unjustified, would persist unless a referendum is called on the proximate question of ‘What is the ultimate objective of FURTHER EU integration?’.
“Next, I should like to take issue with your point about ‘Eurocrats’: who are these people?”
‘Eurocrat’ is simply a shorthand for European Bureaucrat – put another way, a civil servant or Mandarin employed by the EU. However, I will go further and say that anyone even loosely employed – be it in a consulting or advisory capacity and even if the job doesn’t include paid wages but simply perks and access to elite networking – is a Eurocrat. By this definition, Will Hutton, for instance, whose Observer biography states that “He was invited by the EU commission to join a high-level group on the mid-term review of the Lisbon strategy and acted as rapporteur for the report published in November 2004”, is a Eurocrat. Of course, the term has become part of the derogatory arsenal of the Eurosceptic Right in the UK and, as such, could be seen as somewhat derogatory and unhelpful to civil discourse. If it will help the debate, I am willing to go for a more politically correct terminology and refer to this grouping simply as the ‘Euro-Elites’.
“Finally, you provide a very legalistic argument for the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. Indeed, from this perspective, you are correct. But as you may recall, we have been here before, not least with the Treaty of Nice, when Ireland rejected that too. A way was found to navigate around that problem, so I see no reason why a way around the current problem cannot also be found. I do not think it ‘reeks with arrogance’ to argue that, at some point, if a majority of Member States want to press ahead with integration, we have to be held back in perpetuity by one that does not.”
Yes, on the face of it, this is a legalistic argument. But that would be a superficial reading of my argument. The argument hinges on something that pro- EU integration advocates either are ignorant about or simply cavalier about: that is to say, the sheen is wearing of the legitimacy of FURTHER EU integration in the eyes of ordinary citizens. This is why it is vital the sort of politico-diplomatic skulduggery the French are hinting at, i.e., ignoring the Irish and implementing the Lisbon Treaty through other surreptitious means, is simply going to erode more sheen off this shrinking legitimacy. Of course, they can brow-beat the Irish into another vote (without addressing their CORE concern) until they get the answer the EU wants in the first place (a funny thing this democracy the Euro-Elites believe: you only get to vote provided you give the right answer and, insofar as you cannot oblige by this ground rule, you forfeit your right to a vote). This approach, ultimately, will be a disaster: the question will continue to be repeated until the barbarians (read: the masses) break down the rarefied walls of the castle the Euro-Elites are ensconced in. In sum, this is a bullet that cannot be dodged.
Finally, your original post quoted at great length Walter Laqueur anti- Europe screed and you appear to agree with some of his diagnosis. However, I think you are better off reading a fellow European who, writing 58 years ago, diagnosed a problem that is now central to European integration. That is, the inexorable revolt of the masses against an elite-driven project, which is precisely currently unfolding in Europe against further EU integration. Indeed, Ortega y Gasset’s “The Revolt of the Masses” should be a must-read of all Euro-Elites. Gasset, you will be interested to know favoured a European super-state long before it became fashionable; but paradoxically only because it is the only way to deal with the problem of the masses.
Hamjatta
Hamjatta: Yes, I did know what you meant by ‘Eurocrats’, but my question was more of a rhetorical one than anything else. My point is not that ‘Euro-crats’ or ‘Euro-elites’ do not exist, but rather, they do not have the sort of powers you seem to suggest that they have—and nor is the process of European integration simply a struggle between the ‘Euro-elites’ and ‘the people’ (whoever they might be). Is Gordon Brown a ‘Euro-elite’, for example? Or Tony Blair? They, after all, are as responsible for the European Union as some Commissioner or other European official. And your entire argument seems informed quite decisively by traditional British Euroscepticism. After all, in so many other European Union Member States—including Britain—we often see opinion polls (granted, they may not be the best sources) declaring strong support for the existence of the European Union. I doubt very much, should a referendum be held next month on whether or not Britain should stay in the Union, that many people would actually want to withdraw. So while some people may have misgivings on particular treaties, surely it is wrong to extrapolate and suggest that ‘the people’ have misgivings about the entire integrationist project? In many areas, ‘the people’ want more integration. Numerous polls show that the environment, transport and security and defence are areas where this is so.
Indeed, debates such as these were in part why I established this website in the first place. Some Europeans seem so wrapped up in debates on the erosion of their imagined national sovereignty, that they fail to realise that this is already jeopardised (e.g. how ‘sovereign’ is Britain really, when it is so encased in American power?), or that rising foreign powers are and will continue to challenge our sovereignty in the future. This, not ‘Brussels’, is the real challenge and threat. We need to enlarge the context!
“And your entire argument seems informed quite decisively by traditional British Euroscepticism.”
This is absurd and obtuse on two levels. First, the idea that I am merely rehashing British Eurosceptic arguments when I state a ‘Euro-elite’ exists and a yawning chasm now exists between them and ordinary people can only come from someone who does not know me well enough. Since you know me well enough and have engaged me on previous occasions on a plethora of issues, this obtuse remark of yours is disgraceful. You know very well that I am not new to European studies or politics in general: I wrote my final-year dissertation on the EU and it has been variously hailed as a tour de force. If anything, I have a more profound knowledge of the EU than your average Eurosceptic in any of the even more sophisticated broadsheets in the UK. Equally, all the citations I proffered in my original comments were outlets that are very much pro- European: I cited the FT and the Independent (as well as the work of the pro EU scholar Helen Wallace) as sources for the arguments I presented. More to the point, even though I widen my net of publications I digest daily, my principal source of daily information on the EU and the wider world is the FT – I am not aware that the FT has suddenly been transmogrified into a rabid Eurosceptic tabloid.
Second, the notion that the idea of the existence a ‘Euro-Elite’ (or a Eurocrat or Eurocracy) pushing onward with a super-state agenda and not in tandem with ordinary people’s sentiments is a mythology created by the Eurosceptic press demonstrates the degree to which you are either (a) getting very rusty in your grasp of regional integration theory or (b) quite simply very ignorant about certain aspects of regional integration theory. True, the notion of a Eurocracy is now a term of abuse and swear word prevalent amongst the Eurosceptic Right and indeed does vitiate the force of some their arguments. But they are hardly saying something controversial here: indeed, long before it was fashionable to be a Eurosceptic or even before they arguably existed (that is, long before Britain joined the EEC and membership of the EU became a controversial issue), Regional Integration Theory pioneering scholars like Ernst Haas, pace Mitrany’s seminal 1932 lecture at Yale, "The Communal Organization of World Affairs", postulated a spillover effect from economic cooperation that will go beyond institutional re-alignment and transformation but, more importantly, the creation of an elite that will gradually transfer their interests and loyalties to the new regional entity, especially as it grows and becomes more powerful than the nation-states that form it (see Haas, “The Uniting Of Europe”, 1958). Although Haas was relatively more guarded about this transvaluation of loyalty and interests of the elites of the nation-states of Europe from the ‘old’ to the ‘new’, (the index of the book does not even have an entry of the term ‘spillover’) his student and collaborator, Philippe C. Schmitter, was more explicit about the spillover of integration would mean for the creation of a new elite and interests. As Schmitter puts it:
“The process of spillover has a cumulative tendency, i.e., it tends to involve more national actors in an expanding variety of policy areas and in an increasing degree of joint decisionmaking. Faced with this cumulation of commitments, national actors find themselves gradually embroiled in ever more salient and controversial areas of policymaking. Eventually, they are likely to respond with a formal revaluation and restatement of their original (more limited) goals. Politicization thus refers initially to a process whereby the CONTROVERSIALITY of joint decisionmaking goes up. This in turn is likely to lead to A WIDENING OF THE AUDIENCE OR CLIENTELE interested and active in integration. Somewhere along the line A MANIFEST REDEFINITION OF MUTUAL OBJECTIVES will probably occur. The latter outcome, transcendence in this author’s terminology, may or may not involve a definitive, self-confessed shift from formerly economic to manifestly political goals (although this would constitute the clearest case of politicization). It merely involves some collective recognition that the original objectives have been attained, surpassed, or made irrelevant and that new ones involving an upward shift in either scope or level of commitment are operative… Ultimately, one could hypothesize that, given the above, there will be A SHIFT IN ACTOR EXPECTATIONS AND LOYALTY toward the new regional center.” (Philippe C. Schmitter, ‘Three Neo-Functional Hypotheses about International Integration’ International Organization, Vol. 23, No. 1, [Winter, 1969] pp. 165-166) [All emphases in the original]
What Schmitter euphemistically calls “a widening of the audience or clientele”, is what the British Eurosceptics vulgarly call a ‘Eurocrat’. The Eurosceptics may be rude when they deploy the Eurocrat epithet; but it amounts to sheer intellectual dishonesty to say that a European elite that has interests and loyalties in a super-state doesn’t exist, and is merely a figment of the feverish imagination of the Eurosceptics. But even you are not oblivious to the point that is being made:
“Community building projects are not usually democratic projects; they BEGIN WHEN ELITE AND INTELLECTUAL GROUPS RESPOND to generalised dislocation, normally exemplified by some kind of external threat.” (Emphasis added)
Somehow I suspect this is something of a Freudian Slip. Still, you are tacitly acknowledging that an elite group or elites exist that are undemocratically pushing for a new European polity. You chose to call them simply ‘elites and intellectual groups’ and the Eurosceptics call them ‘Eurocrats’ – different names for the same phenomenon; in part, largely reflecting, that is, the naming of the phenomenon, merely whether one approves of the phenomenon or not. You approve of it and the Eurosceptics don’t. Even here one can detect confusion on your part. When we forensically go over what you have been saying over the issue of elites and the EU, we see how you contradict yourself. We have seen how you have conceded that transcendental projects like the EU are driven principally by the elites and their intellectual acolytes. Yet in a separate statement, you attempt to refute that position:
“Next, I should like to take issue with your point about ‘Eurocrats’: who are these people? They seem to by a myth conjured up by the right wing newspapers, particularly in the United Kingdom (owned, incidentally, mostly by foreigners). Eurocrats do not exist.”
To paraphrase Walt Whitman,
“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)”
Which is it: the elites are in the driving seat of the push for a European polity or is that entirely a mythology of the Eurosceptic? You cannot have it both ways. I suggest you take a page out of Shirley Williams’ op-ed in today’s Guardian: in her article, Ms Williams refers to ‘European elites’ and acknowledges a gulf between them and ordinary voters. To wit, on the Irish ‘No’ vote she wrote of “…the lesson the European elites neglect at their peril.” Well. I guess Shirley Williams is another individual whose “entire argument seems informed quite decisively by traditional British Euroscepticism”.
“I doubt very much, should a referendum be held next month on whether or not Britain should stay in the Union, that many people would actually want to withdraw. So while some people may have misgivings on particular treaties, surely it is wrong to extrapolate and suggest that ‘the people’ have misgivings about the entire integrationist project? In many areas, ‘the people’ want more integration. Numerous polls show that the environment, transport and security and defence are areas where this is so.”
Oh dear. [Sigh.] I was not aware that you are incapable of reading?!?. Who talked about Britain leaving the EU? Or even that people are fundamentally opposed to integration per se? Jeez. Boy, it is difficult to have a debate with dogmatic supporters of the EU super-state. If you had bothered reading my text carefully you would have noticed that my comments were not addressed to the general question of integration but the proximate one of whether the nation-state should wither away and give way to EU super-state. Indeed, I wrote:
“This CORE concern, whether it is based on a confusion or simply unjustified, would persist unless a referendum is called on the proximate question of ‘What is the ultimate objective of FURTHER EU integration?’.”
Throughout my contributions on this debate I qualified my comments on EU integration vis-à-vis its discontents with the word ‘FURTHER’ and the phrase ‘ULTIMATE OBJECTIVE’. And the invocation of the phrase (‘ultimate objective’) and the word (‘further’) here is simply to demonstrate the degree to which that the logical conclusion that Euro-elites envisage, i.e., an EU super-state, is something that is at odds with what the bulk of ordinary people want and envisage – insofar as opinion polling is a useful guide here, that is. If you are aware of evidence that states categorically that on the proximate question, ‘What is the ultimate objective of FURTHER EU integration?’, voters want a super-state that supersedes their nation-states, please let me know about it. I am not aware of any such evidence. On the contrary, the evidence tentatively suggests that the vast majority of voters are fundamentally opposed to such moves.
For what it is worth, my own view (as a non- European) is that the Lisbon Treaty would be rammed down the throats of an unwilling electorate by the Euro-elites – whatever the electoral opposition. That would be a tragedy because the victory, if one may call it that, would turn out to pyrrhic. Implementing Lisbon/Reform Treaty NOW is not of strategic imperative but being gracious and respectful towards an increasingly disillusioned electorate is now of the utmost importance for EU integration.
Hamjatta
Hamjatta: On your first point, I did not say you were a British Eurosceptic. I said your arguments seemed to be ‘decisively informed by traditional British Euroscepticism.’ And even I concede, albeit cautiously, that one can be well versed in European Studies, and still hold Eurosceptic views and perspectives. In short, I think there is a difference between Europhobia and Euroscepticism. Unless I have misunderstood you, I still maintain that your arguments seem informed more by those of a Eurosceptic than a Europhile, or do you actually support the European project? So I’m not altogether sure that there is still an argument to be made here.
Second, if you read carefully my argument again, I am emphatically not arguing that extremely influential groups and people at the European level, whose project it is to advance European integration progressively further, do not exist. To restate what I said:
‘My point is not that ‘Euro-crats’ or ‘Euro-elites’ do not exist, but rather, they do not have the sort of powers you seem to suggest that they have—and nor is the process of European integration simply a struggle between the ‘Euro-elites’ and ‘the people’ (whoever they might be).’
So my supposed Freudian slip was not so much of a slip. Given that my own Ph.D. research is looking into these groups, particularly in the areas of security and defence, it would be wrong of me to do so. What I am taking issue with, and this seems to be at the crux of our supposed disagreement, is the content, scope and homogeneity of these groups. I was also taking issue with your conception of ‘the people’. Again, who are these ‘Euro-elites’ and who are these ‘the people’?
What I have been trying to suggest is that the project—not process (which in itself disfavours agency)—of European integration is pushed forward not only by ‘Euro-elites’ (a category in which I would include myself, even if I have little or no power, because I remain persuaded by the merits of [further] European integration), but also by many other groups of people, who may not necessarily agree entirely with the project itself. Contradiction?! Paradox?! Absolutely! That is why I asked whether Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, or even Margaret Thatcher and John Major, are, or should be considered, ‘Euro-elites’; perhaps not, but in many ways, they have been as crucial to the integration project as anyone else.
This brings me to the second dimension with which we seem to disagree: ‘the people’. You, for example, state:
‘For what it is worth, my own view (as a non- European) is that the Lisbon Treaty would be rammed down the throats of an unwilling electorate by the Euro-elites – whatever the electoral opposition. That would be a tragedy because the victory, if one may call it that, would turn out to pyrrhic. Implementing Lisbon/Reform Treaty NOW is not of strategic imperative but being gracious and respectful towards an increasingly disillusioned electorate is now of the utmost importance for EU integration.’
Who is this ‘unwilling electorate’? If we are talking only about Ireland, then you may be correct. But if, as I thought, we are talking more generally, then I’m not altogether so certain that your argument holds good. I think it could be quite plausible that should a pan-European referendum be held next week, as to whether or not the Treaty of Lisbon should be ratified, that a majority might well turn out to be in favour, even if it was a close run thing. That, of course, is speculation, and we will never know...
But in any case—and forgive me for moving on, but I do not have time to reply at great length—I am not sure one can or should always listen to the will of ‘the people’ anyway. Just because the general population may not want something, doesn’t mean the political/governing elite should listen. I’m quite certain that if one held a referendum in Britain next month as to whether or not the country should retain nuclear weapons, the pro-side would lose. I think we’re dealing here with something of far greater significance than issues surrounding EU treaties. Indeed, your ‘disillusioned electorate’ might well be implicated here, but I think the disillusionment is both more profound than anyone realises, and connected with a whole plethora of other issues. This is not (only) because of Europe, but something deeper, and that is, after all, what I was trying to discuss in my original article.
Well, here comes another perhaps arrogant reaction to the no vote in Ireland, I'm curious what you have to say on the following post Hamjatta...
In a country you have always different opinions on certain subjects. It is for example simple to say that farmers or low skilled workers don’t benefit from free trade, hence they are generally opposed to free trade.
We see the same thing arising here in Ireland that opposes European tax legislation (and an Irish commissioner less). Ireland has economically benefited from low taxes, now the EU member states want to put up a framework to talk about and form legislation about taxes (tax on capital mostly). This is however, not in the Irish interest.
One can say that the current referendum in Ireland is not a demonstration of a lack of democracy or a lack of information, on the contrary. It is based upon what people believe is in their interest. The Irish now know they can get the things they want through sabotaging a treaty. They've done it once, they're trying for a second round
This can however not be tolerated! The majority of EU citizens want corporate tax harmonization and a workable EU (with a workable amount of EU commissioners) and should be able to do so if that is what is wanted. This is a freerider problem and should be dealt with on that basis. The public good that the EU is, should be defended in a firm way. Freeriders shouldn’t be tolerated and should get appropriate treatment.
When you are a citizen in a country, you can’t handpick which tax you want to pay and which not. People should share the benefits and the costs! If they don’t agree with that, they can face the consequences. If the people of a member state don’t agree with the public good established through the EU, then they can always leave.
It was not democracy that was on the funeral pyre, it was the public good. The aggressor wasn’t the the democratic gap but it was the (egoistic) freerider.
One should be quite clear about the EU and the so-called benefits which have accrued to Ireland. On joining in 1973 Ireland signed over the control of its fisheries to the EEC. The value of these more than compensate for the much repeated €40b that Ireland is said to have received.
France has milked the CAP better than any other country and back in the 1970s and 1980s excelled a refusing free access to Irish agricultural produce.
Lady Thatcher demanded the famous rebate for Britain on the basis that lazy Frenchmen did not need her fellow Britons' money to prop up their inefficient economy.
What saddens me about so many Europhiliacs is their unthinking consent to the demise of liberties which have cost centuries of toil to acquire. Their acquiescence (unconscious I hope) in the crypto-fascist 'super state' model for Europe shows a complete ignorance of European History.
Europe has had only one multiethnic polity in its recent past, the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It functioned well until the Enlightement created the ideologial imperative to centralise and destroy ancient liberties local liberties.
This gave birth to local nationalisms which have been sustained for the last 150 years.
The Warsaw Pact was a police-terrorist state which solidified the nationalisms of the old Empire.
They said of the Bourbons that they forgot nothing and learnt nothing how true of the Eurocracy.
The reaction of the so called big states of the EU to the Irish vote should surprise no-one. The unstated racism (an Irish No does not equal a French No), the 'rapist's strategy' of the big countries (no means yes), all signal one thing.
The EU is in denial about the real world and as such can never compete with China or the US. Europe is not nor will it ever be a state, federal or otherwise. Every move in that direction will stoke nationalism and eventually terrorism. As an Irishman who handles international and EU affairs for an Irish NGO which is a member of 4Europe NGOs composed of the EU/ EEA member states, I can say that the greatest fantasy alive today is that the EU twenty-seven are friendly co-operative allies.
The members of the 4 EU NGOs are cynical, brutal, and distrustful of each other and spend most of their time undermining each other. Placing any faith in the EU is a vain policy and the Chinese, Indians, and Americans know this; suppressing democracy in the EU builds a brittle, undependable polity which will disintegrate at the first crisis.
The greatest threat to European prosperity and safety is the Federalist EU and the Lisbon Treaty. Instead of building an innovative, dynamic, club of democracies, which shares projects on a case by case basis, the EU has aped the failed, Colbertist, statist, French, model. It is already losing ground to China because it spends more time undermining personal freedom than ensuring that EU productivity is higher than China's or India's.
As Montecuccoli stated the man with the longest purse wins the war. China understands that power grows from the barrel of a gun but is sustained by other means. Those means are money, money, and money. The EU is more interested in spending than creating wealth and as such commands little or no respect from the US or China. The EU states can't deliver their people and so dare not consult them. What better way to make their impotence plain.
The Irish have given the EU a chance to redfine itself as a common market which could be the market place of the world and the centre for world innovation and politics. The Northern Ireland Peace Process was built on the thorough and continuous re-negotiation of the Good Friday Agreement until a settlement was reached. Eventually everyone talked to everyone else. The EU will have to re-negotiate the Lisbon Treaty, so the quicker they stop throwing shapes and get on with it the better.
Cold Eye: Really, this is quite absurd. The moment people begin to throw around crude nonsense regarding the European Union as ‘a crypto-fascist “superstate”’ I squirm. Not only do such statements devalue the hideousness of fascism, but they also run against the grain of everything the Union stands for.
Second, the European Union is absolutely not a threat to our liberties. In many places, the Union has only served to strengthen them, not least in Eastern Europe, but also in Member States like the United Kingdom, whose laws regarding the working rights of women had to change in the late 1970s.
And finally, and this is, I believe, the most powerful of arguments in support of further European integration: people who oppose the Union fail to offer a vision as to how Europeans will be able to retain their liberties, and their economic prosperity, in a world where giant new autocratic powers—often with agendas very, very different to our own—are growing by the week.
British liberties, for example, were all well and good in 1939, except that Britons realised that we do not live in a bubble. No, indeed, we needed the critical mass of power in order to protect and defend our liberties. Thankfully, not just for the British, but also the whole world, the United Kingdom had a vast empire on which it could draw military conscripts, resources and innovation. What does this teach us?
Well, little places like Ireland, or even contemporary Britain and France, are no longer in a position to stand tall and alone in the world. That is to say, it is only through the European Union that our liberties; our parliamentary or republican governments; our civil rights; our social solidarity; and ultimately, our way of life, will be protected.
Finally, your assertion that Mrs. Thatcher demanded back ‘her’ money from an inefficient French economy is fantasy. At the time, France was one of the richest countries in Europe, and Britain one of the poorest. It was precisely because Britain was poor that the British government asked for the rebate; it seemed unfair that Britain should be paying as much into the central pot as France, which was thirty percent more affluent regarding GDP per capita. Since this disparity has been closed, Britain has given up much of the rebate.
The EU is crypto-fascist in the proper sense of that term, not the vulgar meaning of jackboots. You must learn to adopt a more nuanced and historically and philospohically informed view before labelling other's views as absurd. The EU is corporatist not democratic and liberal.
Corporatism underlay the politics of Salazar, Franco, and Mussolini. They used it to legitimate brutality to their citizens. They appropriated it from some very respectable sources. It also underlies the ideologies of many of the Christian Democratic parties. They would claim to be inspired by Pope Leo XIII's De Rerum Novarum which proposed a corporatist view. By definition corporatism thinks the centre knows best, it is group based, and sets up false notions of autarky.
Your ignorance of Irish history can be forgiven but perhaps you might like to know that corporatism inspired Ireland's policy from 1937 to the mid 1980s under De Valera and his successors. It caused mass emmigration and beggared the country. Only when Ireland embraced a low tax, liberalised economy, did she recover in the 1990s. EU subsidies in the 1970s and 1980s had little or no effect on prosperity since the 1980s were some of the worst years for emmigration. Only when a liberal economic view was embraced did Ireland thrive. This had nothing to do with the EU and everything to do with the example of the UK.
In 1939 Briton joined free nations to defeat Hitlerism. After the war it did not surrender its liberties or freedom of action to an unaccountable super-state. It joined NATO, a purpose built common defence project.
I think anyone who seriously believes that China or India are plotting world domination has little understanding of these ancient and capable peoples. Each of these states will have enough trouble looking after its own internal affairs to think about domination in the 21st century.
If the British Empire gave the UK such vast resources of men, money, and materiel, why did it need Marshall Aid after the war? The truth about the empire was that it absorbed resources rather than producing them and Britain could only draw those resources with the consent of the governed in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa. British troops had to defend India and the Far East. Britain was overstretched and lacked resources.
Britain was beggared by the effort while France sat the war out in Vichyite comfort until 1944. Yet even with that head start it managed to fritter the '30 golden years' by the 1970s.
Your faith that the EU is absolutely not a threat to our liberties frightens me. As someone whose daily work involves monitoring and lobbying on EU matters I can tell you that the EU wants to control everything. The arrogance of officials and MEPS is astounding (I include especially Irish MEPS).
As an Irish citizen I can sue the state to vindicate my rights it does not have sovereign immunity except in very narrow areas. By contrast the French citizen cannot sue the French Republicn as easily because it explictly denies that right and places the collective above the individual. The French Republic is explicitly defined as a 'social republic'. The French model has been integrated into EU law with the principles of vertical and horizontal effect.
In Ireland I am a free man, in France I would be a subject of the collective, bereft of the power of consent. The French riot and strike because they are subjects to their government rather than masters of it. In Ireland my politicians serve me or lose power. Irish men do not riot, our police are unarmed, we do not need a gendarmarie to impose central will.
The old powers US, UK, and France are just going to have to face the reality that there are more players gaining seats at the top table. The G7 became the G8 and will become the G10, 11, or 12 as the case may be over time. It would suit the Old Powers better to adopt an attitude of humility and engagement rahter than hectoring the emerging powers.
The notion of standing tall perhaps indicates that you are American? I would rather stand free, than tall, I wish to dominate no-one or to be dominated. Ireland will never dominate any other country but she brought down the British Empire.
Jomo Kenyatta, speaking to a friend of mine, an Irish priest who taught in Kenya in the 1960-85, period said the following:- 'You were the first in 1922' Ireland a small people of less that 3 million in 1922 defeated the UK and began the dismemberment of the British Empire. She inspired Nehru and Kenyatta. Her constitution was a model for both India and Burma in their quest for freedom.
Big is not powerful and strong as the US in Iraq shows.
One of the underlying reasons for the Good Friday Agreement was the realisation that the IRA could inflict unacceptable losses and costs on the UK. The UK could not beat the IRA so it had to talk.
The EU superstate will provide nationalists with a perfect breeding ground and will fuel existing terrorism and reignite old terrorism. This is something we should all fear.
Cold Eye: I maintain that your labelling of the Union as ‘crypto-fascist’ is absurd. Anyone—although perhaps not those who speak under the shield of anonymity—with a nuanced and historically and philospohically informed view of the world would not throw around terms such as ‘crypto-fascist’. It is a cheap rhetorical strategy, and deserves no further comment on my part.
And I will not get bogged down in lengthy discussions here on the nature or utility of corporatism. These are not my areas of academic interest, and I do not have the time to discuss them. Suffice to say, just because one is pro-European, does not mean that one is dogmatically so. There are many parts I would like to see changed domestically, not least the Common Agricultural Policy, which should be completely abolished, and the funds redirected into space technology, information technology, genetics, and other parts of the economy likely to grow in importance over the coming years.
Moving on, I would disagree with your reading of history. Firstly, you say:
‘In 1939 Britain joined free nations to defeat Hitlerism. After the war it did not surrender its liberties or freedom of action to an unaccountable super-state.’
Actually, Britain did surrender its liberties and freedom (as an independent country) to a superstate...the United States. This realisation—particularly among the British elite—may not have been apparent entirely in 1945, but after 1956 it was crystal clear. The country ceased to be an independent power, and simply slotted into American hegemony. This may have been a sound strategy during the Cold War, but those times have long since past.
Then you say:
‘I think anyone who seriously believes that China or India are plotting world domination has little understanding of these ancient and capable peoples. Each of these states will have enough trouble looking after its own internal affairs to think about domination in the 21st century.’
Your first sentence is not an accurate description of my argument. I am not saying that China or India are plotting world domination or anything of the sort; regional primacy, perhaps, but that will also have profound implications for us. And they are going to dwarf Britain or France in the next ten to twenty years, in almost every area. We need the organised means to defend our interests against any potential challenge; the international economy is not a natural product of ‘market forces’ or anything of the sort. It is a political economy, underpinned by Euro-American military and geopolitical primacy.
As to your second sentence, one could draw an analogy to many countries. Internal difficulties in the United Kingdom in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and in America in the nineteenth century, did not stop those two powers operating as, or becoming, great powers. And, moreover, it is often at times of internal difficulty that ‘foreign adventures’ are undertaken to deflect attention away from those difficulties. One, well-known, instance would be Argentina in 1982.
You then go on:
‘It would suit the Old Powers better to adopt an attitude of humility and engagement rather than hectoring the emerging powers.’
This is everything we should stand against, particularly when those ‘rising powers’ have agendas often in direct contrast to our own (Russia and China, for example, are either authoritarian or dictatorial regimes, whose penetration of Africa, Central Asia and South Asia is not in our interest). This cannot be ignored. Some other parts of Europe would do well to learn from the British (and the French) experience, especially Ireland, who hardly excelled itself during the Free World’s war against Nazi barbarism—or our struggle against Russian communism. I wonder how free so-called ‘neutral countries’ might now be, had Nazi tanks rolled into London or had Soviet armour ploughed into West Berlin and Paris?
Further, the Americans might contest your notion that Ireland was ‘the first’. A more accurate historical reading would be that Ireland’s independence was a consequence of the Great War. But as they say, that is all in the past; what we should really concern ourselves with is how to protect European/Western values and prosperity in the twenty-first century.
Finally, there is no reason why a ‘European’ identity cannot live alongside an ‘Irish’, ‘French’, ‘British’ or ‘Dutch’ one. I’m English, Welsh, British and European, all simultaneously...
Kindly stop conflating Europe with the EU, they are not the same.
I'd like to support James Rogers' argument about the need for a strong EU in international affairs vis à vis Russia (or China, India, Brazil, South Africa,...).
I'd like to support this by giving the example of energy, more in detail, gas from Russia to the EU member states. At the moment Russia is dictating the terms of the agreements and monopolising our markets, both in infrastructure and producers. At the moment the EU is 50% dependent on Russian gas, this makes Russia quite powerful when dealing with an individual member state. This has been apparent with Finland, Poland, Latvia, but even others like Belgium or the UK.
Russia dictates terms because it is powerful and united against a dispersed EU. International economy is power politics. The Lisbon treaty wanted to offer a framework to form a common foreign and security policy: a EU foreign minister.
You say that you notice there are a lot of differences between member states. That is true. But that shouldn't obstruct us to look for common interests and put those into use.
Anonymous: Given that the European Union is the dominant power in Europe, much like the United States is the dominant power in the Americas, it becomes short hand to call either ‘Europe’ or ‘America’.
Waldo Vanderheugen: I completely agree with you. Your choice of evidence is accurate. Energy is the just the tip of the iceberg though. We will see much more dividing and ruling in economics by foreign countries if we are unable to get our act together: within ten years, China may be competing with us in areas traditionally within the French or British—and hence, European—spheres of influence, namely Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. We cannot ignore these challenges.
And you also point to the fact that while much may still divide the Union’s twenty-seven Member States, we still have much, much more in common than we do with non-European powers. This should be what drives us together!
My posts were the following, about Huntington and Hobbes etc.; I will from now post a name, that makes things easier:
15 June 2008 17:30
16 June 2008 18:10
16 June 2008 19:11
16 June 2008 20:06
I agree with your position James, and I think its rather strange, as Cold Eye suggests, that the EU is modeled on Corporatism, when it's actually China and Russia who show many corporatist elements in the way they understand domestic power. A more united Europe is the goal in order to defend our values, so that we don't have to compromise our freedom and don't become clones of China and Russia, remember?
I would like to add here an interesting point I have just picked up in Fareeds Zakaria's new interesting show on CNN: There was a historian from the CFR on the panal, who pointed out that there would have never been a USA, had there been the kind of standards as called upon by many "euro sceptics" now. For example just 9 of 13 US colonies agreed on the union, and the documents underlining it have never been subjects of a referendum.
I think it should also be recognized, that the way all western countries are governed, is not by an Athenian democracy, where every decision is subject to a popular vote. In the west, all governments are more closely modeled on the republican idea, where power is divided between the many, the few and the one, established by the popular vote. This model should provide more stability, precisely because throughout history Athenian democracies have fallen pray to mob-rule or false prophets. It should be remembered, that the Roman republic lasted 500 years, while Athens lasted just 100 years.
I'm afraid I have to give you another lesson in Irish and indeed British history. The independence of Ireland had nothing to do with WW1 in the slightest. The evolution of the Irish Parliamentary Party in the 1880s as a cohesive group of 80 or so MPs following a clear Home Rule agenda brought about independence. WW1 actually arrested the process because the Home Rule Act was passed in 1914 and shelved until after the war.
The British political system of 2 parties could not digest a third, disciplined force with its own agenda. The British political establishment as cold eyed as ever bowed to the inevitiable and let Ireland go.
If you were to consult Adam Tooze's 'Wages of Destruction', on Nazi economics, you would understand that the Nazis went to war against Russia and the Western Powers in a desperate bid to shore up a collapsing system. Nazi Germany was collapsing from the inside out. Even if Ireland had fallen to the Nazis, there would never have been enough Nazis or collaborators to hold the place down. The Irish invented modern terrorism and with a supportive population would have made life intolerable for the Nazis.
You refer to Suez and the reluctant coalescence of the UK with the US. Suez was a gamble that failed for exactly the fundamental hubris of Eden's world view. Instead of acknowledging the power of arab nationalism and surfing the wave of transformation to place the UK in a position to benefit from it, Eden tried to hold to the old pre war paradigm. Even then he displayed insufficient ruthlessness in prosecuting his coup.
The evidence regarding corporatism is in the legislation of the EU which encumbers enterprise and regulates everything it possibly can.
I find your dismissal of history 'But as they say, that is all in the past; what we should really concern ourselves with is how to protect European/Western values and prosperity in the twenty-first century.' very odd indeed.
Every Europhile starts with a history lesson on WW2 when justifying the EU.
History is the reason we are here and have the problems we have so a dismissal of the past is an unacceptable de-contextualisation of the problem and a refusal to understand why the EU is failing and will, unless radically reformed, become irrelevant in 20 years time.
The EU came into being as a political / economic arm for the NATO countries with the imprimatur of the US. After 1989 with the collapse of the Berlin Wall it lost its rationale for centralisation. It had two choices it could 'deepen' among the existing or a smaller group of the then members or it could 'widen' and include the 12 new democracies. It chose widening and the deepening agenda was shelved.
This choice was explicitly discussed at the time so the Europhiles knew what they had agreed to do. The Irish, French, and Dutch votes exemplify the death of the 'deepening' agenda.
Comparisons with the US must be treated with extreme care. In the initial period of foundation 13 states pooled sovereignty creating a weak centre. A decisive shift occured with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, the central power gained control of roughly 1/3 of the continental US and began a process of expansion. At this point the states were created from the centre and thus were a donation of power from the centre the periphery. The citizens were citizens of the US before they were citizens of Illinois for example. The clash of the centre versus the states evenually resolved itself in the Civil War.
The EU cannot ever funtion on the US model. All power comes from the nations and is ceded temporarily to the centre. The EU will always spend very significant amounts of its time re-negotiating that balance. It can never become a US of E because the identity of its inhabitants is national not continental.
Which brings me to the notion of European values. This I find deeply amusing.. when the Pope asked for an acknowledgement of the objective reality namely of Europe's Christian roots and heritage he was dismissed. Commissioner Buttiglionge was ridiculed for his Catholicism and forced out of the EU apparat.
The Christian heritage of the EU is the one and only thing which binds Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals. Why is it denigrated by the EU.
So-called Enlightenment values have divided Europe since the 18th Century and fuelled conflict hatred and mass murder. Never forget that the Jacobins pioneered mass political murder and its justification.
So it is incumbent on those who propound the notion of European values must justify the construction.
Cold Eye: I disagree with you. I do not think the Irish Republic would have gained independence when it did, without World War I. The same applies to India and World War II.
You say:
‘Even if Ireland had fallen to the Nazis, there would never have been enough Nazis or collaborators to hold the place down. The Irish invented modern terrorism and with a supportive population would have made life intolerable for the Nazis.’
Of course, we are engaging in speculation here, but I find this absurd. The notion that a poor country, with weak institutions, would have sustained itself in the face of a potentially genocidal empire, is fantasy. And, moreover, it begs the question as to whether—had the Nazis never got to Ireland, but took over the United Kingdom—the Irish Republic would have been content sitting next to the Nazi juggernaut? No matter what the answer, it would have had no choice. But to bring this back to the question at hand: we Europeans do now have a choice as to whether or not we come under the influence of malign foreign countries (e.g. Russia, China). If we remain divided, this is certain. If we integrate, we have a more lucrative future.
I think you misunderstood my point about the Suez war. The issue was that Britain’s powerbase was exhausted because its empire was already fragmenting. Again, this holds lessons for us...
I find your statement about the European Union as a hyper regulator a puerile cliché, and will not discuss the matter any further.
You say:
‘I find your dismissal of history “But as they say, that is all in the past; what we should really concern ourselves with is how to protect European/Western values and prosperity in the twenty-first century” very odd indeed.
Every Europhile starts with a history lesson on WW2 when justifying the EU.’
Firstly, I am not just any other ‘Europhile’; I regard myself a Euro-realist. Just because other pro-Europeans begin their justification of the Union by pointing to the wars of the past, does not mean that I should do too. I tend to agree with them, to some extent, but that argument is no longer plausible. If the Union were to vanish tomorrow, it would not necessarily mean Europe would begin to descend back into continental strife.
From my perspective, the European Union was always a geopolitical project. Its aim was to aggregate European power, initially under French influence. Read Monnet’s Memoirs, or Duchêne’s biography of Monnet. Their aim was always a united Europe, using economic, political and cultural means to achieve that objective. It was not just the economic arm of NATO, and France’s influence has declined as German and British influence has grown.
Further, your claims on the ‘deepening’ v. ‘widening’ argument are also wrong. They have never been mutually exclusive and are not now. There have, as you’re no doubt aware, been four previous rounds of enlargement before 2004, and each was followed by considerable ‘deepening’. Contrary to the claims of anti-Europeans and petty nationalists, widening and deepening are two sides of the same coin, part of the same geopolitical project.
I agree that we should be careful when drawing comparisons between the Union and other countries. But your suggestion that we cannot ever have a United States of Europe because power comes from the nations strikes me as bizarre. First, nations are not fixed entities, and can and do change, given that they are constructions. Second, we only need to look at the British example to see that four (or three) nations can live together in a common union. Third, pre-existing ‘nationalities’—or better, ‘collective identities’—can merge and change, while loyalties can be transferred from British, French, or whatever, towards something more European.
European values are, of course, something we shall continue to struggle over. That is good. But I—as a secularist—do not want religious values to be implemented in any European constitutional treaties. Christianity has obviously informed European values—constitutional government, human rights, rule of law, and so on—but in today’s world, religion is a private matter, and should not be allowed to hijack the mechanisms of state. That is the one European value that should be held as sacrosanct.
This is why Europe does not stretch from the Atlantic to the Urals. Countries only become European once they either join the European Union, or come under its imperial influence (e.g. Norway, Iceland and Switzerland). This is where you are correct to state that the American and European experiences are different. Americans ‘went out’ and colonised North America, whereas we transform our surrounding lands through the exercise of power, then incorporate those lands into our Union.
But without further ‘deepening’ to rebalance the system, this project must and will now slow down for a while.
In reply to some of the points which you have raised.
Ireland has had a continuous parliamentary tradition since the 1200s which mirrors the English experience so her institutions in the 1920s and 1930s were actually much stronger than you imply. Her civil service, courts, and army proved very stable. Ireland moved from an armed police to an unarmed police service directly after a divisive civil war. The attractions of fascism were very poorly received in the 1930s in Ireland. Only one group the 'blueshirts' gained publicity and a following its lack of popularity led it to become the founding party of Fine Gael (Avril Doyle's and Garret Fitzgerald's Party)
The EU as a geopolitical project may well have been the idea of the fonctionnaire Monnet. However in any alliance the goals are dynamic since the interests of the members constantly shift. So the original goal of Monnet no longer holds sway because it is redundant and fails to meet the needs and interests of the EU members. Ireland and the UK do not need a geopolitical vision of the EU. To be cold eyed again, the UK realises that the US not the EU has the power to effect change in the world and makes its policy accordingly. The net point though is that if the EU is to last the only goal is keeping everyone on board not imposing a centralist apparat. The slowest ship in the convoy dictates the pace to misquote Helmut Kohl. There is no end point to the process of negotiation.
If I can be permitted a speculation, since the UK has always held the balance of power in Europe why should it engage in a system which will leave it bereft of leverage if it creates a deepened union. You'll forgive me, I hope, if I suggest that the UK is engaged in preventing deepening in order to maintain its leverage.
On the point of nations, I believe that your analysis seriously underestimates the power of nationalism in the EU. Certain nationalisms, the French, Castillian, Portuguese, and English have persisted for centuries sustained by institutions which express them. Nations without states form a very significant problem for any EU project. the Basques are an obvious example.
Scottish nationalism will increase in power in the next five years if the Tories win the next UK election without a Scottish MP. Cameron will do the deal which gives the Scot Nats greater freedom to manage their own affairs and to reduce the powers of Scottish MPs at Westminster. This will also entail a serious look at offloading Northern Ireland onto Ireland. Discussions regarding the price the UK has to pay for this have been in progress for over a decade. This will create a new dynamic in the EU.
I make these points only to illustrate the point that nationalism MUST be accommodated if the EU is to survive. That means weak central institutions and minimal regualtion from the centre.
The point about regulations and the EU is not a cliche. The EU is busily trying to define time, working time as we converse. Did you know that there is now working time, rest time, on call active time, and on call inactive time. The European Working Time Directive is a simple illustration of the bizarre priorities of the EU. It regualtes minutely and takes its eye off the ball which is increasing productivity.
On the last point regarding your beliefs. Secularism is, in its way, a religion like all others. It does not provide a public forum for the free expression of belief (a fundamental freedom) but seeks to exlude all other beliefs from the forum. This is the reason for the failure of the French elite to engage with modern France as it really is multi-ethnic and religious.
Religion / belief is NOT a private matter. Secularists impose their beliefs in France on Muslims. Muslims, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and secularists conduct their public life under the dictates of their beliefs. This is an incontrovertable and immutable fact. Belief motivates action. Again the EU must accommodate this fact.
The problem of the secularist / Enlightenment view is that it seeks to accomplish the impossible to split a man in two, into a public man and a private man. This is bizarre. It ignores the fact that men act on their beliefs. The private man is the public man, though the private man may only express himself in the discretion of the ballot box.
The failure of the EU constitution to describe reality of belief and nationalism and the Lisbon Treaty's repetition of the process guaranteed its failure. The centralisation process is dead, it's just that no-one wants to record the death and take the blame.
Cold Eye: I think we’ve both made our feelings on the issues we’ve discussed evidently clear, so you’ll forgive me if this is last response I make here.
Your point about Irish institutions is heeded, but this was not the point I was driving at. Institutional coherence is a relative concept, as is power. On both fronts, I fear the Nazi state would have been in an altogether different league to little Ireland.
I agree in part with your point about the United Kingdom and European integration. Britain clearly has held back the project in many areas and at many times over the past fifty-odd years. In some instances, this was the right decision; it was right to hold back ESDP development in 2003, when the French, Belgians and Germans held the ‘chocolate summit’, which was self-evidently anti-American and would have caused more problems that it would have solved. But Britain has also been, at other points, a leading architect of the European enterprise—both in the areas of civil society and within government. It could be said that Winston Churchill was the first major public figure after World War Two to press the idea forward of a European federation, while many British elites have always seen it as a better alternative to Britain being the Americans’ sidekick (a feeling which grows all the time, especially in light of the Iraq war). And it was the British who were at the forefront of the Single European Act, as well as the Union’s expansion (which, for many Europeans, is tantamount to integration anyway).
I also understand the power of nationalism within the European Union. I do not disagree that this is a an influential force, which is unlikely to dissipate anytime soon. However, I do not believe it to be an insurmountable obstacle, which cannot be overcome. In many ways, I think the longer-term global geopolitical trajectory will help those supportive of the European cause. The rise of malign and potentially dangerous powers in Russia, China and elsewhere, will press Europeans together, just as the rise of France pressed the English and Scottish together—or indeed, the German states in the mid Victorian era. I think this quote by Nietzsche gets to the crux of what we’re dealing with here nicely:
My idea is that every specific body strives to become master over all space and to extend its force (—its will to power) and to thrust back all that resists its extension. But it continually encounters similar efforts on the part of other bodies and ends by coming to an arrangement (‘union’) with those of them that are sufficiently related to it: thus they then conspire together for power. And the process goes on.
Post a Comment