The Altiero Spinelli Building, European Parliament, Brussels, Belgium. Sojka Libor/Press Association. All rights reserved.With Europe’s current order in the spectacular débâcle that it is, a return to basics is in order to rethink the supranational construct, and the underlying idée européenne, from the ground up. For this, consideration must be given to the antecedents of the current European Project, particularly in Europe’s intellectual history, as well as some of the earlier suggestions for a political and, it is assumed, democratic, Europe. Furthermore, the concepts which make up the European idea need to be redefined and reconsidered. What I aim to argue is that Europe does not need a revolution, in the sense of the complete replacement of the very foundations of the European idea, but a reformation [1]. We are not here to destroy Europe, but to reaffirm our belief in it, through challenging the core articles of faith, dismantling the redundant pillars of the construct, and regenerating them into something new. For a truly transnational Europe, there must be a Second Reformation; a real constitution lies at the heart of this. Here is my contribution to DiEM25's Constitutional pillar.
Back to basics: preliminary considerations & suggestions
At its core, the European idea in itself is revolutionary; a revolution against the nation-state and the European state-system, which has characterised the continent since the fall of the Pax Romana. It is the idea that our vision, our terms of reference and our assumptions should not be limited to any national or ethnic boundaries, but should cross them. For much of its history Europe poorly fitted what today is our understanding of the international system; Spanish kings elected as Holy Roman emperors, Dutch Stadtholders being gifted the English throne, royal unions between Saxony, Poland and Lithuania. There have always been many cultures and ethnicities in Europe, but not until the eighteenth century at earliest can we say they matched at all closely the alignment of the European state-system. Even Rome itself, in its republican days, though a single imperium, had a level of cultural variation and diversity that we would recognise in Europe today, both because Rome lacked the administrative capacity and the interest to attempt full-scale homogenisation[2].
The nation-states have changed this, so that within each state, cultural and ethnic homogeneity has come to be expected; the international reigns, where within borders, life is integrated, and between them, there is a void in which negotiation is conducted and relations established. But nothing goes across those borders, considered as high walls separating the isolated national communities. One might think that the existence of the international community repudiates some of these assumptions within nationalism; however, internationalism still rests on the idea of inter, that we are all in our separate national communities, and sometimes agree to cooperate, or discuss things with one another at high-minded summits and conferences. We might visit each other, but being truly integrated at the social level is beyond the conceptual ability of this understanding of the world. The international reigns, where within borders, life is integrated, and between them, there is a void in which negotiation is conducted and relations established. But nothing goes across those borders...
