PROSPECTS FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
High-speed TGV train, 2011. Source: 123RF.
By publishing a controversial essay titled “Power and Weakness” on June 1, 2002, American journalist Robert Kagan brought transatlantic tensions to a boiling point. Summing up growing policy differences, he argued that “on major strategic and international questions today, Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus.” Based on its predominant military power the United States tended toward unilateral use of force, while Europeans, holding a weaker hand, preferred “negotiation, diplomacy, and persuasion to coercion.” Though intended to stimulate reflection about the structural sources of conflicts within NATO, the article ironically had the opposite effect of reinforcing stereotypes by stirring a passionate debate. The American attack on Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein made Kagan’s subsequent book look like a power-political justification of neoconservative adventurism. While the actual argument pleaded for greater mutual understanding, its caricature-like simplification resonated with Washington pundits who were growing increasingly frustrated with the European refusal to share their agenda.1
Eleven months later German philosopher Jürgen Habermas issued a countermanifesto with his French colleague Jacques Derrida, calling for a European foreign policy. Putting aside their philosophical differences, the theoretician of communication and the dean of deconstruction voiced widespread continental protest against President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. Both called on the core of Europe to throw its “weight on the scale to counterbalance the hegemonic unilateralism of the United States,” pleading for the creation of a common European identity by developing a shared public sphere. Through past wars and revolutions, Europe had been painfully forced to learn how to create “a form of ‘governance beyond the nation state’ ” and to establish an elaborate “social welfare system.” In contrast to the United States, Europeans had acquired a greater “reflexive distance from themselves” and more understanding of the violence involved in the “uprooting process of modernization.” Europe therefore ought to take the lead toward developing “a global domestic policy” for a world that was coming closer together.2
In the United States a widespread culturalist turn away from Europe had reinforced this growing transatlantic divide about approaches to international politics. By exposing the brutality of imperialism, postcolonial critics discredited the universalism of European human-rights ideas as cover for imperial domination. Similarly subaltern thinkers rejected the “master narratives” of the colonizers in order to recover the voice of their victims’ stories. In his seminal work on orientalism, the literary critic Edward Said argued that the Orient was a European cultural projection, justifying the continent’s hegemony through the process of “othering” that camouflaged an underlying racism. Other non-Western intellectuals suggested “provincializing Europe” so as to create space for an appreciation of a plurality of transitions to modernity.3 Overdue as recognition of minority suffering and as acknowledgment of the rich experiences of other cultures, this repudiation of “Eurocentrism” inspired a general decline of interest in Europe that threatened to turn a once-positive legacy into a negative stereotype.
As a corrective, defenders of ties to Europe pointed to the surprising extent of continental renewal during the past several decades. In his widely discussed The European Dream, the American economist Jeremy Rifkin sought to make a case for taking a fresh look at the European model. Going beyond Habermas and Derrida, he argued that European integration was an exciting development that promised to transcend the nation-state with a shared, continentwide sovereignty. Citing Europe’s smaller degree of inequality than the United States’ disparity between rich and poor, he also lauded its social market economy for finding a better balance between competition and solidarity. In many indexes of well-being such as life span, literacy rates, and educational performance the Europeans had moved ahead of the Americans, much to the latter’s dismay. Moreover, in international relations the soft-power and multilateral approach of the continent seemed more humane than Washington’s resort to force.4 Though Rifkin sometimes overstated the case, he did point out that as a blueprint of democratic modernization Europe was becoming the only serious alternative to the United States.
These conflicting assessments raise a number of questions about the prospects of the European model in a globalized modernity. With postcolonial critics challenging the Western heritage, Europeans are seeking to redefine their legacy in universal terms. Within the broad outlines of liberal modernity, they have begun to evolve a distinctive version of democratic government and cultural lifestyle. The recurrence of transatlantic tensions suggests that the differences with the United States involve more fundamental issues than just repeated policy disputes. Moreover, the fierce economic competition with Asian newcomers is forcing Europeans to recover a measure of competitiveness in order to sustain their high-wage commitment to social solidarity. Finally, the project of integration faces numerous internal differences that are threatening to leave the promise of the EU unfulfilled. As a result of globalization Europeans are facing a series of challenges regarding their cultural identity, economic effectiveness, and political decisiveness that have yet to be met.5 No longer capable of naive enthusiasm for progress and yet committed to further change, Europeans are struggling to develop a more humane sense of the modern.
VANISHING WEST
A growing retreat from the Western tradition has begun to obscure the European origins of liberal modernity, questioning their future relevance. The concept “Western” itself originally denoted the difference between Constantinople, signifying the East, and Rome, representing the West, which generated a diffuse yet powerful notion of a civilization that empowered its citizens and excluded the so-called barbarians. The Latin version of Christianity provided not just a lingua franca but also a set of values that contrasted the Occident with the Muslim Orient. Subsequently, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment produced traits like scientific research, market competition, individualist endeavor, and the rule of law that came to be defined as “modern” in the designation of the last half millennium as “Modern Europe.” It is this combination of ideas, practices, and institutions that settlers brought along to new continents and imperialists imposed on conquered peoples.6 Because of the enormous suffering meted out in its name, this entire tradition has recently come under fundamental attack.
For almost a century, the notion of Western civilization described an understanding of historical development that justified capitalist democracy as irresistible progress. This perspective grew out of Columbia University’s turn-of-the-century decision to supplant the Latin requirement by a course in major writings that constituted the canon of a common heritage. During the First World War this concept of Western civilization was the ideological glue that held together the disparate coalition of the “Allied and Associated Powers,” ignoring the anomaly of tsarist Russia. In the United States, its role was to “convince farm boys from Iowa why they had to die at Chateau-Thierry” in order to defend the foundations of a shared value system. A selective reading of the European past, it celebrated the advancement of liberty in Britain and France as well as the artistic genius of Italy, but remained ambivalent about German-speaking Central Europe and ignored the Slavic East altogether. Nonetheless courses called Western Civilization became a general requirement for college freshmen, providing them with a sense of cultural identity.7
During the Cold War the idea of the West functioned as a counterpoint to the communist East and as a transatlantic bridge between the United States and Europe. The propaganda trope of the “free world” suggested a shared set of values such as democracy and capitalism, which were threatened by Bolshevik egalitarianism and Soviet expansionism. As a result, the security partnership of NATO was a grand bargain for the defense of the western lifestyle that offered American military protection in exchange for European political support. On the continent, Catholic leaders such as Adenauer, Schuman, and de Gasperi appealed to the grand heritage of the “Occident” or Abendland, ironically fusing Christian morality with U.S. consumerism. The common underpinning was an agreement on self-governing institutions, market economies, and intellectual freedom that seemed to be in danger. But with the fall of the Wall, the East has disappeared, thereby rendering a contrasting West superfluous. Since internal disagreements within the democratic camp now came to the fore, political scientists debated whether this signified “the end of the West.”8
In the postwar period the broader notion of westernization narrowed into Americanization, reflecting Europe’s loss of importance on a global scale. Initially, Europeans had spread nationally distinctive versions of modernity according to their respective “civilizing missions,” profoundly altering the lives of people around the world. But after World War II, the focus shifted to the contest of the superpowers, in which the democratic U.S. model competed with its dictatorial Soviet rival. Now American economic practice, consumption patterns, and popular culture reversed the tables and swept across the Old Continent by being more innovative in presentation, backed by superior power, and offering a more attractive lifestyle. Overshadowing the waning European influence during decolonization, it was Americanization that became the universal image of modernity around the world. Looking old-fashioned by comparison, Europe was shouldered aside, and compelled to decide which elements of the American way of life it would appropriate selectively in order not to fall behind.9
As a result of Washington’s increasing power and influence, anti-western criticism thereupon shifted from Europe to the United States as the primary target. According to global survey data assembled by the Pew Research Center in Washington, American exceptionalism was often misunderstood as arrogant ignorance abroad. With the Vietnam War, anti-imperialist protest shifted from Paris to Washington, opposing American support for military dictatorships. Owing to the prominence of U.S.-based multinational corporations it was all too easy for neo-Marxists to accuse America of economic exploitation. Among religious fundamentalists it was the secular and hedonistic lifestyle, propagated by Hollywood media that aroused most of the ire. The continued value gap between individual freedom and social solidarity as well as the difference between unilateralism and multilateralism spurred many European intellectuals to distance themselves from the United States.10 Ironically the rise of popular anti-Americanism lifted the burden of anti-imperialist complaints from Europe.
The intensification of globalization also led to the emergence of more global perspectives that supplanted the westernization paradigm. During the 1970s social scientists had started to explore the intensification of worldwide exchanges, and historians followed suit two decades later by probing transnational developments. The emerging global history was a product of postcolonial criticism by Third World intellectuals as well as of a realization among scholars in the former metropoles that many problems transcended the boundaries of nation-states. The new movement also responded to the increasing diversity of student populations in the United States, which called for an exploration of heritages from beyond Europe, integrating material from the African, Hispanic, and Asian pasts. Much of the work had an anti-imperialist undertone, blaming the West in general and the United States in particular for the problems of developing countries.11 Moreover, global studies self-consciously set out to reject the European modernization perspective in favor of the more equal approach of a circulation of ideas.
Although the cultural conflict with Islamic fundamentalism revived a bipolar view of the world, intellectual attempts to defend the Euro-American model of Western civilization have made only little headway. Conservative efforts to stem the tide of global history by retaining courses on Western Civilization or Great Books were merely able to persuade a few traditional liberal-arts colleges. Since Muslim extremists reviled a unified West as enemy, Samuel Huntington’s suggestive synthesis in The Clash of Civilizations tried to revive a similar dichotomy as analysis of the fault lines of world politics. But his injunction that “the survival of the West depends on Americans reaffirming their Western identity and Westerners accepting their civilization as unique not universal and uniting to renew and preserve it against challenges from non-Western societies” has provoked more criticism than approval. Even if one were to accept the importance of cultural motives in many conflicts, this analysis elides the tensions between the United States and Europe, assigning the latter only a subordinate role.12
The erosion of the cultural dominance of Western civilization has both been liberating and marginalizing for understanding Europe’s paradoxical impact. The distinction of a general process of modernization from a more particular westernization has opened up space for an appreciation of a plurality of modernities. The recognition of the power shift within the concept of the West from its European origin to its American adoption, propagation, and European reimportation has added a greater sense of complexity to the story. Moreover, the rejection of cultural Eurocentrism has made it possible to embed European developments in a broader global perspective. But these helpful changes have also created new problems: Some of the postcolonial authors reject the notion of modernization altogether without putting anything else in its place to explain the great transformation. In the debate about America’s leadership role, Europe has all but disappeared as an independent actor. And finally, the broadening of horizons runs the danger of cultural relativism by obscuring the continent’s crucial contributions to the Western heritage of universal values such as human rights.13
EUROPEAN MODEL
To many international visitors Europe may seem like a “cultural theme park,” as one commentator has rather pessimistically suggested. No doubt tourists from Asia are crowding the museums in capitals like Paris and Berlin in order to admire artistic masterpieces. Newly rich Russians visit the Riviera at Cannes, the spas of Baden-Baden, or the ski slopes of St. Moritz. Each summer American college students ride high-speed trains, admiring picturesque towns like Bruges, Siena, Stratford, or Rothenburg, while Allied veterans return to their former battlefields….14 But this selective perception is seriously misleading, since it misses the financial dynamism of London and Frankfurt, the gleaming car factories at Wolfsburg and Sochaux, the airplane plants at Toulouse and Hamburg, the container terminals of Rotterdam and Bremen. A broader perspective of Europe that includes the daring new buildings in Warsaw and Helsinki reveals that the flip side of the continent is strenuously modern, albeit in a different key. The distinctiveness of Europe consists therefore of its unique blend of tradition and modernity.
Though pressed by global competition, Europeans have developed a controlled version of the economy that is less speculative than American capitalism. While MBA-think has also made inroads, most European companies are less shareholder-value driven and are able to plan in longer time frames than U.S. corporations fixated on quarterly returns. Trade unions are stronger but labor discipline is high, as workers are often involved in management through codetermination arrangements. Companies tend to protect their skilled workforce in crises rather than continually downsizing for short-term gain. The establishment of the Common Market has helped firms like Siemens and Aventis to become global players, but the real innovation often comes from midsize companies, called Mittelstand in Germany, that take the lead in a particular product or application. Even in the IT sector some Europeans have been successful, like the Dutch giant Philips and the German software firm SAP.15 Though continental companies are more regulated than American competitors, the image of a hidebound Europe is a self-serving misconception.
Another European peculiarity is the extensive welfare state, which levies high taxes but also provides the benefit of a superior safety net. In contrast to Americans, by and large, Europeans favor government help in order to achieve solidarity and equality rather than counting on individual enterprise. These basic values have produced a social model that provides a cradle-to-grave protection against the vicissitudes of life with generous unemployment benefits and state-guaranteed old-age pensions. Though its implementation differs somewhat in various countries, health coverage is mandatory, leaving nobody uncovered. While in Britain the National Health Service is in principle free of charge, on the continent a mixture of state provision and private insurance prevails. Moreover, there is much less poverty in Europe than in the United States thanks to liberal redistribution programs that reduce the income gap between poor and rich. No doubt the costs in sales taxes and income taxes are onerous, but the benefits are also considerable. While some grumble about their contribution, most Europeans accept this levy since they are sure they will get something out of it.16
In a remarkable transformation Europeans have generally left the waging of war behind and moved to the forefront of promoting peace around the world. The endless military cemeteries on the continent demonstrate the enormity of death and destruction which has convinced Europe that war is pointless, even for the victor. The desire to overcome traditional hostilities, a key goal of the founders of the EU, still motivated more recent efforts to pacify the bellicose Balkans. As a result of the painful experience of warfare, which has touched every family in some way, many Europeans have been happy to hide behind the American nuclear umbrella, guaranteed by the NATO alliance, and have reduced their military spending to half of the U.S. level per person. Instead, individual states like Germany and the EU collectively have turned to “soft power” in order to promote their interests through international institutions, multilateral cooperation, financial contributions, and cultural influence. Deeply disagreeing with Washington strategists of Realpolitik, they are willing to offer forces only for peacekeeping and reconstruction.17
Funding for public provision rather than market response has produced an exemplary network of transportation and transit in Europe that supports individual mobility. While the automobile has also transformed movement with superhighways, Europe’s compact settlement pattern has prevented its complete ascendancy. Though railroads have reduced service to small towns, passenger-train travel has not only survived but prospered, with the fast TGVs and ICEs connecting cities more rapidly than car or airplane travel. At the same time European urban areas maintain a dense network of mass transit consisting of subways, regional rail, buses, and even streetcars, making almost any point accessible by public transportation. Of course, the costs have to be highly subsidized, with ticket prices reduced for students and pensioners, but the gain in environment-friendly mobility is considerable. In spite of the individual convenience of cars, their speed, emissions, and parking have been tightly restricted so as to keep the inner cities from choking.18 As a result sufficient space remains for bicycle lanes and sidewalks.
Even after their manifold destructions, European cities have remained more livable than their urban counterparts in America or Asia. Legal and administrative control over entire metropolitan areas has kept the tax base unified, preventing the deterioration of downtowns. Preservation of inner cities with half-timbered houses, cobblestoned streets, and public squares has mostly prevented the building of skyscrapers and retained residents in the center. Moreover, suburbs were originally designed for factories and workers, keeping the well-to-do closer to the urban core, and the tighter zoning restrictions have held the building of single-family homes on the outskirts to more manageable proportions. From Rome to Oslo, continental cities tend to have many trees, parks, and other green areas as breathing spaces. The survival of buildings from different epochs has created an interesting mixture of styles in private and public dwellings, blending apartments with shops, cafes, and offices. As a result, it is pleasant to stroll through pedestrian-friendly streets, look at shop windows, and encounter other people, all of which contributes to an interesting atmosphere of urbanity.19
As a consequence of their traumatic experiences Europeans have also developed a self-critical memory that has propelled their efforts at integration. While U.S. citizens are overwhelmingly proud of their country and Asians tend to be even more chauvinistic, less than half of the respondents in a European poll evinced similar levels of pride. Of course having to bear responsibility for the world wars and the Holocaust has engendered a profound self-questioning among most Germans. But other Europeans have also had enough problematic recollections regarding Nazi collaboration, imperialist domination, or racist exploitation to fuel a critical attitude toward their own past as well. While Russians still glory in their victory in the Great Patriotic War, the East Europeans are trying to cope with memories of Soviet repression. Instead of fostering hate, these painful remembrances have encouraged binational efforts at reconciliation between the French and Germans as well as Poles and Germans.20 In contrast to the visceral nationalism of many Americans, most Europeans have developed a critical attitude toward their own past that helps them get along in the present.
These characteristics suggest that Europe has generated a distinctive model of modernity that provides an alternative to the ascendant American and emerging Asian variants. Owing to their past experiences and resource constraints, Europeans are more optimistic about the role of the state, more concerned with social solidarity, and more supportive of ecological sustainability than their rivals. Prizing the intangible benefits from a public commitment, they are also more willing to fund culture by using taxes to support museums, symphony orchestras, and so on. Believing that there are tasks best not left to the vagaries of the market, they recognize education as a government responsibility that needs to be generally free of charge. Since only a minority tries to maximize individual gain, most Europeans are more concerned with improving the quality of life for the common good.21 This is not backwardness but the result of a different interpretation of shared Western values. It remains to be seen whether the unrestrained market of the United States, the catch-up development of China, or the social responsibility of Europe offers the best path into the future.
TRANSATLANTIC TENSIONS
With the disappearance of the external communist threat, relations between Europe and the United States have loosened and tensions multiplied. Even in the best of times the self-congratulatory professions of friendship in after-dinner speeches masked irritating policy disputes, though they helped to facilitate compromise. But after 9/11 commentators began to speak openly about the transatlantic “crisis and conflict,” predicting either the transformation or the breakup of the relationship. Public disagreements between George W. Bush and Jacques Chirac, and between Bush and Gerhard Schröder, reached such a level that they could no longer be seen as mere misunderstandings but were interpreted rather as an expression of more fundamental structural divergences.22 Clearly, the passing of the postwar generation of Atlanticists who had a personal, emotional stake in maintaining close ties between the Old Continent and the New World was one important factor. But the mutual disdain that led to the open rupture had deeper causes in the shifting roles of both partners as well as in a divergence of fundamental attitudes.
The gradual erosion of the transatlantic community has widened the Atlantic, leading to a dangerous alienation between Europe and America. Since the United States was primarily a product of European immigrants, bringing with them basic values of Christianity and the Enlightenment, the relationship was originally quite close. Moreover, the West Europeans were immensely grateful for twice being rescued from German domination by American troops, some of whom remained stationed on the continent, making the United States a “European power” after 1945. Ironically, Washington’s program of European recovery was so successful in reviving economies and spurring political integration that many Europeans began to take their protection in the Cold War for granted. Emboldened by the overthrow of communism, they wanted instead to escape transatlantic tutelage, since they increasingly disagreed with American neoliberalism and unilateralism. When U.S. neoconservatives aimed for imperial hegemony, many continental leaders balked at following their lead and chose to assert their independence.23
Angered by such ingratitude, conservative U.S. politicians and journalists engaged in an ugly wave of Europe-bashing by appealing to nativist prejudices. This frustration brought out a deep-seated ambivalence toward the “old country” that consisted of both a nostalgic longing for a lost home and a patronizing belief in American superiority. Casting the second Iraq War as a moral crusade for democracy meant that the “unwilling Europeans” had to be chastised as irresponsible and ridiculed as incompetent. The media had a field day in predicting “The Decline and Fall of Europe,” ignoring such homemade disasters as the savings-and-loan crisis, the dot-com bubble, and the financial meltdown. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld’s disparagement of the “old Europe” was woefully ignorant of the newness of European integration, while Robert Kagan’s celebration of military might inspired debates about the rise of a new “American empire.” Fortunately, populist calls for the boycott of French wines and cheeses were rather ineffective. But this outburst reinforced a stereotype of Europe “as weak, socialist, an object of pity” that infused Republican campaign propaganda.24
Predictably, continental politicians and journalists countered this anti-Europeanism with a similarly demagogic anti-Americanism. During the previous two centuries, Europeans had also held ambivalent feelings about the United States, admiring the New World as a land of freedom and opportunity while rejecting its capitalist greed and imperialist expansion. At the height of the Cold War older conservatives were grateful for Washington’s military protection but loathed Hollywood’s popular culture as crude and commercial. During the 1960s younger leftists adored the informality of the American lifestyle and the courage of the civil rights movement while rejecting the Vietnam War and the support of dictatorships. Especially among intellectuals, the invasion of Iraq brought out resentment against U.S. interventionism and unilateralism, inspiring Habermas’ critical essay. The disclosure of atrocities turned admiration of America into disdain, with polls showing a precipitous drop in appreciation.25 Going beyond criticism of a misguided policy, this wave of anti-American criticism fed permanent stereotypes that increased mutual distrust.
Behind this alienation lay an increasing divergence of orientations and values between political elites on both sides of the Atlantic that widened with the Reagan administration. Agreement persisted on most basic issues like support for democracy and human rights. But regarding their implementation differences increased between a U.S. libertarian, individualistic, market outlook and a more statist, collectivist, welfare mentality in Europe. In other indicators the contrast was even stronger. In the crucial area of the legitimacy of the use of force, continental countries abhorred war, since it had devastated their homes and families, while Americans considered it legitimate, as only a much smaller proportion had suffered and the twentieth-century conflicts had always taken place elsewhere. Moreover, the observance and influence of religion were much higher in the United States than in most European countries, which could be described as post-Christian societies. Differences in attitudes toward gun control, international institutions, gene-modified food, and climate change complicated the resolution of transatlantic disputes.26
Another reason was the European effort to develop a softer, but better, alternative to the American exercise of hard power. Since many Gaullists and leftists chafed under U.S. dominance of the international arena, they welcomed the Franco-German refusal to participate in the second Iraq War. Trying to provide an intellectual rationale, European commentators claimed that the Old Continent had developed a different approach to regional cooperation and international politics. Provocatively predicting that “Europe will run the 21st century,” a British journalist and consultant argued in 2005 that American military power was “shallow and narrow,” but European influence ran “broad and deep” because it did not rely on force but on persuasion. Such “transformative power” was more effective than force in spreading democratic institutions, human rights, and the market economy by leading through example. He forecast that a network approach would ultimately prevail in a globalized world of closer connections. Though overly sanguine about the end of military force, this perspective presented the EU as a more promising form of modernity.27
The recent retreat from claims of U.S. hegemony and European moral superiority has provided a chance for a more sober reassessment of the transatlantic relationship. The inconclusive war against terrorism suggested that simply substituting Islam for communism as the new threat did not provide sufficient motivation to hold the disparate sides together. Instead it would be more constructive to rediscover the commonality of basic values. Timothy Garton Ash correctly argued that “America and most of the diverse countries of Europe belong to a wider family of developed, liberal democracies. America is better in some ways, Europe in others.”28 At the same time it might be helpful to appreciate the strength of shared interests. In 2012 the United States and the EU, with about 10 percent of the world’s population, accounted for 40 percent of GNP and one-third of global trade, and their bilateral exchanges amounted to $646 billion. The suggested Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership would strengthen this material basis further. Both cultural affinity and economic self-interest indicate that the EU and the United States complement each other quite well.
Ultimately the transatlantic partnership will only work if both sides treat one another somewhat more as equals. American difficulties with winning the peace and extricating themselves from Iraq and Afghanistan have inspired a partial reduction of neoconservative hubris. Its pivot toward Asia notwithstanding, the Obama administration has been more open to multilateral approaches and international organizations than its predecessor, even if the Tea Party has kept tooting the nationalist horn. Meanwhile, Europeans have realized that some conflicts, like those in Libya and Syria, do need force in order to be resolved. They have also begun to understand that if they want to emancipate themselves from transatlantic tutelage, they have to take more responsibility for their own defense, although they need not rival the inflated American military expenditures. Though it is unlikely that their cooperation will once again become as close as during the height of the Cold War, the new aggressiveness of Putin’s Russia in Ukraine underscores the need for both partners to cease their bickering so as to rebalance the transatlantic relationship.29
GLOBAL ROLE
Owing to its bloody impact on the world, Europe continues to have a global responsibility for maintaining peace, nurturing democracy, and developing prosperity. While the appointment of Catherine Ashton as EU representative for foreign and security policy in 2009 has improved coordination, the national governments of the major states still make the key decisions. Within its own region, the EU’s priority has primarily been to pacify the Balkans, decide about Turkey’s membership, and establish friendly relations with its eastern neighbors such as Ukraine without alienating Russia. In regard to its former colonies, the lingering ties of language and expertise have created the challenge of contributing to their stability and economic development without perpetuating a pattern of dependency. Toward the Asian competitors, Europe has had to insist on fair trade, the observance of intellectual-property rights, and acceptable labor practices without using these concerns as instruments of protectionism. And toward the entire globe, the EU has needed to support international organizations and treaties so as to benefit the whole.30
After the end of the wars of Yugoslav secession, Brussels has used the leverage of prospective EU membership to help with the task of pacifying the Balkans. Since the entire region was considered to be part of Europe and many inhabitants wanted to join the West, the accession of Romania and Bulgaria went smoothly, even if they did not fully meet the criteria. Among the former Yugoslav states, Slovenia also rapidly democratized and developed, while it took Croatia longer to shed its authoritarian past and qualify for membership. The crucial country in the region is Serbia because of its size, economic power, and problematic past. After the victory of the democratic movement, Belgrade began negotiating for accession, reinforcing its positive transformation. The smaller countries such as Albania, Montenegro, and Macedonia appear viable only under the EU umbrella. The toughest problems continue to be Kosovo, since it needs Serbian recognition, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, because of ethnic irredentism.31 Solutions seem hard to find, but one can hope that the wealth and influence of the EU will prevail in the long run.
In spite of American pressure for Turkish membership, entry into the EU looks more complicated for cultural, political, and strategic reasons. Becoming accepted as part of Europe has long been a goal of secular and democratic Turks, but although negotiations were started in 2005, the recent Islamicization of the state has dampened that wish. Led by France and Germany, the European public has become more skeptical, worried about the accession of about seventy-four million Muslims, the unsolved Cyprus issue, the internal conflict with the Kurds, and the return to authoritarian patterns under Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The geostrategic advantage of Near Eastern location now turns into a disadvantage due to Turkey’s dangerous proximity to war-torn Syria, factionalized Iraq, and fundamentalist Iran. During the Arab Spring, Ankara has also started to find a new regional role as champion of a moderate Islamic modernization that promises to restore some of its Ottoman influence. As in the internally and externally contested case of Ukraine, a “privileged partnership” with the EU may turn out to be the best solution for both sides.32
Though competing with the United States and China, some European countries have maintained close relations to their former colonies. Often overlooked in the literature have been cultural ties based on the acceptance of English or French as the language of communication between indigenous groups speaking a welter of different tongues. While English has become the global lingua franca, appearing in diverse creoles through the addition of local idioms, the French have made strenuous efforts to maintain francophonie as a sphere of cultural influence. By subsidizing TV and radio broadcasts, distributing films and print media, and training journalists, Paris has maintained a bond of shared language and content. The educational connections also remained strong with African or Southeast Asian countries through fellowships in the metropoles, while Europeans received grants to do field research, which in turn created new networks.33 Not tarnished as much by a colonial past, the German Academic Exchange Service has been quite active in this area as well. In NGOs like Médecins Sans Frontières Europeans also play a central role.
The structure of trade between Europe and the former colonies has been controversial, since it has had a direct bearing on the success of development and the reduction of poverty. The preferential regime of the Lomé Convention in 1975, which linked the EU with a large number of African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries, was revised in Cotonou in 2000 in order to liberalize exchanges by signing Economic Partnership Agreements. While for the European countries imports and exports with the ACP states amounted only to a bit more than 5 percent, this trade was crucial for their partners, since the EU was their largest market and supplier. The developing countries complained about the restrictions on market access due to EU agricultural subsidies, while at the same time wanting to shelter their infant industries from competition. Moreover, their dependence on raw-material production made them subject to falling world-market prices. All efforts at subsequent renegotiations of the terms had little success, since the Europeans continue to dominate the asymmetrical arrangement.34
The economic relationships with Asian competitors such as China, Japan, India, or Korea were more contested because of the rapid rise in trade and the obstacles to fairness. China alone has become the EU’s second-largest trading partner, while the EU is the biggest market for Chinese products. Europeans bought mostly mass-produced consumer goods, whereas China imported machinery, cars, and aircraft. With most Asian countries the EU ran a trade deficit, since those countries purchased few services from the outside and informal restrictions made access to their markets difficult. Foreign direct investment was much smaller than in the United States, though it was rising rapidly. One area of conflict was the lack of observance of intellectual-property rights, as Asian competitors copied European products and sold imitations more cheaply. A second complaint concerned state subsidies by Asian countries, for instance in the manufacturing of solar panels, which facilitated market domination and drove European producers to ruin.35 But with wages rising and WTO rules hardening, there was some hope that trade would become more balanced in the future.
Behind the disagreements on trade lay a culture gap in the definition and importance of key values, which separated the EU from China and to a lesser degree from other Asian countries. While most political concepts had originated in Europe, the memory of colonial exploitation gave them a different meaning in Asia. In China national pride fed an emphasis on sovereignty and stability that the Europeans hoped they had overcome. Similarly, the European ideas of individual liberty and democracy have seemed disruptive of order and had at best to be introduced quite gradually. A special bone of contention was the European stress on human rights, which seemed to many Chinese a form of outside interference that violated their notions of collective consensus and party authority. These cultural differences also created an emphasis on national advancement instead of reciprocal partnership, and so justified an effort to catch up to the West by whatever means necessary. While the Japanese, Indians, and Koreans largely accepted liberal modernity, the Chinese were still searching for an authoritarian path to prosperity.36
After decolonization and the end of the Cold War, Europe was gradually developing a role in the world that sought to reconcile its own interests with common necessities. This approach differed from the hegemonic aspirations of the United States by putting a greater emphasis on soft rather than hard power, trusting international agreement rather than Realpolitik. It also diverged from the Asian project of national advancement by a decided preference for reciprocity, multilateralism, and international organization, with hope that reasoned discourse would eventually produce workable compromise. For instance, in combating global warming, Europeans were more ready than Americans or Asians to make binding agreements on CO2 emission reductions, even if they impinged on their lifestyle and slowed economic growth.37 With neither imperial designs nor nationalist objectives, they were relying less on military force than on leading by peaceful example.38 Compared to the brutal imperialism of the 1900s, this moderation has been a truly dramatic change within the last century.
CLOSER UNION?
If Europe wants to play a constructive role in world affairs, it first needs to put its own house in order by resolving a series of problems that have so far limited its potential. One central dispute involves the very character of the EU. On the one hand, British, Swedish, and Danish free traders want a flexible interpretation of the Treaties of Rome with the possibility to opt out of policies from which they cannot see direct benefits. On the other, the German, Benelux, and EU federalists want to progress toward “an ever closer union of the peoples of Europe.” While a withdrawal of Cyprus or even Greece would hardly be noticed, since they represent only a small fraction of EU GDP, a British exit would “be the most serious setback for the stability and security that the peoples of Western Europe have enjoyed since 1945.” The rise of Euroskepticism in the United Kingdom, fed by the chauvinism of the popular media, is dangerous, because Prime Minister David Cameron has promised a referendum to settle the issue by 2017.39 Given the increasing agitation of the UK Independence Party, the outcome of the vote remains in doubt.
A second area of concern has been the strengthening of the institutional structure of the EU so as to make it more efficient and democratic. After the French and Dutch referenda buried the constitutional project, the Treaty of Lisbon, in force since 2009, sought to provide moderate improvements while dropping the symbolic trappings of supranationalism. This agreement, ratified by all member countries, created a more visible president of the European Council of the heads of state, demonstrating the intergovernmental nature of the EU. Moreover it introduced qualified majority voting within the Council of Ministers for most treaty areas, overcoming the problem of national obstruction at last. It also increased the power of the European Parliament by beefing up the codecision procedure with the EU Council, which would give each body a veto right. Finally, the treaty made the European Union’s bill of rights legally binding. This effort succeeded in streamlining existing procedures and strengthening EU institutions, but it failed to provide the great leap forward that might have created a European superstate.40
Yet another serious problem has been the disagreement about a lasting solution to the sovereign debt crisis, which has threatened the euro as common currency. Emergency measures such as the promise of the European Central Bank to step in, if needed, have managed to calm the financial markets, reducing the inflated interest rates for the indebted countries to manageable levels. But the neoliberal austerity program has produced a stubborn recession that has pushed unemployment rates up to over 20 percent in some affected countries. Those Europeans who refuse to take responsibility for their own mistakes are blaming German chancellor Angela Merkel for their predicament, while some Euroskeptics call for the end of the euro as currency. In Ireland and Spain the reduction of unit labor costs and balancing the national budget have reignited growth, and even in Greece there are first signs of a recovery.41 But a long-term solution to the predicament requires a compromise between a banking union that shields taxpayers from speculation risks, a strengthening of fiscal oversight mechanisms of the EU, and some stimulus spending to end the recession.
The common foreign and security policy of the EU is another unfinished work, because this is the area in which the national sovereignty of the member states remains most pronounced. The European Union has contributed greatly to the democratic transition in the Mediterranean region and in Eastern Europe as well as to the pacification of the entire continent. Moreover, the Lisbon Treaty has provided new tools with the introduction of the high representative and the establishment of an External Action Service, a kind of diplomatic corps. But in this field the EU plays only a coordinating role, maximizing agreement between members rather than having exclusive or joint jurisdiction. This limitation is most evident in the area of defense, in which joint action is possible only by unanimous agreement. Moreover, owing to the preponderance of NATO, military means such as the multinational Eurocorps are rather limited in size and capability. While the EU has tried to develop a strategy toward its African, Mediterranean, and Near Eastern neighbors, realist skeptics continue to consider it a weak actor in its own right.42
In contrast to such unresolved problems, there are other areas in which European unity has been making substantial progress that augurs well for the future. Ever since the Single European Act, the EU has been working to facilitate the free flow of goods, finances, people, and finally also of services. While the prospect of a market of twenty-eight states with about five hundred million inhabitants with a high standard of living has attracted much investment, regulatory decisions by the EU commissioner for competition in removing indirect restraints on trade have also made an important contribution to creating a level playing field. The commission has repeatedly struck down government support for industries such as automobile manufacturers and abolished other restraints such as exclusive professional degrees in order to allow a free play in services. The benefits of increased competition in making companies more effective and lowering prices have been considerable.43 Moreover, the size of this trading bloc has enhanced its role in the IMF and WTO, leading the United States and Japan to try to conclude free-trade agreements with the EU.
Another positive development is the gradual emergence of a sense of European identity, especially among educated youths. Though citizenship is subsidiary to national affiliation, the EU has developed a common passport design. Moreover, the euro as common currency for currently nineteen nations has facilitated international travel by obviating the annoying need to exchange money. At the same time the Schengen Agreement has abolished internal borders among most European states, including Switzerland, eliminating lengthy delays while crossing frontiers. For the younger generation the Erasmus, Socrates, and Lifelong Learning programs have made it possible to study in another European country with financial support. Over twenty million students have taken advantage of this chance during the last two decades, widening their horizons to the entire continent in sometimes unpredictable ways, illustrated in the comedy L’auberge espagnole. The cumulative effect of individual and sponsored mobility has been the growth of a feeling of being Europeans, especially when traveling in the rest of the world.44
At the same time, there are indications that a European public sphere is gradually emerging, transcending the media’s focus on national news. Though involving popular voting, the lame pop-song contest called “Eurovision” has not contributed much. More important have been the soccer games of the European Champions League, since all leading teams want to play “in Europe” so as to gain additional prestige and revenue. In spite of the limited scope of some publishing projects like The European, the European content of television news on the continent has been increasing, since EU decisions are often controversial. Moreover, not just political parties but also interest groups have started to organize on a European level in order to influence policy debates and regulatory decisions in Brussels. The funding opportunities of European science programs have also begun to reorient academic applications toward the EU Commission offerings.45 Finally, as the joint initiative of Habermas and Derrida shows, a transnational conversation about European issues is slowly emerging among intellectuals.
In spite of a number of serious problems, the European project is therefore not moribund but rather very much alive. Neither the arrogant deprecations of “Euro wimps” by some Washington circles nor the federalist celebrations of the “superstate” of Europe are close to the mark. Well over half a century after the Treaties of Rome, the EU is still a work in progress, because it needs to find solutions for the pressing problems listed above. But doom-and-gloom predictions from neoliberal Anglo-Americans unwilling to understand the complexity of integration have also been proven wrong as often as they have been uttered. Though public enthusiasm has cooled considerably and corruption continues, Croatia has become the latest state to join the EU on July 1, 2013. Similarly, Latvia introduced the euro in January 2014, while Lithuania has followed at the beginning of 2015. These decisions are both a signal of the Baltic states’ orientation to the West and their firm belief that the sovereign debt crisis will be mastered.46 The project of a closer union moves frustratingly slowly, but it continues to make progress.
POSTMODERN POLITY
The institutional patchwork of the European Union frustrates analysts, politicians, and citizens who are striving for conceptual clarity. Jacques Delores, the prickly French president of the European Commission, therefore once quipped that the EU was “an unidentified political object.” Neither the Europhobe stress on a free-trade area nor the Europhile hope for the emergence of a United States of Europe sufficiently characterizes the emerging polity. Similarly, both the defenders of the nation-state who reduce the EU to a device for facilitating economic growth and the idealist federalists who consider the European institutions as a future federation are equally off the mark in their evaluations. It would therefore be more sensible to leave behind such emotional oversimplifications and acknowledge the paradoxical combination of supranational elements and intergovernmental practices as a shifting balance without a predictable outcome.47 In view of its inherent complexity and continuing evolution, the EU might, therefore, ironically be understood as a postmodern polity.
Undoubtedly the European Union is a postnational entity that has moved beyond the nation-state because of the limitations of that model in an age of postmodern globalization. The nation-state that developed in the nineteenth century was characterized by sovereignty over decisions, territoriality with well-defined borders, and military power for self-defense, while striving for linguistic as well as cultural homogeneity and gradually providing social services. Since the EU possesses hardly any of these attributes, realist expectations that it needs to develop into some kind of nation-state beyond the existing ones are likely to be disappointed. While the world wars have exposed the vulnerability of all but the largest countries, the economic, political, and cultural pressures of globalization are penetrating national borders. As a result of the postindustrial shift, the association between high industrialization and the nation-state has been broken, forcing leaders to find new ways to protect their citizens. In many ways the development of the EU has been a constructive reaction to the limitations of the nation-state by developing a new model beyond it.48
One way of explaining this complex structure might be the analogy of the medieval Holy Roman Empire, which offered a comprehensive umbrella above increasingly sovereign territorial states. Even if at first blush it might seem far-fetched, this perspective emphasizes the multitiered nature of authority, the multispeed commitment to further progress, and the multiethnic composition of the citizenry. Such an approach can deal with the subsidiarity of local, regional, national, and supranational power, explain the distinction between the eurozone of eighteen and the wider EU of twenty-eight members, and address the linguistic and cultural variety of constituencies that precludes uniformity. But such a premodern conceptualization also flies in the face of global postmodernity, and the EU possesses only sectoral sovereignty over the Common Market, having to share power in many crucial policy areas and playing only an advisory role in others. Seen from a more contemporary vantage point, the EU is therefore a novel hybrid, a contradictory mixture of modern and postmodern elements at the same time.49
In practice, the emerging Europe is a decentered but consensual community of states, regions, and citizens. Instead of a set of concentric circles with a fixed center and a periphery, the EU is a conglomeration of variable policy clusters. The Franco-German axis has been the core around which the Benelux and other countries such as Austria gather, although its balance has shifted from Paris to Berlin in recent years; the free traders around Britain form another cluster; the indebted Mediterranean states are another grouping; the East European newcomers such as Poland also share special concerns; and then there are the even more recent arrivals of the Balkan countries. The euro (or sovereign debt) crisis has revealed an elliptical structure, with decision foci in Berlin and Brussels that need to act in concert with each other while seeking to create consensus among the community’s members. Though as the largest country Germany finds itself thrust into a reluctant leadership role, it can only lead if it convinces the others that it is acting in the common interest.50 What is therefore emerging is a new intermediary level of domestic politics within Europe.
The postmodern nature of the EU as polity provides Europeans a chance to fashion unity from below, because its variable structure invites participation on different levels. Due to the diversity of languages and cultures, a common identity cannot be decreed from above; it rather has to emerge out of the strengthening of civil-society contacts. The sponsorship of youth exchanges creates a new horizon beyond the nation-state; city partnerships allow local politicians to understand the similarity of their problems; service-club contacts such as between the Lions Clubs of different countries create networks among business leaders; and finally transnational academic projects begin to address Europe as a whole. In short, the complicated institutional framework of the EU has created a space in which people can encounter one another and gradually develop a sense of being European. On the basis of such a lived experience institutional solutions are bound to follow. As German foreign minister Joschka Fischer said in his Berlin speech in 2000, the creation of the EU is a promising first step. Now Europeans must take the next one.51