Against Europe

The European leaders have broken their own records for having get-togethers in Brussels over the course of the past year. If it is indeed true that the future of the euro is at stake, then it is also true that the future of the EU is at stake; and the EU is the only reasonable political utopia we have been able to imagine. We have invented plenty of unreasonable, atrocious political utopias; but, to my knowledge, only one that is reasonable: a united Europe. Since time out of mind, Europeans have been killing one another in hundred years' wars, thirty years' wars, civil and religious wars, and world wars that were basically European wars. After the record carnage of the last big war, some sensible men decided that enough was enough. As a result, we are the first Europeans who have never known a war, at least between the European powers. Some even think that another war in Europe is impossible. I find this hard to believe: in Europe, the rarity is not war but peace. The slightest problem, as we are now facing, brings nationalism back to the surface.

For centuries Europe was the center of the world, but this is no longer so. Its weight in the world is diminishing day by day, compared with China, India or Brazil. Our political and economic power is still huge, but our inability to act in unison paralyzes it; and we have almost forgotten, too, that only a decade ago, just after launching the euro and while the EU Constitution was in preparation, a united Europe was anticipated as the world power of the 21st century, the only rival to China and the United States. Or should we aspire to so much? Jürgen Habermas has written that "democracy in one single country cannot even defend itself against the ultimatums of a furious capitalism that extends across national frontiers." A single country cannot, but a united Europe can.

Nobody has said that Europe is not going to undertake that task, but to do so it must really become one single Europe. Nor do you need to be a specialist to understand what our principal problem is: we have a common currency, but we have no common economic policy. Some specialists say that the blame lies with those who created the euro, because they did it too soon. This seems to be an unfair reproach: those who created the euro thought that the European utopia was so reasonable and so necessary that politics would soon follow on the heels of economics, political union on monetary union. This didn't happen, but the blame is not theirs but ours, for neglecting the job of uniting Europe. In other words, nationalism was to blame.

I refer to the nationalism of nation-states, of course: those nations, like Spain, which reasonably enough abominate regional nationalisms within their borders, but unreasonably practice nationalism abroad, refusing to cede sovereignty and thus to build Europe (there is no way of building the new European sovereignty other than at the expense of the old sovereignty of the states). Many, especially in rich states, do not want this. They prefer to go on alone, swaddled in their false securities, their collective identities. But to a German or a Finn who wonders why they must help to bail out the Greeks or the Spanish - who spent more than their income as they passed the day enjoying wine, women and song - you have to say the same thing as you do to a Catalan or a Basque who wonders why their taxes must pay for social programs in Andalusia and Extremadura: first, that the poor have a rather narrow margin for wine, women and song; and second, that though nobody likes to cough up, it is better for us all if we are united.

In other words, you have to tell them the truth: in favor of Europe we can go to many different places, some good, some bad, some so-so; but against Europe we can only be headed for catastrophe.