“History does not teach fatalism. There are moments when a handful
of free men break through determinism and opens up new roads”.
Charles de Gaulle
A Gaullist
European Union?
Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
5 June. Tomorrow is the anniversary of
D-Day. It is time for Europeans to
save ‘Europe’...from themselves. Specifically,
it is time to abandon the idea of a federal Europe once and for all and return
to de Gaulle’s realist idea of a true European union of nations in which
Brussels is once again reduced to where it should always have remained: servant
not master. Europe will only survive if
it is reformed and brought back closer to the people and that can only happen if
the EU becomes a true union of states.
Charles de
Gaulle was a great man, and although not always a friend of Britain he remains
a hero of mine. He led his country at a
moment of abject weakness in the wake of France’s defeat in 1940 and with iron
will defended both its honour and its interests. Oh, for a British de Gaulle now! Brexit is turning out to be the disaster I
feared with Theresa May simply the wrong person in the wrong position at the
wrong time. Her lack of leadership has
set Britain adrift whilst much of the government machine charged with
negotiating Britain’s orderly departure from the EU is completely unsympathetic
to the very idea of Brexit. Add to that
a Parliament determined to gut Brexit and my once great country – a top five
world economic and military power - is heading into a self-imposed form of
servitude. The darkest hour?
What Brexit
Really Reveals
My on-balance
rejection of Brexit back in 2016 was for geopolitical reasons and out of
solidarity with friends in Eastern Europe. However, I also foresaw this mess precisely
because the British Establishment long ago abandoned all notions of power and
influence (see my book Little Britain)
that de Gaulle and, of course, Churchill understood. If it were not for the fact that Britain’s
revoking of Article 50 would only encourage an arrogant and increasingly
autocratic and technocratic European Commission to seek more power, and the consequent
further hollowing-out of democracy in Europe it it leading, I could envisage
the abandoning of Brexit in spite of the political crisis it would cause in the
UK. What is now clear is that THIS
Brexit will not be in the national interest.
For all that,
Brexit is also a symptom of a much deeper malaise that stretches across Europe.
It is a malaise that results in a ‘Europe’ today far less than the sum of its
parts. It is also a malaise caused primarily by a battle between ‘unionists’,
such as me who believe in the EU as super-alliance, and power-centralising Brussels
federalists. The extent of this malaise was evident last week when Commission
President Jean-Claude Juncker and Commissioner Guenther Oettinger told
Italians-in-crisis to work harder. So
much for solidarity. What should be a set
of European issues – the failure of the Euro and effective management of migration
- was again dumped on a single member-state proving once again that
‘solidarity’ is the most over-worked word in the Brussels Lexicon.
Union or
Federation?
Any analysis
of the EU’s current state demonstrates the over-arching contradiction at its
elite core: for THIS EU and its institutions to work ‘Europe’ needs more and
deeper state-shrivelling political integration. However, most Europeans refuse
to accept the shrivelling of their respective states because it is the state, not Brussels, to which most Europeans remain
loyal.
Here in
Germany that contradiction is particularly and peculiarly apparent. There is
much nonsense talked about Europe as a German Empire implying Berlin’s power is
cast in the image of Wilhelm or Adolf. Yes,
Berlin can be frustrating and at times seem to want the benefits of leadership without
the cost. In reality Germany is strong enough to be called upon to lead, but insufficiently
strong to lead without help. Chancellor
Merkel seems to have finally understood this even if her own political capital
is declining fast. In a weekend interview in Der Spiegel she seemed to accept President Macron’s case for more ‘Europe’
but only via deeper co-operation between states, i.e. a Europe of nations. Whilst she countenanced the idea of temporary loans
to assist EU countries in financial distress she quite clearly ruled debt
mutualisation or the financial federalisation which would transform the Euro
into a wealth transfer-mechanism from north to south. Even President Macron’s
ideas for a new European military intervention force seemed to de-federalise EU
defence even as he presented the plan as ‘more Europe’. For France keeping Britain somewhere between EU
member and third country is clearly vital, especially for defence co-operation.
Second country?
The Trump
Factor
Cue the Trump
factor. The Sunday Times this week,
as part of a series of interviews with respected German commentators, stated,
“…for years Germany lived under the cosy assumption that America would
underwrite its defence while running up a trade deficit buying its cars”. In other words, Germany and other Europeans
have for too long assumed that America would pay for the defence of Europe
whilst Europeans argued endlessly over the shape of Europe. With the world now pressing in on Europe, and America hard-pressed the world
over, the need for Europeans to get serious about their place in the world is
fast becoming more important than the place of Europeans in ‘Europe’. As de
Gaulle once said, “It will not be any European statesman who will unite Europe:
Europe will be united by the Chinese”.
Maybe, just maybe, Europeans will be forced into some form of meaningful
unity by an America that forces Europeans to finally wake up to America’s
twenty-first century reality.
Testing Times
How does
Europe get out of this mess? Brexit is again illuminating. The same pressures
that led to Brexit are apparent in Poland, Spain and whole host of EU
countries, as is the hard-line taken against the British by a European
Commission worried about the fate of Project Europe and interpreting to the
limit both its mandate and the treaties, even if that sows mistrust amongst
numbers of European citizens about distant, unaccountable power and the point
of voting if Brussels effectively orders member-states to scrap outcomes it finds
inconvenient. The Brussels federalists are deeply worried that Brexit marks not
simply the quasi-departure of a turbulent anti-federalist ‘pest’, but rather the
beginning of the real struggle between unionists and federalists. When placed in that context the true reason
for the struggle over Brexit becomes apparent.
Which brings
me to the central contention of this piece.
Like some enormous ice-berg that is breaking away from a continental
ice-field Europe is creaking, cracking and groaning its way to a new shape for
power on the Old Continent. My hope is that a new and legitimate political
settlement can be forged before Europe itself melts. However, for such a settlement to be seen to
be legitimate by the people of Europe, it
would once again have to be seen to put the European nation-state to the fore.
The tests? If Brexit actually happens (and anything more
than a sham Brexit remains a big ‘if’) the Commission will propose that it is
given tax-raising powers to offset the loss of Britain’s budget
contribution. If the Commission is given
tax-raising powers Europeans will have crossed the Rubicon towards a European
super-state. Europeans must collectively
resist these ambitions and convene, instead, an intergovernmental conference or
IGC to prepare for new European treaties built on a simple set of principles that
would realise de Gaulle’s vision of a Europe of nations – more European Council,
a bit more European Parliament, and a lot less European Commission.
A Europe of Nations
It is time
for a real European union of nations of which Britain and everyone else can
feel a part. A European union of nations
that would enable European states to again make sovereign decisions in a world
in which the logic of European co-operation is overwhelming. Europeans need not fear such a future. Europeans have come a long way since World
War Two and few if any would seek to resolve differences on the
battlefield. As the great man once
rightly said, “Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first: nationalism when hatred for other people comes
first”.
Maybe, not
only would Europe be politically re-invigorated but a vital transatlantic
relationship re-forged as a strategic Europe finally emerges with Britain at
its core and a new US-German special relationship at its heart.
And no, objecting to giving ever more power to Brussels does not make me a populist. A realist yes, a populist no.
Julian
Lindley-French
