Rome, Italy. 25 June. Hot! Cicero, that great defender of
the Roman Republic and implacable opponent of those that would abuse power in
the name of the people once said, “Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob,
nothing more obscene than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole
political system”. The great man’s
words seem prophetic as Chancellor Merkel daily calls for “more Europe” whilst
daily refusing to pay for it (Germany alone cannot) as Europe’s peoples sit paralysed
in the middle of a metaphorical autobahn as an out of control debt juggernaut with
26 steering wheels bears down on them. So
what would a ‘Europe’ with one steering wheel look like? Is European political union, to given the
stated ambition some formality, really possible or desirable? And, is it at all relevant to today’s emergency?
Think of any federal
state; Australia, the US, or more appropriately Germany and you begin to get
Merkel’s thinking. Having gone through all the many structural economic
financial reforms Germany has set as the price for German support ‘Europe’ in
her vision would end up looking pretty much like the Federal Republic. Specifically, Europe would have a
constitution similar to the one (irony of ironies) that was drafted mainly by
British lawyers for post-war Germany. It
would be a system of loose federation designed to prevent an over-bearing
centre, in which EU member-states would become something like the German Landes themselves based on the old
states and kingdoms of the German Confederation prior to Bismarck’s reunification
of Germany.
Brussels (backed of
course by Berlin) would be the pivot around which Europe would spin and would
over time take on more and more of the attributes of a state. The nation-state
is essentially about three things; money, foreigners and killing. In other words - tax, foreign and security and defence policy. To be fair to Berlin few are thinking in such
Realpolitik terms it is simply the logic of the mess Europe is in and what
Chancellor Merkel is calling for.
Indeed, the ineptitude of European leaders is really a function of today’s
totally unworkable Europe. Power is like
giving birth – one cannot be a little bit pregnant as Europe is today. Either ‘Europe’ truly integrates or becomes a
real inter-state alliance. The strange mix Europe has today is simply confusing
and paralysing everybody.
There is of course a
big ‘but’ to all of this. In fact there
are several. First, European political union
has nothing to do with this crisis, here right now. Indeed, it is a distraction from the crafting
of the Ten Year Plan for European Recovery that is so desperately needed if the
markets are to be reassured. Union might be made closer by the components of
such a plan (fiscal union, banking union etc.) but is not the aim of a rescue
plan. Second, whilst some southern
European states might be willing to accept economy-saving, democracy-crunching technocratic
fiat from Berlin/Brussels because national democracy is a relatively recent
phenomenon, northern and western Europeans will most certainly not. Democracy therein has evolved over many years
of political struggle and states such as Britain, France, the Netherlands and
the Scandinavians are not going to surrender national democratic sovereignty
easily. It is hard to believe either that those in Eastern Europe who gave freedom back to
Europe would accept such diktat.
Third, there is no
system to afford either credible political legitimacy or effective oversight of
such a necessarily remote executive. “Do the math”, as the Americans would
say. Germany has a population of some
81.7 million people served by 622 MPs/Representatives in the Bundestag. In other words in Germany there is a ratio of
1 MP for every 131350 citizens. The Netherlands enjoys a ratio of 1 MP for every
111337 citizens, whilst Britain has 1 MP for every 96000 citizens. The EU has a population of 502.5 million very
different people served by a European Parliament with 745 members, which
affords Europeans 1 Euro MP for every 674,496 very different citizens. European political union would mean the
abandonment of effective democratic oversight.
The first rule of good
strategy is to exclude the irrelevant.
Talk of European political union at this juncture is precisely that;
irrelevant. In any case the most that
could possibly be achieved but only after many years is not a federal European
state but a confederal state such as Switzerland. The Swiss are neutral mainly because they
agree over very little. A confederal
Europe would make a mockery of suggestions from the likes of Tony Blair (beware
he is back and looking for a top European job!) that the reason for more
European integration is world power and influence. Rather, the opposite is likely; a weak Europe
with no voice for any voice would offend someone in Europe.
So, Euopean political union would more likely than not lead to a weak Euro-state, with too much power over its citizens and not enough influence in the world. Is that really such a good idea?
Julian Lindley-French
