lock does europe have a future

8/8/2019 Lock Does Europe Have a Future

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DOES EUROPE HAVE A FUTURE?

De ESVisie is een uitgave van deEconomische StudentenVereniging 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 threeoriginal goals: to head off another warbetween Germany and France; torepair the material damage caused bythe Second World War; and to keepthe Soviets out of Western Europe.Since these three goals have been ful-filled, the question can be asked: whatpoint does the European Union nowhave? Shouldn't it be wound up and

closed down?Of course, any bureaucracy has itsown, internal goals - and first of all, topreserve its own existence. So weshould expect 'Brussels' violently toresist any such proposal.But perhaps the EU has some otherraison d'tre? The most obvious sug-gestion in this connexion would be, inthe simplest terms: to help business,especially big business, by facilitatingeconomies of scale in production anddistribution.

This is true in general terms. But it'snot a broad enough picture.The logic of the post-war Europeanstate of affairs was set out early, in1945, by the French philosopher-diplo-matist Alexandre Kojve. In his'Outline of a Doctrine of French Policy',written a few weeks after the end of thewar, he argues that the age of thenation states has passed. Indeed, itwas Hitler's blindness in pursuing analready obsolescent national, pan-

German policy for the conquest ofEurope that guaranteed his defeat.This last and tragic attempt by onenation to dominate Europe signalled,Kojve argues, the final act of the 500-year-long tragedy of the nation-states.The new age is however by no meansone of a coming world government. Itis an age of Empires. The Nazis weredefeated by a temporary alliance of theAnglo-Saxon and Soviet Empires,which of course soon split into rivalcamps during the Cold War period.

Kojve proposed in 1945 the establish-ment of a European Empire - in whichhe hoped that France would play a lea-


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ding role.Now, 60 years later, and after thedisappearance of the Soviet bloc, wecan ask whether that European Empirehas come into existence. We might betempted to conclude that it has, and inthe form of the European Union.

But this conclusion would be prematu-re. For the European Union does not,in some crucial respects, behave likean Empire. It has swallowed up 25nations and is set for further expan-sion. It is economically strong - if notas strong as it would like to be. But itis, in global terms, politically and milita-rily weak, much weaker than mighthave been expected.One hypothesis regarding the causesof this weakness is that the EU has

adopted a liberal definition of its ownstatus and responsibilities. For whate-ver reasons, it never fully accepted thestatus of State or super-State. Kojvewrites: 'The essentially political - thatis, in the final analysis bellicose - enti-ty, which the State in the strict sense is,should [according the liberals] bereplaced by a simple economic andsocial as well as police administration,at the disposal and at the service of"society", itself conceived of as anaggregate of individuals. The individu-

al was supposed to embody and reve-al, in his own isolation, the supremehuman value. Thus conceived, the"statist" liberal administration had to befundamentally peaceful and pacifist.Put differently, it did not have, strictlyspeaking, any "will to power", and con-sequently had no effective need, noradequate desire, for the "independen-ce" or political autonomy which cha-racterizes the very essence of the trueState.'One need only read the White Paperon European Governance, inspired byformerCommissionPresidentRomano Prodi, to understand that thisis en gros the direction which theEuropean Union has chosen - thoughwith some dissenting voices - to take.In a recent publication I tried to sum upthe situation in a few words: The EUprovides the European population witha system of justice and it polices that

system; it is oriented to the satisfactionof economic needs. In short: it is not asuper-State, certainly not an Empire,


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but rather - prosaically - a 'manage-ment system' for civil society.It is just this prosaic character of theUnion that is problematic. For it hasceased to be any kind of effectiveideal. There are of course still a fewmembers of various 'European move-

ments', but their numbers and levels ofdevotion are low - lower, perhaps, thanthe movement for the re-establishmentof the Albanian monarchy.There are of course attempts to makereference, in order to invent some kindof edifying foundation for what is called'European identity', to a 'shared historyof European culture' and the like. Butthese attempts are either far too hesi-tant and modest to do the job required,or unconvincing in their grandiloquen-

ce. Thus, for instance, Vaclav Havelwrites: 'Where we should look for whatunites us [is] in an awareness of thetranscendental', in the 'conviction thata higher, mysterious order of the world'exists, and so on. That sort of talkwon't convince the average supermar-ket manager that he owes some parti-cular kind of loyalty to the Europeancause, beyond a calculation of perso-nal advantage.In the ideological vacuum thus crea-ted, a peculiar renewal of 'nationalist

feeling' has surfaced, including in theNetherlands. Politically, this sentiment- which underlies not only the rise of anew racism but also many gimmickygovernment policies, like the promo-tion and testing among immigrants of aknowledge of and loyalty to so-called'Dutch national norms and values' - isof a breathtaking anachronism andirrelevance. Karl Marx wrote: historicalevents occur twice: the first time as tra-gedy, the second time as farce. I fearthat this latter-day national farce isitself a little tragedy.In any case, the consequence of allthis is that Europe now stands in anexposed 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 ofits control. Thus it was possible for theWashington Post columnist CharlesKrauthammer to note: 'America wonthe Cold War, pocketed Poland andHungary and the Czech Republic as

door prizes, then proceeded to pulver-ize Serbia and Afghanistan and, enpassant, highlight Europe's irrelevance


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with a display of vast military superiori-ty. We [the Americans] dominate everyfield of human endeavour from fashionto film to finance. We rule the worldculturally, economically, diplomaticallyand militarily as no one has since theRoman Empire.'

That's what you call an Empire! Not apretty thing, but a powerful reality. Andit's not obvious that Europe will ever bein a position to compete. Whether itwould make sense to try is anotherquestion.prof. dr. Grahame Lock10SVisie Nijmegen

lock does europe have a future

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