I have to say that even in my most apocalyptic Eurosceptic moments – when I had moved on from thinking the federalist project simply preposterous to believing that it was criminal folly – I never anticipated this. What I expected was growing disillusionment followed by an almost imperceptible unwinding which would be finessed with political double-talk and diplomatic duplicity. The implosion would come, but it would be with a whimper, not a bang. Faces would be saved and enormous numbers of lies would be told, and somehow the thing would be brought to an end – or made so vestigial that it would no longer matter. Well, so much for that idea. This is going to be huge: so cataclysmic that it may summon up forms of ugliness that we have not seen walking abroad in Western Europe for half a century. This is where the story goes beyond irony. The European federal dream was devised by its architects to be a definitive repudiation of the ideological conflicts of the 20th century. Pragmatism, consensus and regard for the greater supra-national good would reign where once wicked nationalism and zealotry had prevailed. But what strikes me when I hear the surreal statements emanating from those emergency summits and absurd Franco-German-Greek conference calls is that this is precisely a continuation of the old ideological delusions of the European past. The EU leadership and the Greek prime minister announce implacably that Greece will not leave the euro (ever), as if their uttering of the words made them indisputable. In fact, this is simply a statement of political will that dares the world to defy it. It seems that the European political class still thinks that an assertion of its mystical belief can alter reality: that what it insists is so, will be so. If its idea of itself and its design for the future are in conflict with the facts of economics or life as it is actually lived, then it is those facts that will give way. (A German Christian Democrat politician once said to me, “The single currency will work because we will make it work.”) Those facts now include not only Greek debt but the democratic wishes of electorates who have a sentimental belief in their right to hold their own governments to account. This is where we are: up against the unavoidable contradiction of the European federal project. The complaint that the EU is lacking in strong political leadership is misconceived: it has had altogether too much “leadership” – which is to say, domination from political and bureaucratic authorities determined to lead with as little interference from real people as possible. “Consensus” has become coercion. The imperatives of federalism and ever closer union have come bang up against the basic principle of democracy: that elected governments should be answerable to their own electorates, particularly on matters that affect the lives of ordinary citizens, such as taxation and public spending. Federalism cannot allow democracy to disrupt its objectives, and democracy will not permit federalism to ignore its anger and frustration. Angela Merkel cannot do what her critics are insisting that she must do – as George Osborne put it, show that she recognises “the gravity of the situation” and is “dealing with it” – because her electorate will not wear it. She cannot commit herself to endless bail-outs and the under-writing of infinite Mediterranean debt, just as the Greek government cannot deliver the EU’s austerity measures – because the people of both these countries do not wish it. The irresistible force has met the immovable object. So the choice is between abandoning the democratic principle which holds that the legitimacy of government derives from the consent of the governed, or backing down on the commitment to the euro and all the strictures that go with it. We know which side of this argument our Government has chosen. Mr Osborne reiterated last Friday his insistence that the EU needs “fast-track” fiscal integration – and never mind the democratic scruples. I suspect that the US Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, who is drumming his fingers on the table with exasperation at EU dithering, wants the same. Since the consequences of this European folie de grandeur now threaten the American and British economic recoveries, it is scarcely surprising that Mr Osborne and Mr Geithner are pushing for a resolution to the central contradiction: are you separate countries or are you one unified economic entity? Settle the damn thing once and for all. Your paralysis is putting us all in peril. Are the British and American governments prepared for what may follow if they get what they wish for? We were always told that the choice was between European solidarity and war. The EU was created to eradicate the sins of nationalism and, specifically, to tie Germany into a federation which would prevent its historical bellicosity from rising again – which makes it peculiarly ironic that one “solution” being currently mooted is the withdrawal of Germany from the euro. But in fact, discord and hostility are now being provoked by the very constraints and pressures of EU enforcement. Civil unrest and non-cooperation with government demands are exacerbated by the resentment of what are still perceived as “foreign” agencies. (And, indeed, they are foreign in that individual populations have no hold over them. Greek trade unionists cannot vote Mrs Merkel, let alone the EU Commission, out of power.) Whoever it was who said that this was at least as much a political problem as an economic one was stating the obvious. The rage and anxiety over this loss of national self-determination are already taking sinister forms in the rise of aggressively nationalist parties and neo-fascist movements in the most unlikely “liberal” countries. Add to that the fears of those recent EU member states – the former Warsaw Pact countries – which still look anxiously to the East toward a rampant Russia. Here is a recipe for real conflict both within and between the countries of Europe. Is it beyond the bounds of imagination that we might see the Muslim minorities become the Jews of the 21st century? EU ministers are not, as is sometimes claimed, “in denial”. They fully appreciate what Mr Osborne calls “the gravity of the situation”. They are paralysed because they see clearly the full force of their dilemma. So they vacillate between the impulse to ram through “fiscal integration”, and the fear of electoral consequences: between the totalitarian impulse and the democratic principle. By the end of the year, we will know which one they chose.The European dream lies in ruins
Europe's leaders seem incapable of solving the crisis
unfolding in front of them.
Sunday, 18 September 2011
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