EUROPE IN THE THIRD MILLENNIUM
Text: Sylvester Hoogmoed
During the 1950s European integration was often called European federalization. Three decades later Prime Minister Thatcher made federalism ("the f... word") a term of abuse, indicating the undermining of nation states. However, in discussions about European integration, the meaning of federalism remained as obscure as the exact borders of Europe. The Dutch man of letters Battus once proposed to end confusion about the many meanings of both "Europe" and "federation" by reserving the name Europe for the political structure of the European Union, whether or not "federal". However, because the European Union does not unite all Europeans, it would be more sensible to give the name "Europe" to the political structure of Europe as a whole: to the chaotic labyrinth of European unions, organizations, councils, agencies, governments and parliaments.
No European union
The European Union is an economic community which may one day become an economic union. The "founding fathers", for example Jean Monnet and Walter Hallstein, considered European economic integration to be the first step in the direction of a future "United States of Europe". Jean Monnet wrote: "Si nos institutions européennes sont actuellement limitées aux affaires économiques, elles représentent bien, cependant, le commencement des Etats-Unis d'Europe" (in: Duroselle, 1965, p.11). Walter Hallstein (1969,p.15) stated: "Der gemeinsame Markt ist nur einer von vielen Schritten zur endgültigen europäischen Gemeinschaft". Consequently Europe has been decorated with many a "national" attribute, like a flag (blue with twelve yellow stars) and a "national" anthem (last part of the ninth Symphony of Beethoven). But despite all efforts to give Europe - especially the European Union- the outward appearances of a nation state, a European national "soul" is lacking: Europe does not appeal to Europeans like their fatherland does, for example at the European football championships. The day the notorious -unreadable- Maastricht Treaty finally came into effect, and the European Community became the European Union, most European newspapers hardly took notice of it. Nobody, not even the French, dreamt about crowning president Delors Jacques I in the hall of mirrors of Versailles.
More fundamentally, there hardly is a "sense of common loyalty, of a shared 'we-feeling' sufficient to persuade groups and citizens to accept recurrent and structural sacrifices of their interests in the furtherance of the interests of others in the system as a whole" (W. Wallace, in: Wallace, Wallace, & Webb, 1983,p.420). It may be true that the process of integration is supported by a large majority of Europeans, but this support seems to be rather noncommittal and ill-considered (cf. Janssen, 1991). The poor turnout at the European elections reflects the fact that the EU is no political union, and least of all a democratic union. The revitalization of the process of European integration in the mid- 1980s was a revitalization of the process of economic integration. It will not make the European Union much more than an economic union. As long as Europe is not a "nation", the European Union will not become a "nation state".
There are three important arguments for integration: 1) integration lowers the risks of war; 2) removing national trade barriers results in economic growth; 3) in an era of free trade only political integration can save democracy. The second argument has been crucial for the development of what was once called the European Economic Community. In the first decades after World War II, the first argument was also very important and especially French fears of Germany still make it an important "raison d'être". The third argument, protecting democracy, has not been completely neglected by European officials: president Delors of the European Commission has repeatedly called for a "Social Europe"; with the "Single Act" (1986), social policies and environmental protection have become an official objective of the Twelve; protection against American "cultural imperialism" was one of the reasons why Europeans endlessly prolonged negotiations about the last GATT-agreement (1994). Nevertheless the protection of democracy in the EU has not been given much priority; from the beginning the advocates of European integration concentrated on the removal of trade barriers.
As a consequence the EU can hardly be considered a means for controlling traders -moving freely from country to country-, in order to make them subjects in an international democracy. Rather the reverse seems to be true: the Union is an instrument of European manufacturers. It were people like the Italian entrepreneur De Benedetti and the chairman of Philips (Dekker) who during the early 1980s, fearing Asian competition, called for a Single Market and by that stimulated a "revitalization" of the process of integration. According to them, all kinds of national legislation -hindering the manufacturers to move freely from market to market- had to disappear and in addition the infrastructure -vital for international trade- had to be improved. Consequently countries like Austria and Switzerland, aspiring membership of the EU, but fearing that the increasing number of cargo transportations would ruin the Alps, were pressured not to give environmental protection too much priority. Furthermore European social (and regional) policies did not get off the ground and the EU is often considered merely to be a "Fortress", protecting the Western European farmers. Thus the European Union is not "the political union of Europe", but an (important) economic community in Europe, which is expected to become an economic and monetary union at the turn of the century.
Further "deepening" of the EU, that is political unification, is hardly to be foreseen; environmental, social and foreign policies probably remain the primary responsibility of national governments. There may be convincing arguments for transferring more sovereignty from the national level to Brussels, but most people have an aversion to changing "a winning team", even if it outlived its usefulness. Democracy rose together with the nation states, thus democratic sovereignty is not entrusted to a European government and parliament, even if that would -in theory- be the most sensible thing to do. Likewise it would perhaps be sensible to make the Western European Union (WEU) instead of NATO the most important defence organization in Europe, because it could perhaps more easier than NATO, and without alarming the Russians, try to keep peace in Eastern Europe. However, NATO was successful in defending Western Europe during the Cold War, thus its members do not wish to risk undermining North-Atlantic unity by upgrading the WEU.
The EU may not become a "deeper" (political) Union in the foreseeable future, it will become a "wider" (more European) Union. Finland, Sweden and Austria will become a member in the mid-1990s, Norway, Switzerland, Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia may follow within the following decade. Will a widening of the EU in the end have consequences for possibilities to deepen it? The Scandinavian countries, having comparatively "leftist" voters, may be expected to call for more social and environmental European policies, but on the other hand the newcomers, like earlier the Britons and Danes, will join the EU at a time of structural economic problems (unemployment), and with reluctance. They are not expected to easily transfer sovereignty to Brussels and make the EU more supranational, especially if a majority of members within the Union does not share their "post-materialist" ideals. When Eastern Europeans join the EU, they may be expected, like the Mediterranean members, to give most priority to increasing of material wealth, despite major ecological and social problems; thus they will not call for more political unification. Apart from the motives of new members, widening of the EU will anyhow reduce the possibilities to deepen it. Without supranational reforms, there will be always at least one state among the growing number of members, which will block decision-making and stop further integration. "European Union" is in fact a contradiction in terms: if the EU is becoming more European, it has less chances to unify further.
In the coming decade only emergencies like leviathan unemployment, extremely confused and dissatisfied voters, environmental catastrophes or warfare in Europe will perhaps persuade Europeans of the need for further, deeper, integration. On the other hand, all of these emergencies have already occurred in the early 1990s -a rise in xenophobia, humiliating defeats for ruling parties, environmental pollution, a bloody war in Bosnia -, only to result in a new period of "Euro-pessimism".
Integration and disintegration
The European Union may not become one big "internation state", but the process of integration will nevertheless continue. With all the recent political squabbles about the Treaty of Maastricht and the GATT-agreement (Marrakesh, 1994), the immense measure of integration that national politicians have already agreed on during the post-war decades should not be forgotten. The EU and GATT are like ponderous monsters that move only very slowly, but can hardy be pushed back once they have taken a step. Thus alongside the EU -which for the sake of clarity should have named itself "Economic Union", or have maintained its old name: "European Economic Community"- all kinds of platforms for international politics will develop, like the United Nations, the World Trade Organization and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
The nation states will survive the second millennium, but lose much of their power. They will not only lose power to international organizations like the EU and the UN, in addition they will hand over more and more authority to political units of a smaller-scale, like provinces and municipalities. Repeatedly "Brussels" has already directly been in touch with (co-operating) regions and cities, bypassing the national authorities. Thus in defending their eroding powers, national governments increasingly will have to fight on two fronts. But as much as they sometimes fight Brussels in order not to lose too much power to the EU, regional and local emancipation is often warmly acclaimed by the central national authorities. Even in France, the outstanding example of a centrally ruled nation state, which after World War II had meant federalism to be a punishment for Germany, the regions have been gaining more importance in recent years.
There are practical reasons for decentralization. It is very important that neighbouring regions on each side of a national border can freely co-operate: it involves for example risking lives when ambulances cannot take their patients to the nearest hospital because it happens to be on the other side of the border (Figée, 1992). In addition, cumbersome central administrations believe economic advantages are to be expected if regional authorities are able to act and collaborate more freely. Decentralization fits with the spirit of the age: "Big Government" is out! Undoubtly there can be major democratic advantages in bringing power closer to the people. Society has become far too complex for national administrations to rule in detail. Besides, all kinds of counties and cities are often much older than the nation states; it is only natural that they profit from the decline of nationalism.
The opposite forces of integration and disintegration have one thing in common: both undermine the authority of nation states. In tomorrow's Europe there will be multiple centres of power; the EU, the WEU, the Council of Europe, NATO: all of them will integrate many Europeans, but only on some issues, and only in separating them from others. Meanwhile all kinds of regions, provinces, cities, transnational companies and individuals will be free to complicate the political schemes even more. Decisions on issues concerning macro-economics and international politics will increasingly be made at the international level, and decisions on specific "micro-problems" at the local level. The result will be an ever more complex labyrinth of political organizations, commissions, parliaments and agencies, some with authority, some without.
Should we fear the resulting international chaos? There is a danger that chaos may lead to war. European warfare during the surveyable period of "Cold War" seemed finally to have be-come ancient history, but it may surface once again. However, the conjoint result of integration and disintegration, will be that national rulers lose much of their authority. Organizations like NATO, the WEU and the OSCE may be expected to prevent former belligerents from making war and blowing up local conflicts out of all proportions. Furthermore an advantage of the international chaotic "labyrinth" is that it will keep the world from being split up into European, American, Southeast Asian and Arab blocs ("internation states"). Instead, there will be a multitude of international organizations, states and other political units, with all kinds of cross-bracings and overlaps. This will perhaps increase the risk of local conflicts, but there will be no major (nuclear) collisions between homogeneous blocs. American, European and Asian manufacturers will keep fighting each other, but it will not be fights between nations or all-embracing ideologies.
Instead of some beautiful marbles -which "realist" politicians and political scientists love to play with, but which can easily collide with each other and go astray-, Europe, indeed the world, will be more like one ugly-looking mass of half-melted marbles: NATO, for example, links America and Europe, NAFTA and the EU. The ANZUS-treaty, the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), the Rio Pact, and the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) link the United States with, respectively, the South Pacific (Australia and New Zealand), Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. The OECD is another important organization preventing the rich countries and continents from falling apart. Furthermore, "l'Afrique française", through its former homeland France still has some links with Western Europe and the EU. NAFTA will perhaps someday become an American kind of EU, embracing all countries from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. Today many states in the (former) Second and Third "Worlds" are still isolated on the outside of the "Western" alliances, among which huge, multinational states like Russia and China, but with the fall of communism an important barrier to integration has been removed. Russia, for example, aims for membership of the G7, the group of seven industrial world powers.
Some Europeans advocating further integration are merely horrified by the idea of a chaotic world. Many others, however, are driven by fears of a less abstract kind: fear of orthodox Muslims; fear of an invasion of hungry Africans; fear of the cheap products of Asian workers; fear of the movies from Hollywood. They want to join forces and build a "fortress", in order to cordon off "the Old World". The result of a narrow-minded attitude like that will just probably be that their fears will come true. Suffering unpleasant treatment from suspicious Europeans, foreigners will feel resentment, resulting in hostility and perhaps aggression. Furthermore protection may be addictive, because its lulls workers and entrepreneurs to sleep. Moreover, the traditional political diversity must be overcome, before an effective "fortress" can be built; this will probably be impossible.
Failing efforts to unite Europe will put diversity in a bad light, whereas it could also be a reason for self-confidence. People may say: "united we stand, divided we fall", but through the ages political liberalism, causing political variety, has been the main characteristic of (Western) Europe, and perhaps also its strength. "Was uns bedroht ist die Zwangseinheit, die Homogenisierung; was uns rettet ist unsere Vielvalt", according to the Swiss historian Burckhardt (Enzesberger, 1989,p.482). Politicians in the fragmented "Old World" are used to play the game of bargaining and compromising, which will facilitate them to dominate the egocentric rulers of huge (former) dictatorships in tomorrows ever more complex and interdependent world. Furthermore European manufacturers are used to produce for more than one "home market" and take into consideration the differences between nations and the preferences of their inhabitants. This will be an advantage in a world of ever more post-materialist consumers, requiring production on demand.
Chaos and democracy
For better or worse, Europe, together with the rest of the world, will become a chaotic international political labyrinth. What will be the consequences for democracy? Democracy rose together with nationalism during the 19th century, will now the reverse come true? Of old an anarchic, chaotic state of nature has been the ultimate nightmare of many a (political) philosopher. Thomas Hobbes became famous in describing the horrors in a world without rulers; Charles Darwin evoked the image of selfish individuals being after each other's blood in a struggle for life, resulting in the survival of the fittest. In a democracy the fittest are forced to show some solidarity with the underdogs. Political chaos in the third millennium threatens the less talented human beings like it did in the old days.
The average European voter in the 1990s only has to follow a couple of leading national politicians in order to feel informed and be able to vote. In the future, there will be more and more leading politicians: at the local, regional, and international level. None of them will have the power that national politicians used to have, or pretended to have. In addition. people will become a bit "schizophrenic" (Minc, 1992,p.107) being, say, economically Europeans (EU), militarily Atlantic- (NATO), or even world-citizens (the UN-forces), politically and legally Europeans as well as habitants of a nation state, region and municipality. For modern Europeans key identities will vary, "binding and separating them, sometimes issue by issue" (Ferguson & Mansbach, 1991,p.381). As a consequence many voters, having become hopelessly confused, may turn their back on politics altogether. Then, they presumably will also turn their back on society as a whole, feeling no longer involved. Thus economic and (partial) political integration may be the cause for social disintegration and a loss of solidarity.
Many others will not turn their back on society in a complex, chaotic world, but in the first place look for security. These people will make frenetic efforts to save national sovereignty. The consequence, however, will be a loss of democracy. The national sovereigns can survive, but will have hardly more power than the grand duke of Luxembourg. Apart from the maintenance of (political) order -a vital framework for free trade-, most responsibilities of the current intervening nation states will simply be given up; nationalist voters and politicians will -whether or not knowingly- allow for the undermining of national democracies. They cannot resist the free traders, who, in exchange for the wealth they bring, call for economic freedom. All the more since distrust about powerful "busybody" states has been rising during the 1980s, especially after the fall of communism had been cheered as a victory of orthodox capitalism. During the 1990s even socialists -who traditionally advocated a more directive, interventionist government- are either defending policies to roll back the state and restore competitive individualism, or lost power; or both. Since the -creeping- undermining of national sovereignty by free trade coincides with increasing distrust about powerful administrations, remedying political integration will probably hardly get off the ground. The consequence will be a corrosion of (parliamentary) democracy.
The poor and powerless, including -because of environmental pollution- future generations, will be the biggest losers. They will not have intellectual allies like the Marxists (fellow travellers) a century ago. History has made intellectuals rather cynical about ideals. Furthermore, the remedy against losing democracy is not as adventurous as a "revolution" was once hoped to be. It has to do with complex processes of political integration, preventing international money-makers from gaining too much power by way of free trade. But many fear the prospect of boundless international free trade in a world where democratic traditions have become a kind of "private folklore", just like nation states, guilds and religion. Apart from -on the one hand- "nationalists", having the illusion they can turn away from the chaotic outside world, and -on the other hand- orthodox free traders, believing everything that opens up markets is good, there are lots of people with more moderate views. Perhaps pragmatic politicians can, despite chaotic complexity, keep a balance between nationalism and integration. Joining forces with their foreign colleagues they can, for example in the World Trade Organization, control international free trade.
There are also some good sides to the growth of international chaotic complexity. If Europeans do not get confused, it may even strengthen democracy. National politicians in pretending to possess enormous powers, suggest the existence of a one dimensional society that does not correspond with labyrinthine reality. Instead perhaps a complex reality needs a complex political system. It is like Enea Silvio Piccolomini -before he became pope Pius II- once (1448) wrote: "Chaque cité a son roi, chaque maison a son prince" (De Rougemont, 1961,p.73). It can be argued that it is very sound for a democracy if there are "adequate secondary organizations to cushion the mutual impact of elite and mass" (cf. Smith, 1972, p.4-5). If there are many sources of policy and also many possibilities for political participation, people can become at the same time responsible and free, engaged and autonomous (Brugmans, 1965,p.62). It will be very inspiring for creative individuals, who know their way in the labyrinth and no longer have to fear meddlesome, inflexible national administrators. They can play off local, national, and international politicians against each other and more easily become important political actors themselves. Without overstating an artificial national identity, people will be free, individually or in small communities, to bear more responsibilities, controlling micro-politics at the micro level, meso-politics at the meso level, and macro-politics at the macro-level.
There is one major condition which must be fulfilled before democracy can survive (and even flourish) in a chaotic Europe: people should not become confused. They should know their way about in the labyrinth of organizations, commissions, parliaments, councils, agencies and interest groups. By being a guide for this labyrinth, many a political scientist will be able to earn a living in the 21st century.
© Sylvester Hoogmoed, 1995
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