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THE ROVING
EYE
Europe's disaster
movie
By Pepe Escobar
How to deliver Europe back to its
citizens? This may be the crucial question to be
answered after the double blow of founding fathers
France and the Netherlands rejecting the European
constitution.
Dutch voters said "nee" by
61.6% to 38.4%. Both the turnout and the margin of
victory were much higher than opinion polls had
predicted. As a Dutch diplomat put it, "We used to
like Europe when we were only six - not 25."
France voted largely against the Anglo-Saxon model
of unbridled neo-liberalism; but not the Dutch,
who have greatly profited from globalization
(exports account for 54% of gross national
product).
However, much as in France,
refusing the constitution accommodated a vast
array of different "nos": against too much
capitalism (the extreme left), against the loss of
national identity (the orthodox protestant party),
against Turkey and immigration (assorted
populists), against the euro pushing prices up,
against the Dutch guilder being devalued vis-a-vis
the euro, against unemployment, against European
enlargement (Brussels costs the Dutch 180 euros
per capita annually, the highest cut in the
European Union), and most of all, against the
political establishment. Talk about an
"information deficit".
Statistics reveal
that only 4% of Dutch voters said they were
influenced by the French "non". This means that
the constitution has been rejected in these two EU
founding members by both sides of the spectrum -
from federalists to Atlanticists. No wonder
Europe's political elites are now immersed in a
deep, existential funk. This monumental crisis may
spell catharsis or catastrophe. It all hinges on
political will.
The status quo
revolutionaries
Europe's disaster movie at
least is generating an all-out hyperinflation of
European debate - from Englishmen praising people
power, EU-style, to Turks and Portuguese blaming a
bunch of overprivileged fops afraid of the future,
from Spaniards perplexed by France's flirt with
the abyss to hopeful Swedes proposing a new start
to get a new text, from the Swiss deriding "status
quo revolutionaries" to Polish right-wingers
screaming that Polish identity as well may be
lost. Even the Argentinian daily Clarin worries
that the "no" will have serious consequences for
other regional integrations, including Mercosur,
South America's smaller EU-like cousin.
The mood in Brussels is not all somber. A
Polish diplomat is openly telling his peers, "I'm
proud that 150 Polish plumbers have managed to
scare 60 million Frenchmen: what a sign of lack of
self-confidence." A high-level European Commission
official told Asia Times Online, "France's loss of
leadership will logically profit Great Britain,
which will take the EU's presidency on July 1 with
a reform program based on deregulation and
flexibility of job markets. France may try to
oppose it, but it will be in the minority, and not
too credible." It's what French daily Liberation
has dubbed "Plan B(lair)."
The official
adds this will be "cruel and tragic for those who
have voted 'non' - some are really sincere -
because the neo-liberal turning of the screws will
be terrible". A more "social" Europe seems to be
doomed: a French diplomat says, "This is when we
will see to which extent we shot ourselves in the
foot. Social Europe is even more affected than any
other policy. The dynamic of national egos is back
in place."
Other EU diplomats stress how
the new French prime minister - the aristocratic,
poet/philosopher/ultimate insider Dominique de
Villepin - could not but be "a joke", an
aristocrat playing left-winger at the Council of
Ministers in Brussels: "De Villepin is hated in
London. The British will make him pay for his
opposition to the war in Iraq, and will make a
scarecrow of 'old Europe'." On a separate, crucial
development, it's been decided - without a debate
- that there will be no more structural funds to
help the new members of Eastern Europe - something
that the extreme left "non" in France was
stridently advocating.
Amid all the gloom
and doom, European diplomats and officials are
trying their best to come up with escape routes
until 2010. So far, some decisions have been
reached. "No ambitious reconstruction initiatives
for the next two years, because the right
political conditions are not there"; some sort of
institutional "collage" to keep Europe running;
and an inter-government conference in 2007 to
maybe arrive at a new treaty by 2010, "where we
will be re-served the worst while the best, the
values of the union and the social charter, will
be left in the background".
The dark
side of the force
An EU diplomat tries to
sum it all up in one sound bite: "We're in outer
space...the dark side of the force has won."
A collective text circulating frantically
in Brussels since Monday points out, "Europe so
far has been the ideal alibi for governments,
whatever their political colors, to endorse
certain 'unsaleable' responsibilities in front of
public opinion." The European utopia may be alive
in Brussels, but in individual European countries
the name of the game seems to be indifference - if
not outright rage.
The text outlines some
key concepts: "courage"; "humanism"; looking
beyond nationalist cultures; "fraternity"; the
European adventure of a "unique community, a model
in many aspects to other continents". Could it be
that the double French-Dutch "no" will lead to
people finally being consulted about their dream
of Europe - in the cleansing ritual of a
pan-European debate?
Or maybe the truth is
simpler, and infinitely more brutal: the dream of
a politically united Europe - a salutary
counterpower to the US superpower - has been lost
because there are no more visionaries to sell it
to their own citizens.
(Copyright 2005
Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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