
A long way gone. Wikimedia Commons/Wojskowa Agencja Fotograficzna. Public domain.
Explaining the Nobel Committee’s decision to grant the Peace Price to the EU, its Chairman Thorbjoern Jagland argued that European unification has transformed Europe “from a continent of wars to a continent of peace”. It has been objected that the prize for this shouldn’t go to the EU but to NATO. There is some truth to this claim. During the Cold War, NATO has indeed protected western Europe from falling into the Soviet sphere of influence, and it has replaced a fragile balance between roughly equal European powers with a largely benevolent hegemony. And Washington has encouraged the project of European unification from its very inception.
But under the
umbrella of NATO’s “outer peace”, European leaders have built something larger
and deeper - a structure that promotes “inner peace” in Europe: the EU and its
predecessors. European unification has
created a partly integrated European society. Together NATO and EU have
achieved something that failed between World War I and II: turning Europe into
a safe homeland for a market economy and liberal democracy, a bastion of freedom,
security, and prosperity.
The EU and its predecessors can claim four major
geopolitical achievements: transforming centuries-old Franco-German
hostility into friendship; stabilizing democracy in Greece, Portugal, and Spain
after their transition away from autocracy; easing the process of German
unification and making the country’s unification palatable to its neighbours;
guiding the transition to democracy of central and eastern Europe following the
demise of the Soviet Union.
Today the EU is weaving a dense net of
relationships and interactions across borders. Governments communicate every day
and on every level. Officials are used to cooperating and coordinating with
Brussels and other member states. Companies operate in a giant single market.
People travel and relocate with unprecedented ease. A cosmopolitan elite deeply
attached to the EU has emerged. Borders are not barriers anymore. The daily
experience of being embedded in a larger pan-European context makes war look
like a strange, incomprehensible evil belonging to a distant past. A dream has
come true.
But these fundamental achievements are at risk
today. The euro crisis has made the EU look clumsy and inefficient.
Euroskepticism has become fashionable. In the UK it is even mainstream now.
The biggest threat is disintegration.
A Greek exit has been prevented - governments have looked into the abyss and
decided that Greece must stay, whatever the costs. But now Britain is
considering leaving, and a majority of Brits actually want the UK out. Britain
has always been a reluctant participant in what it has seen as a mainly
continental project, built around French-German reconciliation. The eurozone
troubles have led many in the UK to conclude that the whole enterprise is
doomed.
A British exit could be the first step towards
the unravelling of the EU. It might lead to a chain reaction. Other countries
that feel close to Britain, in northern and eastern Europe could also
reconsider their relations with the EU. The EU would lose its attraction and
relevance. An EU reduced to a frustrated, weakening France and a needy South
with Germany as the unwilling paymaster would not hold together for long.
Moreover, Britain’s active participation in the
EU is essential, as it belongs in the centre of decision-making. London must be
the tireless advocate of liberalism and build a counterweight to French and
German statist and bureaucratic instincts. The EU relies on a specific cocktail
of political ideas, traditions, and cultures; Britain represents an essential
part of the mix. And without the UK, the EU could give up on the hope of becoming a global player. Britain has assets, experience, and know-how that are vital to
a serious foreign and security policy. And only if Paris and London team up,
can they move an inward-looking, reluctant, strongly pacifist Germany toward a
more activist foreign policy approach.
In order to keep the UK in, EU leaders should
stop talking the federalist talk. Whenever German chancellor Angela Merkel
speaks about “more Europe” and “political union”, a British audience hears
“superstate” and feels a strong inclination to hurry to the exit. And there is
no need to scare the Brits off. In reality, not even the Germans want to take a
“great leap” towards a federal state. Merkel has always been a proponent of De
Gaulle’s “Europe of the fatherlands” and she regularly sidelines Brussels. And
it is Berlin that is now delaying and watering down the “banking union”.
Germany has no roadmap towards a federal Europe.
Merkel is using the federalist rhetoric as a tactic. The “more Europe” buzz
phrase is directed towards several audiences. It is meant to regain the trust
of investors and partners around the world: trust us, we’re going to bring our
house in order, you can buy European bonds and count on us. Secondly,
euro-federalism has been an essential part of Germany’s political culture since
its first post-war chancellor, Konrad Adenauer. Embedding Germany in Europe was
always a way to recover from the Nazi past and make sure that history wouldn’t
repeat itself; “more Europe” simply sounds reassuring to German ears. And
thirdly, in today’s political debate in Germany, “more Europe” is often
translated into “more control for Germany over debtor countries”. Which is of
course an illusion. In a federalist eurozone of 332 million people, 82 million
Germans would be easily outvoted. Berlin’s power in the EU today is not only
based on the fact that it is an economic powerhouse, but also on the fact that
it is a sovereign nation state. A federalist eurozone would probably have
introduced Eurobonds long ago - something that Germany strongly opposes.
After over twenty crisis summits, it is now
clear that the European house is not going to be fundamentally rebuilt - the EU
will not turn into a state. The limits of integration have been reached, more
or less. Peer pressure and the threat of withholding funds remain the only
serious tools EU governments are going to have to enforce discipline and
encourage reform. In key areas the powerful member states will always be able
to cast a veto, formally or if necessary informally. Brussels will never be
empowered by member states to exert central control. And Berlin cannot, even by
default, play the role of an imperial centre. Germans don’t want it. And should
they try to obtain it there would be a massive backlash. Smaller neighbours
would immediately build coalitions against Germany and isolate Berlin.
That leaves only one way ahead: improving the
efficiency of the current framework. This means better cooperation and
coordination among largely sovereign states. And leaders should focus less on
institutions and more on growth, by removing obstacles to the single market, by
pushing for trade deals, with Asia, the United States and others, and by
investing in cross-border infrastructure.
Politically the EU has always been something
unique, sui generis. Now leaders must show creativity again by proving that
conventional wisdom about currency unions is wrong - that the Euro can be
efficiently managed by a union of sovereign states.
And it’s time to say good bye to federalism.
The historic drivers of EU integration have
always been federalists. In other words, people who believed that they were
building a European state - with a capital, a government, a parliament, a
constitution. This vision has rarely been spelled out, but it has been implicit
in many of the past “projects”. Many think that Helmut Kohl, the chancellor who
oversaw German unification in 1990, has deliberately put an imperfect currency
union on track in order to force the EU to become, over time, a federal union.
And many of the remaining federalists, such as German finance minister Wolfgang
Schäuble who worked closely with Kohl on German unification, appear to be
driven by the idea that the euro crisis represents the historical moment in
which a major step towards this vision could - and should - be taken.
But the past years have made it plain that member
states do not really want to abdicate. Anti-EU sentiment has grown in many
member states. The more “EU” equals “crisis”, the more people are becoming
tired and skeptical. New political movements are gaining traction by including
euro-skepticism in their portfolio. There is no pro-EU movement at the
grass-roots, no large demonstrations.
The danger today is that Europeans turn their
backs on an EU that is the mainstay of Europe’s geopolitical order because they
are fed up with the difficulties of managing a common currency. People often take freedom, stability and prosperity
for granted. That may be a mistake. Without decades of European integration and
unification, Europe would probably look very different today. It might look
like the Asia Pacific region, where war between great powers has become
possible again, where nationalist rage over territorial disputes limits
governments’ scope for compromise, and where an arms race is underway. The Asia
Pacific is in dire need of something that the EU still has in abundance: trust
and confidence among states, nurtured by common undertakings and institutions.
The biggest political challenge for European
leaders today is therefore to keep the union intact. This includes a new deal
with Britain, conceived as a forward-looking strategic engagement, not as a
first step towards an exit. Secondly,
they must do more so that Europeans can, in a changing world, live in peace and
prosperity. The US is losing its dominance and its will to police the world is
weakening: it needs partners. Europe must urgently step up its game. To become
a relevant partner, the EU must become a coherent and efficient player. Foreign
policy starts at home; and the world is not waiting.
Changing the focus of the Euro-debate from the
economical to the political would also help to restore the EU’s image in the
eyes of the citizens. If Brussels becomes the place where European leaders meet
to devise strategies to secure Europe’s place in the world and to project
interests and values, if the instruments put in place by the Lisbon treaties
become infused with life, namely the EU’s diplomatic service, the EU’s image
would fundamentally change.
In the 1950s, some European leaders worked hard
to create what for many appeared impossible, a union made of states that were enemies
for centuries. After the end of the Cold War, another generation of European
politicians has deepened and enlarged the union, again against considerable
opposition and skepticism. Today’s generation of leaders is facing a similar
challenge. If they manage to do both, keeping the EU intact and turning it into
a global player, they will have deserved the Nobel Peace Prize not only once, but at least twice.
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