Is a new Europe possible?

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John Palmer on We the Peoples of Europe by Susan George.

This book makes a powerful call for a more just and democratic Europe but ignores the gains made from recent reforms.

Susan George, who is chair of the board of the Transnational Institute, has won a reputation for the inspirational character of her research and writing on globalisation and development. She makes no apology for being an activist and a politically engaged academic whose work on the rapidly evolving and ever more complex processes of globalisation have always put people - especially poor, exploited and oppressed people - at the heart of her concerns. Unlike some anti-globalisers she has always resisted the temptation to say "Stop the World - I want to get off." Rather she has argued for "another globalisation" based on the promised political emergence of a trans-national civil society.

When it comes to the European Union - and this little book in particular - those inspirational qualities have to be set against a profoundly frustrating tendency to reject an achievable "better" for a currently unachievable "best." Much of her analysis of the evolution of the EU in the past 15 years - perhaps since the years when Jacques Delors as President of the Commission put "social Europe" at the heart of the project - is broadly correct. There has too frequently been an uncritical acceptance of the case for "neo-liberal" economic policies. Commitment to social justice has not been given the priority it deserves. Too often EU governments (and we can all point to which ones in particular) have been too quick to accept the "leadership" of the post-Cold War American foreign and security policy juggernaut.

It should not be thought that Susan George's critique of the EU - and the Lisbon Treaty in particular - has anything in common with the Greek chorus of nationalists, right wing populists, isolationists and others constantly denouncing "Europe" as a threat to the sacred character of "British independence." Nor do her arguments share much with those on the British left who often mimic Tory and UKIP hostility to "EU supra-nationalism". She is an unashamed supporter of giving the European Union far greater powers in areas where the Union ability act at present (taxation, economic redistribution, social legislation) is weak or non-existent. She comes close to saying (but never quite does) that the right has all the Europe it needs but the left needs much more.

Susan George shares some of the campaigning objective of pro-Lisbon Treaty French social democrats such as Dominique Strauss-Kahn while finally aligning herself with the fiercest opponents of the treaty on the French left - those around the Attac movement and its allies. Her demands for transformative democratic change in EU decision making are ones that others have made for many years. But she is blind to the limited but important steps in that direction that are now part of the Lisbon Treaty. For example she wants to see an elected President of Europe. So do many of us. But we will build on the opening created by the Lisbon Treaty for the election next year of the next President of the Commission when parties go to the polls in the European Parliament election.

Susan George also - helpfully - advances many of her demands for "another Europe." Some of them are, however, already (to use the French) acquis. She demands that economic policy should be subordinate to the imperatives of climate change and sustainability. That is now accepted in principle although the real battles will be to have this implemented in detail and consistently. She wants to remedy the "democratic deficit" at the EU level. But the Lisbon Treaty expands the powers of the elected European Parliament, gives an enhanced role to national Parliaments, gives judiciable status to the Charter of Citizens Fundamental Rights, and makes possible legislative initiatives by civil society. None of this is enough. But it is a significant step forward.

The case for rejecting the better in favour of an ultimate best (a bit like the sectarian revolutionaries' rejection of reforms) would be stronger if there was a more credible alternative way forward. But as Susan honestly admits the track record of the "bottom up" initiatives in the Social Forum movements leave much to be desired. The victory of the "no" campaign (as she acknowledges) led to a strengthening of the right not the left in France (as it also did in the Netherlands). She rightly deplores the fission prone nature of the far left and does not disguise that much of the original impetus in the global "Social Forums" has dissipated.

There is a bitter irony in all of this. For years past civil society and radical activists (of the left and beyond the left) railed against the unctuously self regarding neo-liberal consensus. But the profound global financial crisis which threatens the ideological hegemony of the unthinking market zealots is opening the way to a new global politics of regulation and accountability. Meanwhile the ignominious exit of the Bush Administration and its neo-con jihadis is triggering new horizons for European foreign, security and defence policy within a global multi-lateral order.

We will have need for those like Susan George who want to get engaged with concrete detail for transforming the present global order. She does not disguise her European idealism (indeed it is a little over stated). It is time for Susan and those like her to link up with the humble foot soldiers of practical reforms at the EU level. But for that we need a European Union which adopts everything that the Lisbon Treaty offers in the way of greater effectiveness and democracy - and a great deal more besides.

(Susan George, Pluto Press, March 2008, 224pp)

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