DOES EUROPE HAVE A FUTURE?

De ESVisie is een uitgave van de

Economische Studenten
Vereniging te Nijmegen, 2005-6
Frits Bolkestein, in his recent Leiden
inaugural lecture, argues - I think cor-
rectly - that the European Community,
now the European Union, had three
original goals: to head off another war
between Germany and France; to
repair the material damage caused by
the Second World War; and to keep
the Soviets out of Western Europe.
Since these three goals have been ful-
filled, the question can be asked: what
point does the European Union now
have? Shouldn't it be wound up and
closed down?
Of course, any bureaucracy has its
own, internal goals - and first of all, to
preserve its own existence. So we
should expect 'Brussels' violently to
resist any such proposal.
But perhaps the EU has some other
raison d'être? The most obvious sug-
gestion in this connexion would be, in
the simplest terms: to help business,
especially big business, by facilitating
economies of scale in production and
distribution.
This is true in general terms. But it's
not a broad enough picture.
The logic of the post-war European
state of affairs was set out early, in
1945, by the French philosopher-diplo-
matist Alexandre Kojève. In his
'Outline of a Doctrine of French Policy',
written a few weeks after the end of the
war, he argues that the age of the
nation states has passed. Indeed, it
was Hitler's blindness in pursuing an
already obsolescent national, pan-
German policy for the conquest of
Europe that guaranteed his defeat.
This last and tragic attempt by one
nation to dominate Europe signalled,
Kojève argues, the final act of the 500-
year-long tragedy of the nation-states.
The new age is however by no means
one of a coming world government. It
is an age of Empires. The Nazis were
defeated by a temporary alliance of the
Anglo-Saxon and Soviet Empires,
which of course soon split into rival
camps during the Cold War period.
Kojève proposed in 1945 the establish-
ment of a European Empire - in which
he hoped that France would play a lea-
ding role.
Now, 60 years later, and after the
disappearance of the Soviet bloc, we
can ask whether that European Empire
has come into existence. We might be
tempted to conclude that it has, and in
the form of the European Union.
But this conclusion would be prematu-
re. For the European Union does not,
in some crucial respects, behave like
an Empire. It has swallowed up 25
nations and is set for further expan-
sion. It is economically strong - if not
as strong as it would like to be. But it
is, in global terms, politically and milita-
rily weak, much weaker than might
have been expected.
One hypothesis regarding the causes
of this weakness is that the EU has
adopted a liberal definition of its own
status and responsibilities. For whate-
ver reasons, it never fully accepted the
status of State or super-State. Kojève
writes: 'The essentially political - that
is, in the final analysis bellicose - enti-
ty, which the State in the strict sense is,
should [according the liberals] be
replaced by a simple economic and
social as well as police administration,
at the disposal and at the service of
"society", itself conceived of as an
aggregate of individuals. The individu-
al was supposed to embody and reve-
al, in his own isolation, the supreme
human value. Thus conceived, the
"statist" liberal administration had to be
fundamentally peaceful and pacifist.
Put differently, it did not have, strictly
speaking, any "will to power", and con-
sequently had no effective need, nor
adequate desire, for the "independen-
ce" or political autonomy which cha-
racterizes the very essence of the true
State.'
One need only read the White Paper
on European Governance, inspired by
former
Commission
President
Romano Prodi, to understand that this
is en gros the direction which the
European Union has chosen - though
with some dissenting voices - to take.
In a recent publication I tried to sum up
the situation in a few words: The EU
provides the European population with
a system of justice and it polices that
system; it is oriented to the satisfaction
of economic needs. In short: it is not a
super-State, certainly not an Empire,
but rather - prosaically - a 'manage-
ment system' for civil society.
It is just this prosaic character of the
Union that is problematic. For it has
ceased to be any kind of effective
ideal. There are of course still a few
members of various 'European move-
ments', but their numbers and levels of
devotion are low - lower, perhaps, than
the movement for the re-establishment
of the Albanian monarchy.
There are of course attempts to make
reference, in order to invent some kind
of edifying foundation for what is called
'European identity', to a 'shared history
of European culture' and the like. But
these attempts are either far too hesi-
tant and modest to do the job required,
or unconvincing in their grandiloquen-
ce. Thus, for instance, Vaclav Havel
writes: 'Where we should look for what
unites us [is] in an awareness of the
transcendental', in the 'conviction that
a higher, mysterious order of the world'
exists, and so on. That sort of talk
won't convince the average supermar-
ket manager that he owes some parti-
cular kind of loyalty to the European
cause, beyond a calculation of perso-
nal advantage.
In the ideological vacuum thus crea-
ted, a peculiar renewal of 'nationalist
feeling' has surfaced, including in the
Netherlands. Politically, this sentiment
- which underlies not only the rise of a
new racism but also many gimmicky
government policies, like the promo-
tion and testing among immigrants of a
knowledge of and loyalty to so-called
'Dutch national norms and values' - is
of a breathtaking anachronism and
irrelevance. Karl Marx wrote: historical
events occur twice: the first time as tra-
gedy, the second time as farce. I fear
that this latter-day national farce is
itself a little tragedy.
In any case, the consequence of all
this is that Europe now stands in an
exposed position. It is 'there' - it 'exists'
- and we all take account of its existen-
ce, as we take account of the weather.
But it is buffeted by events outside of
its control. Thus it was possible for the
Washington Post columnist Charles
Krauthammer to note: 'America won
the Cold War, pocketed Poland and
Hungary and the Czech Republic as
door prizes, then proceeded to pulver-
ize Serbia and Afghanistan and, en
passant, highlight Europe's irrelevance
with a display of vast military superiori-
ty. We [the Americans] dominate every
field of human endeavour from fashion
to film to finance. We rule the world
culturally, economically, diplomatically
and militarily as no one has since the
Roman Empire.'
That's what you call an Empire! Not a
pretty thing, but a powerful reality. And
it's not obvious that Europe will ever be
in a position to compete. Whether it
would make sense to try is another
question.
prof. dr. Grahame Lock
10
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