Thu, Dec 01, 2011 page9

• Europe’s crisis is an opportunity for democracy

  Instead of Soviet-style German euro-nationalism, Europeans should try to create a Europe of the citizens, which would be a community of democracies

  • By Ulrich Beck / The Guardian
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  On Tuesday, it seemed as if the European crisis was raising the old question of the finality of unification: Should Europe become a nation writ large, a federal state, a mere economic community, an informal UN, or something new? All of that suddenly looks like folklore. Even asking: “Which Europe do we want?” is to act as though one could still choose after rescuing the euro. The train seems to have already left the station — at least for Greece, Italy and Spain.

  A new logic of power is taking shape. The grammar of power of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Europe conforms to the imperial difference between lender and borrower countries. The German culture of stability is being elevated to Europe’s guiding idea. Some Germans do believe their model exerts a magnetic power: Europe is learning German, they say. However, Merkel has dictated that the price for debt without restraint is loss of sovereignty.

  The consequences are the splitting of the EU. Those who do not have the euro find themselves excluded from the decision-making processes shaping Europe. They are losing their political voice — most apparent in the UK’s case, which is sliding into European irrelevance.

  

  Illustration: Mountain People

  However, a dramatic split is also occurring between the countries that already or will soon depend on the drip feed of the rescue fund and the countries financing the rescue fund. The former have no other option but to submit to the claim to power of German euro-nationalism. Italy is threatened with playing no further role in shaping the present and future of the continent.

  The basic rules of European democracy are being suspended or even inverted, bypassing parliaments, governments and EU institutions. Even France, which long dominated European unification, must submit to Berlin’s strictures now that it must fear for its international credit rating.

  This future taking shape in the laboratory of the euro rescue resembles a European variant of the USSR. A centralized economy no longer means five-year plans for goods and services, but five-year plans for debt reduction. The power to implement them is being placed in the hands of “commissioners,” authorized by “rights of direct access” (Merkel) to stop at nothing in tearing down the Potemkin villages erected by notorious debtor countries. We all know how the USSR ended.

  However, could there be opportunity amid the crisis? In fact, the question of how this enormous space comprising 27 member states should be governed if, before every decision, 27 heads of government, cabinets and parliaments have to be convinced, has answered itself. In contrast to the EU, the eurozone is de facto a community of two speeds. In future only the eurozone (not the EU) will belong to the avant garde of Europeanization. This could represent an opportunity for the urgently needed institutional imagination.

  There has long been talk of an “economic government.” What is behind this needs to be fleshed out, negotiated and tested. Sooner or later the highly controversial eurobonds will also be introduced. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble is already arguing for the introduction of a tax on financial transactions that, in the larger EU, would founder on the UK’s veto.

  Former US president John F. Kennedy once astonished the world with his idea to create a peace corps. By analogy, the neo-European Merkel should dare to surprise the world with the insight and initiative that the euro crisis is not just about the economy, but about initiating the Europeanization of Europe from below. Create the Europe of the citizens now!

  Any talk of “enlargement” would thereby acquire a new meaning. What would have to be enlarged is democracy. The rule of law and the market are not sufficient. Freedom needs a third pillar to become secure; its name is European civil society or, in more concrete terms, doing Europe or European civic activity. Such an autonomous civic practice, providing basic funding for Europe’s unemployed youth, would doubtlessly cost a pile — but a fraction of the zeros swallowed by the rescue of the banks.

  We should have no fear of direct democracy. Without referendums on themes that send a shudder through the ocean liner Europe, the whole enterprise will fail. Why not have the president of the European Commission directly elected by all European citizens on the same day? We have to speak of the Europe of the citoyen, the citizen, the burgermaatschappij, the ciudadano, the obywatel. For each of these national cultural key concepts stands for a different path to political modernity.

  Assuming one recognizes that implementing democratic rights involves and requires many paths, can the democratic empowerment of a cosmopolitan Europe be accompanied by a strengthening of its national democracies in the member states? The answer has to be that new Europe would not follow the model of German euro-nationalism, but would be an emerging European community of democracies. And sharing sovereignty becomes a multiplier of power and democracy.

  Ulrich Beck is professor of sociology at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich and the London School of Economics. He and Edgar Grande are co-authors of Cosmopolitan Europe.
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