B&A
It's always interesting when retired mandarins feel free to speak their minds. Telegraph
Charles Crawford retired from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 2007. He was HM Ambassador in Sarajevo (1996-1998), in Belgrade (2001-2003) and most recently in Poland (2003-2007). He is a founder member of ADRg Ambassadors and his personal website is
www.charlescrawford.biz
The truth no one wants to admit: European solidarity is ebbing away By Charles Crawford Politics: October 27th, 2011
Don't trust those painted-on smiles (Photo: AP)
The thing to understand about the highest-level diplomatic negotiations is this. Basically, there is the bloke in the bar anywhere in the world, railing against the iniquity of what foreigners get up to: Can you believe what those Germans/Frenchies/Americans/Arabs/Brits/Jews are doing now?! Theyâ•˙re trying to cheat us! Do they think weâ•˙re thick, or wot? Innit!╡ Then above him (sorry, ladies, itâ•˙s usually a him) is a vast, unpleasant fog created by supercilious on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand people like me. Officials, technocrats, state-funded busybodies and experts droning on in high acronymic about Targets, Priorities, Road-maps, Objectives, Strategies, Policies and the rest of it. When you break through that impenetrable, noxious layer of process, you suddenly get to clear blue sky where meetings of world leaders take place. And the impressive thing is that these leaders resemble the bloke in the pub. The language is (usually) not quite as blunt. But the thoughts and messages are.
If richer Europeans ╢shouldâ•˙ help poorer Europeans â•„ as they have massively done through EU Cohesion Funds and other redistributive mechanisms ˆ what ╢shouldâ•˙ the poorer Euuropeans do in return? Work harder? Agree to refuse assistance when they have improved their lot? Stick to the rules meticulously? Be grateful? No one has ever wanted to talk about this. Even to broach the subject is a howwid breach of Euro-etiquette, suggesting a narrow, penny-pinching, Thatcherite mistrust of European processes themselves. We're all Europeans, right? So by definition we are all equally worthy. We can ˆ and muust ˆ be trusted!
Should Europeans trust each other? Mais oui. Do they? Not so much. One striking positive example of European Trust lies in the very fact that each EU member state has surrendered goodly dollops of sovereignty to Brussels, accepting that it might get outvoted on all sorts of issues with direct implications for its own citizens. This concession is made by all states in return for ╢getting things doneâ•˙ by the Union as a whole, where the things which then get done are by definition proclaimed to be in the wider EU family interest. This is a remarkable and (as events now show) unwise innovation in international diplomacy. It assumes a minimal level of intelligence, reasonableness and good faith on the part of any voting majority. Hence the appalling damage done to the whole EU project as the Germans discovered that Athens had not been, ahem, honest in reporting Greeceâ•˙s economic statistics.
Sunday, 30 October 2011
As EU leaders gathered yesterday for yet more Eurozone crisis summits, most of them knew little about the detail of what they were discussing, momentous though the decisions would be. Those who were relatively expert would not have endeared themselves to the others. The key issue as they eyed each other unhappily across the table was very simple: trust. Can I trust that leader as a person? And can I trust her/him to deliver what she/he promises? In this Eurozone crisis the nub of the problem is indeed Trust, which in turn props up that much vaunted EU principle, Solidarity.
Solidarity in turn supports ╢social Europeâ•˙: the collectivist idea that we are all in the same European boat together, that we ipso facto share similar beliefs and values, and that the richer parts of Europe ╢shouldâ•˙ help the poorer parts. EU Solidarity of course requires certain minimal levels of discipline and commitment by all sides, lest it become an unacceptable redistributive one-way street, money flowing from those who accept the rules to those who might (or might not) do so.
As Euro-trust ebbs away, so does Euro-solidarity.
The Germans not without reason now see many of the southern European belt of countries as being unable or unwilling to achieve the necessary basic level of collective national discipline (running honest businesses and honest accounts, paying taxes, respecting rules ˆ tough stuff like thhat) to make Solidarity across the whole space morally credible, and therefore operationally credible to the money markets. Worse, when these countries fall short (as they inevitably do) they expect Germany to pick up the bill, for ever. Yes, it could cause unfathomable disaster, above all for Germany itself, if the Eurozone crashes. Yes, another even loftier historic agreement of some sort was somehow cobbled together early this morning. But no one thinks that the problem has been solved. You can do all sorts of imaginative things to prop up an impressive but wobbly structure built on sand. The fatally weak foundations have not gone away.
So, questions. For how much longer will Angela Merkel sit there glaring at her fellow leaders and glumly accept that, in effect, Germany is to be blackmailed by smaller, less scrupulous EU partners (If you don't give us your nation's hard-won credibility "and its money" we˙ll drag you down too)?
Is this acceptable as the basis for running a creditable and credit-worthy society in Germany, and for Germany as part of a wider European community? Is this what all those decades of Germany's heroic post-WW2 rebuilding effort led to ˆ a Europe of looters and moochers? How to ssell that to the honest toiler in the Berlin bierkeller?
Maybe one day soon Germany will look the other shifty countries in the eye round the conference table. And, like Atlas, shrug.
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