Today the European Union – established in 1993 as a much
more interconnected successor, upon its predecessors the European Community and
earlier the European Economic
Community – became alltogether 60 years old.
It is an understatement to state that this is a
historical moment in time indeed.
This union of European countries started so modestly
66 years ago (1951), with the establishment of the European
Coal and Steel Community – founded by West-Germany, Italy, France and
the Benelux countries (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg). However, after the
official formation of the EEC on 25 March 1957, the Union grew slowly, but surely into a pan-European
powerhouse of 28 countries: the largest economic block in the world.
That one of these countries – The United Kingdom – has decided to
leave the Union within a few years, based upon its own motives and emotions, does not diminish the enormous success of the EU after 60 years. One can hardly overstate the enormous influence of the
EU and its predecessors on the initially empoverished, shell-shocked and
war-torn Europe, that was still heavily coping with the consequences of the
Second World War and the formation of the Eastern Block and the Warsaw Pact
afterwards.
Instead of the allied countries taking revenge upon the
Germans (i.e. the West-Germans), like had happened at the end of the Great War when
the victors of the war penalized Germany with vast compensations that the Germans were
unable to pay, the Germans were offered a helping hand to rebuild their country.
And in return the Germans took the whole Western Europe by the hand on the road to
economic success and prosperity. The formation of the ECSC and later the EEC helped
to weave the West-Germans into a comforting cocoon of economic cooperation, longlasting
peace and deepening friendship with countries like France, Italy, Spain and – to a lesser
degree – the United Kingdom.
All involved countries understood that the next World
War could very well be the last one for the human race and a stable Europe
would tremendously help to prevent this from happening. This was, is and always will be the main raison d'etre for the sheer existence of the European Union, whatever else 'emotionless, technocrat free market addicts' tell you.
The West-Germans were at last offered the possibility to reunite their
country again with East-Germany in the early Nineties, after this country had
abolished socialism and Russia (in fact the Soviet Union) gave its blessing.
Then – on many occasions – the emerging Germany acted as a ‘postillion d’amour’
between the Western European countries and the former Eastern Block, that had to cope with the sudden and overwhelming end of the socialist era in
Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. And Germany, aware of its difficult past and special responsibility, played this extremely important role with confidence and dedication.
In the Nineties, the Schengen zone with its open
borders and its virtually passport-free traveling made the cooperation and
friendship between the European countries even more palpable for the people of Europe. Consequently, it seemed no less than logical that all Eastern European countries tried to participate in the European Union, even though the annoyed protests of Russia – who saw their sphere of influence in Eastern Europe crumble and on top of that thought of the NATO and the EU as two birds of the same feather – became louder and more violent over the years.
And finally the introduction of the cash Euro in 2002
became the Magnum Opus of this unprecedent bond between independent countries
and the success story that it had become for almost all participants. Few
people doubted at the time that the EU would grow into an ever-closer Union, akin but not
equal to the United States.
At least, that was until in 2005 the intented Treaty
establishing a Constitution for Europe crashed and burned, due to the popular rejections
of a.o. France and The Netherlands via national referendums (quote from Wikipedia:
The
Treaty was signed on 29 October 2004 by representatives of the then 25 member
states of the European Union. It was later ratified by 18 member states, which
included referendums endorsing it in Spain and Luxembourg. However the
rejection of the document by French and Dutch voters in May and June 2005
brought the ratification process to an end.
Following
a period of reflection, the Treaty of Lisbon was created to )the
Constitutional Treaty. This contained many of the changes that were originally
placed in the Constitutional Treaty but was formulated as amendments to the
existing treaties. Signed on 13 December 2007, the Lisbon Treaty entered into
force on 1 December 2009.
This rejection sent shockwaves through the European institutes
(European Council, European Commission and European Parliament) and left the
leading politicians in shock and awe, totally flabbergasted by the unimaginable event that had happened.
This event in 2005 was an unmistakable signal that the feelings of
the European people towards the progress of the European Union were shifting
considerably. And even though the EU was bonded closer together via the (slightly diluted) Treaty of Lisbon that replaced the European Constitution, it felt never the same anymore as before. More and more, a significant part of the European people
started to see the EU as a faceless and hardly democratic monstrosity, that was
moving in a direction they didn’t like.
Also people were increasingly worried about the structural
stability of the Euro, in the light of participating countries like Greece and
Italy, that did not share the North-European, “Calvinist” ideas about fiscal frugality
and sensible government policies.
And then came what turned out to be “the perfect storm”
for the European Union: the American mortgage crisis (i.e. Lehman Brothers), which
evolved into the European Credit Crisis: a crisis that started at the end of
2008 and lasted in fact until today, as many European countries are still very much struggling with the effects of this devastating crisis.
Especially Greece and to a lesser degree Italy, Ireland,
Spain and Portugal (i.e. the so-called PIIGS countries) were hit mid-ship by
the sudden, ubiquitous loss of confidence in the financial world and the urgent
need for the European governments to first save their large banks and
afterwards themselves, as the value of their sovereign bonds started dropping
like a rock in a ravine.
Massive debt waves, massive tax increases, massive (youth) unemployment of
almost 50%(!) in Spain and Greece and massive loss of confidence among the grassroots anywhere in Europe were the very palpable results of this crisis.
And then there was a European Union that was indecisive and
utterly divided about anything; this nearly sealed the economic doom for the weakest countries
Greece and Italy.
Instead of taking decisive actions and firm decisions,
the European Council started to muddle through the crisis in a tortoise-like velocity: from one endless executive
meeting to another executive meeting and with only small (i.e. almost Pyrrhic) results
to celebrate, which were nevertheless celebrated as enormous political
victories by the leading national politicians, until nobody believed them anymore.
The modus operandi on press conferences and in their own political arenas of the leading national politicians in Europe increasingly became: “European
successes are our own successes and European failures are to blame on the nameless
and faceless bureaucrats within the EU”. Especially the European Commission became
the perfect bureaucrat “patsy” for everything being wrong in Europe.
And now the EU has become sixty years old; in exactly the same week
that British Prime Minister Theresa May will deliver her Article
50 bidding, which will inevitably lead to a “Brexit” of the United Kingdom…
How symbolic!
On top of that, while the populist party PVV (i.e.
Party for Freedom) in The Netherlands has increased its number of seats in
Dutch parliament, but not at all with the landslide victory that populists
hoped for and others feared, the French could still choose for the populist
path of Marine Le Pen’s Front National: a path that would definitely set the
country up for a Frexit from the EU.
And Germany has its own populist problems to cope with,
with the Alternative für Deutschland of Frauke Petry as a dark horse in the
coming elections for the Bundeskanzler position. A party, which is also adamantly
against the European Union as we know it.
Undeniably the “elephant in the room” is the ongoing refugee
crisis, emerging from the Arab
Spring turning into an unpleasantly chilling winter, with countless
deaths in countries like Libya and Syria, as well as the emergence of new,
extremely dangerous Arab terrorist groups, like IS (Islamic State).
Especially the massive influx of refugees has turned
into a fission fungus within the European Union, as ‘everybody wants to help
the refugees safely land and live in another country than his own’.
Greece and Italy are stuck with tens of thousands of
refugees that have nowhere to go, as other European countries “drag their feet”
in helping them and rather look the other way, by erecting large walls, fences and new borders to stop refugees from entering their OWN country. "Solidarity is very good, as long as it does not cost us anything!"
Turkey, the increasingly
dictatorially led country at the brink of Europe and the Arab world, suddenly
became the hero of Europe in 2016, when it
was lured into a lucrative deal to host massive amounts of refugees
from Syria, in exchange for vast payments of aid money. What Turkey did with those refugees?
We didn’t want to know... at all!
"Child labour? Dehumanizing lving circumstances for refugees? That is bad..., that is very bad... Oh dear..., how sad..., never mind!"
With the economic crisis (i.e. now the enduring Greek and Italian Euro
crisis), the refugee crisis and the populist crisis in Europe – leading to the
Brexit and perhaps a Frexit – as a complex of hardly dissolvable crises, it is
unclear whether we should celebrate the European birthday or mourn its upcoming
funeral. It seems that the funeral music is already playing loudly in the wake of its inevitable demise.
Will the EU survive a Frexit? Or the ongoing refugee crisis?
Can it deal with the increasingly
hostile aspirations of Turkey, China and Russia… and even the Trump-led United
States? Will the unwilling Eastern European countries cause an implosion of the Union? Will it last for another five years? Or will it fall apart with a
massive bang that sets the whole world in flames?!
It is a very awkward situation on the EU’s sixtieth birthday…
and one that might not be dissolvable very easy.
But look at things from the other side: with the USA,
Russia, Turkey and China as increasingly aggressive and hostile countries with
their own economic agenda that is diametrically different from that of the EU,
there is every reason to be thankful for the sheer existence of the EU.
In spite of the fact that the EU is not so democratic,
so transparant, so well-led and so decisive as everybody hoped and prayed for, it
is still a formidable economic block without a match anywhere else in the world.
And under the wings of the EU, its member-states could build up economic prosperity,
safety and justice for all its citizens, while corruption and nepotism were mostly taken down under the ever watchful eyes of the European Commission and its vast
staff of civil servants.
On top of that: the EU has proven beyond a reasonable doubt,
that it has mastered the art of muddling through the crisis like no-one else before.
Already in the
early days of 2011, pundits saw the end of the Euro coming for Greece and
Ireland, but this end actually never happened. “Ireland?” you probably say now: “Did they ever have a euro problem?! I totally forgot about that!”.
The EU always managed to find the smallest loophole in order to
escape from the most acute existential crises and to muddle through the endlessly continuing economic crisis
even further, with all EU members aboard and intact.
And even though Greece is still in big trouble, it is
very much a member of the Euro-zone and the signals that the country is going
to leave it, became hardly stronger than in those early days of the euro crisis.
And last, but not least: there isn't a crisis so big that the European Council, Parliament and Commission can't solve it (or postpone it) more or less, with endless meetings and seemingly pointless conclusions. That seems an utter weakness, but could really be a strength in disguise of the EU.
So, let us celebrate this beautiful day of 60 years
Europe, in all its imperfections and knowing there is still a helluva lot of
work to do. And let us not forget, that without the EU the chances for this longlasting
peace and prosperity in Europe, would have been much, much dimmer.
And to end with a bombshell: let us watch how the United
Kingdom will manage itself outside the protective wings of the EU, on its solo
mission to greener pastures and a brighter future. It will be one of the
biggest sociological experiments in human history, of which the outcome is very much uncertain!
