The most notable thing about the European parliament elections this week was not the two seats won by the British National Party, despite what the steady stream of updates on my facebook news feed told me ("not in my name", "oh my god i want to cry" being amongst the more coherent comments). Nor was it the 17% turnout in Slovakia. It wasn't evening the impressive performance of Europe's centre-right parties against the continent's hapless Socialists.
No, the really crucial indicators of, well, anything were the low turnout and focus on national issues. This is the clearest indication of what Europe and its people have become: apathetic and unable to see outside of their own borders. I went to school with a very likeable and polite boy, who I am still in touch with, who illustrates my point very well. Whenever the issue of citizens' disenchantment with the European Union come up, he often springs to mind. He is 24. His only experience of foreign countries is Irish bar-heavy resorts in Greece and Spain. He once moved away from home but was soon back again for his Mother's cooking. He is what you might call casually racist.
Whenever the topic of Europe comes up between us, my friend has two very clear messages to deliver: He is British, not European, and he does not want Britain to hand over any power to the European Union. My friend is typical of people in Britain, and to a lesser extent across Europe. Whenever I talk to him I cannot help but feel that Europe has lost its way.
The European Union started out with noble aims and a genuine direction. Its underlying raison d’etre at the outset was the need to prevent war in Europe, specifically between Germany and France, by tying the old foes and their unlucky neighbours together through mutually beneficial trade agreements.
This was no idealistic whim, but a serious undertaking by serious people for serious ends. War had twice brought Europe to its knees in the space of a generation, leaving homes, families and lives destroyed forever. Very few in Europe had been left unaffected, most had suffered occupation at best. The war memorials that remain in Europe’ villages, towns and cities attest to the scale of death that occurred.
What started as a way to prevent this happening again gradually developed into an impressive trading bloc, gaining strength and momentum from the introduction of three new members each decade in the 1970s, 80s and 90s and the relative decline in power of European states in relation to countries in the East and developing world. Admittedly Europe was becoming a harder sell as the war became an increasingly distant memory, but at least in continental Europe there was a clear feeling that Europe was stronger together than apart.
The year that the European Union lost its was 1989, the year that the Berlin wall came down and central and eastern European states, which had been for so long subdued by the spectre of Russian tanks rolling into their cobbled centres. They struggled out from under the iron grip which had stifled their potential and creativity for over 40 years and mainly looked West for support and guidance as they sought to dash towards prosperity and a new cultural awakening.
Suddenly the bureaucrats in Brussels and the leaders of the European Union Member States saw an opportunity for glory. Having civilised themselves after the war they now saw a glorious opportunity to spread their great invention east, to allow those previously oppressed by communism to enjoy the freedoms of the European Union.
Again, noble aim. The EU certainly had a lot to offer the east, and the east was more than keen to get stuck in. Yet what happened in 2004 was ill-advised at best and catastrophic at worst. Full membership, with lapse and loosely-imposed conditions basically translated into a second Marshall Plan. The difference this time was that so few conditions were imposed that the money is ending up right in the pockets of the former elite, in an orgy of corruption as local politicians fall over each other to funnel greater and greater swathes of cash into their pockets and those of their friends.
Bulgaria is the obvious example that springs to mind, due to the fact that they have had their funds cut off until they clean up their act. Yet this is just the tip of the iceberg, and the reality is that, should western taxpayers know what was being done with their hard earned money, the EU might just collapse altogether. Yet most western taxpayers do not really know what is being done with their money in the East, and as a result the perpetuation of the old communist elite through the corrupt use of EU money goes on.
Yet this is the symptom, not the cause of the problem. 2004 happened almost by accident, because the European Union's leaders, and in this I include the Commission, the Council and the Parliament, did not really know what else to do. Simply not being communist, the last thing that had really tied the European Union together, was gone. A new mission had to be found.
Here I come to my point. My argument is not with the European Union, like my friend and so many others. The European Union is a good thing on many levels and in many ways: it contributed to peace in Europe (although the Marshall Plan, the US military presence and the threat of nuclear war did more). It allowed me and so many others to move around and work and study and experience other cultures without the need to spend money and waste time on visas. The euro is a godsend, as anyone who regularly travels within Europe for work will tell you. The single market has freed up countless sums of money for firms to invest in innovation and hiring new staff, and for consumers to raise their living standards by buying better quality products, that would otherwise have been lost to tariffs.
My argument is also not that Europe has lost its relevance, but rather precisely the opposite. Unlike the UN, the OSCE and countless other international bodies who appear to be drifting aimlessly as their budgets suck more and more money from national governments, the European Union is as vital now as at any time since the war. Next time you are in a newsagents, pick up a copy of the
Economist, the
Financial Times or any other decent publication dealing with international finance or economics. Read their articles and look at their tables on the GDP of China, Japan and the United States. Look at the wage levels in these countries, at their productive capabilities and at the environments they create for business. Then move on to resource-rich economies like Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia, or rapidly emerging ones like Brazil, South Korea and India. You will start to see what I mean.
Europe may still have three of the
world's top six economies in terms of GDP, but this advantage is fading rapidly. As
Wolfgang Munchau outlined in the FT yesterday, the long term outlook for Germany is not good. A government faced with a likely strengthened euro, a (linked) decline in exports, and an inability and unwillingness to encourage domestic demand (partly due to a fear of inflation) is not in a good position, considering the export-driven nature of Germany's economy. The French may be sitting pretty for now, resting on their laurels of large-scale state interference in the economy and tough business regulations, but their growth model and growth record is weak to say the least. In the long term we are all dead, as Keynes famously acknowledged, but if direct competition comes their way it will be the French farmers who will be the first to go. As for the third member of the EU's "big three", the United Kingdom, the prospects look even more dire. With a clearly failing political system and a spiralling set of hefty bills to pay, the UK will take a long time to get up from a particularly heavy blow. That is even if, and this is a big if, the ace in the pack, the City of London, recovers quickly.
The EU mission is therefore clear: a genuine bloc of countries with an agreed on set of principles to tackle the biggest crisis that is has faced since the Second World War. In an increasingly globalised world, with increasingly strong competition from emerging economies and other established powers, Europeans simply cannot hope to maintain their current standards of living any other way.
This is the message that policymakers across the continent should be delivering to their electorates. The problem of declining and ageing populations, high wages and therefore production costs, and a lack of new innovation and ideas, is not a Greek or Spanish or Irish or Polish problem. It is a European problem, requiring a European solution.
The European Union has so far failed to get close to the sum of its parts. The world's biggest trading bloc is nowhere near its most active, or most vocal on the world stage. Despite having two of the world's finest armies in the UK and France, Europe has no military role to speak of. Despite having the world's best universities outside of the United States, the European contribution to international dialogue on solving the pressing issues of the day is pitifully small.
A genuine European-wide debate, led by politicans of courage and of substance would be a start in this process. Policy makers have a whole arsenal of facts at their disposal to show that Europe needs to work together to preserve its high standards of living, should they wish to use them. The Chinese do not care whether we see ourselves as British or European, they are only interested in whether we are still a serious power to be reckoned with. Relevance can only be maintained by a united Europe. And it might make those holidays in Ibiza just a little bit cheaper.
