Instead of deepening integration, the famous Franco-German engine now represented by the Merkozy-Sarkel tandem has brought the EU to the fringe of disintegration. Where does the road lead from here? Will Europe combust, as some of its rivals and adversaries hope and suggest – or are there options and alternatives for reinventing itself ?
Europe is in a deep crisis today which is recognized by an increasing number of analysts, experts and observers. A lot has been said and written during the past year or two about the impact of the global economic and financial crisis on the EU. The crisis of the Euro-zone has been on the front page of leading newspapers for a long time. But ironically, the recognition that the crisis is actually far more complex and also a deepening political and social crisis for the European Union as such, has grasped the attention of analysts only recently.
Although there were reasons enough – after the 2004 Big Bang, eastern enlargement and the 2005 double ‘no’ votes to the constitution – to pay some attention to the emerging symptoms of crisis, lingering questions were swept under the carpet. Against all promises, European integration remained an elite-driven and non-democratic process, and Eurocrats, experts and national politicians alike, remained supremely uninterested in identifying or understanding the deeper structural causes of any failures and negative tendencies. The lack of a proper diagnosis left no chance at all for effective therapy. Self-congratulatory official EU and national propaganda about the success of the new accessions possibly led to this self-deception: ‘Unity in Diversity’ thus remained a main slogan while increasing diversity actually further undermined transnational solidarity, silently turning core European societies against greater enlargement.
Why is Europe not leading the twenty-first century?
Before and surrounding eastern enlargement the proclaimed self-image of the EU was elevated to great heights. Books were published under the title The European Dream ↑ , (Jeremy Rifkin) and indeed for a while many believed that the fading away of the American dream would open new horizons, not only for new visions of Europe but also for the realization of those visions. It seemed that the European construct had gained new momentum and that Europe would gain a political purchase on the global level and become a model for further regional integrations and as such a shaper of a new world order.
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Mogen wij vrij roken in het café, of mag de staat dat verbieden? Is Laura Dekker vrij op zeilreis te gaan, of had de staat haar thuis moeten houden? Mag de staat zich bemoeien met ons eetgedrag? Zijn allochtonen vrij hun eigen cultuur te behouden of moeten zij juist integreren? Zijn vrouwen ongeëmancipeerd als ze een deeltijdbaantje prefereren?