The dream of “ever closer union” involves the creation of Europeans. This was to be achieved practically through the building of common institutions: a common market, a common currency, a common set of rules for moving people and capital, a common Parliament, a common Court of Justice, a common external frontier. Beyond these useful inventions, at the heart of the dream, was the shedding of the “bad old nationalisms” that were blamed for the First and Second World Wars, in favor of a “higher” supra-nationalism. People would cease to consider themselves French or German or Belgian and think of themselves as Europeans first and foremost. The new Homo europea would still feel nostalgia for the old flag and country, rather like a Bavarian today might feel proud of Old King Ludwig when viewing the Neuschwanstein Castle. But for all other matters, they would carry a European passport, “European” would be the nationality listed in it, and if they chose to fly a flag at all – something the advanced European would instinctively shy away from – it would be the blue and gold of the Union, not their “provincial” flag.
The EU was established in 1993 and experienced a Golden Age of uninterrupted growth economically and territorially through accretion. During that period, the Union was extremely active in promoting the cultural formation of Europeans: between 2000 and 2007, the EU was spending an average of (nominally) €1.2 billion a year on “Training, youth, culture, audio-visual, media, information & social actions.” The flagship Erasmus Program, established in 1987, was meant to expose European students to a dynamic cross-section of their peers from across the continent as they pursued a degree in a European university; there is a large and active internship program in Brussels for young Europeans who wish to work in one of the many EU directories and institutions; and there are placement programs, vocational and language training and research funds available for Europeans who wish to live, work or study outside of their home regions.[...]
Subsequent events have only served to reinforce the verdict of the French and Dutch voters: most people are perfectly happy with the “bad old nationalisms”. They don’t want to be massaged or cajoled or bullied into becoming Homo europaea, the New European Man. When the chips are down and the financial crisis comes a-crunching, solidarity is revealed to have limits. Germans and Finns and Dutch will bail out the “profligate South” but only because they want to limit the contagion, but only with punishing strings attached. When the waves of immigrants arrive at the door step, a “borderless Europe” suddenly finds itself ringed by chain-link fences and razor wire. The newly powerful populist parties are exploiting precisely those cracks the European Union is dedicated to filling – the old fault lines of national pride and chauvinism. While most of these parties are not yet at the point of wanting to #MakeFranceGreatAgain (though some are) they are all talking about France or Germany or Italy First. [...]
That is the failure of Europe: the failure to progress beyond a club of member states. The solvent of “old nationalism” will continue to work upon the seams of the Union so long as it is merely a gentlemen’s club of member states. At some point, some crisis – populism, immigration, separatism, economic crisis, foreign war – will drive the final wedge that breaks those bonds. It has already happened in the United Kingdom. Union officials would be foolish to think that the forces of disunion are confined to that damp island. The same forces are at work throughout Eastern Europe, nations recently freed of Soviet domination and not keen on replacing it with a better disguised over-lordship from Brussels. The Czech Republic has a new Prime Minister who openly scorns the EU. Austria has just elected the most right-wing Parliament since it stopped being a Gau in Hitler’s Reich. Italian polls show growing support for the anti-EU 5-Star Movement even as voters in Lombardy and Veneto overwhelmingly voted in favor of greater autonomy in non-binding referendum. And even in Germany, where people should really know better the extreme right Alternativ für Deutschland won an astounding 15% of the popular vote, largely but not exclusively due to the eastern Länder.
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