Quotes of the Day
Patrie. Homeland. Vaterland. Fosterlandet. It's a powerful and often vexing concept in any language, let alone in the 11 now spoken in the European Union — or the 20-plus that will be spoken here after the E.U. expands next May. Even so, true believers have long dreamed that all of Europe would one day become a single homeland. That sweet dream took some more hard knocks last week.
First the Swedes — a reasonable people famously in favor of solidarity — resoundingly rejected the euro, which many see as the political and economic linchpin of a European homeland. That blow came as the week began. By the time it ended, Britain, France and Germany had failed to agree on a timetable for handing over authority in Iraq. And France and Germany had stoked anger among smaller states by again thumbing their noses at E.U. rules designed to keep state spending in line. In the shadow of the Swedish euro vote, the prospects for coming referendums on the controversial new E.U. constitution — which at least six countries could put to the vote — seemed to darken. If a single country votes no, the new constitution is dead.
As the E.U. pursues closer integration, its member states are lining up on either side of two great divides. The first is the euro; after the new members join next May, there will be 12 countries inside the zone and 13 outside. Though the new members are obliged to join the euro zone eventually, no specific deadline is set, and the process could take a very long time. The second division is between "old" and "new" Europe, those countries that mostly support the U.S. and those that mostly don't. But although familiar wails emanate from certain quarters every time there's another setback for European unity, economic and political oneness isn't always possible — or desirable. Europe can survive and thrive with euroskeptics in the house. And if the Continent can't forge an identity without first agreeing on a common foreign policy, then it may never learn its true name.
Like any battered family, Europe has learned how to hide behind half-truth and euphemism. It's a crucial survival skill. On Saturday Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Tony Blair — in Berlin for their first meeting since Europe's dramatic split earlier this year over the war in Iraq — tried to present a common front, but didn't quite pull it off. "We all want to see a stable Iraq," said Blair, struggling to put the best face on things. "We all know there must be a key role for the United Nations." Chirac was more blunt. "We don't entirely agree on the means or the timetable," he said. Schröder chimed in: "There are differences." France and Germany have offered to help train Iraqi police at facilities outside Iraq, but both want power handed over quickly to the Iraqis; Blair agrees with the U.S. that the transfer can't be rushed. And he backs the U.S.-drafted resolution now before the Security Council that calls on countries to send financial and military aid to Iraq, but leaves the U.S. in charge. And it's not only governments that are still divided. A new Time/cnn poll found that almost 60% of Britons think German and French troops should go to Iraq (where the U.K. already has 12,000 soldiers) if a U.N. resolution authorizes it; 70% of French and 82% of Germans are against any such deployment.
It's all enough to drive advocates of a common European homeland to despair. The week's events seemed to limn perfectly the need for an almost impossibly supple concept of the Continent's future, in which clusters of E.U. states steam toward closer integration while others lag stubbornly behind. That kind of "multispeed Europe" has always been anathema to those who thought Europe should be more than an "à la carte" menu that lets members do as much or little as they liked. But it may turn out that Europe's refusal to march in lockstep toward union is a good thing after all. A divided Europe is both helping the U.S. in Iraq (New Europe) and prodding the U.S. toward greater international cooperation (Old Europe). It isn't easy, but a united Europe would have an even harder time getting both things done.
Even so, an eerie sense of déjà vu marks the aftermath of the Berlin Summit. With a new wave of anti-French anger rising in the U.S., Chirac and Schröder are preparing for private meetings in New York this week with George W. Bush. Reports from Washington suggest that the Bush Administration still hopes to bust up the Franco-German entente by pulling the Germans aboard and isolating the French. But analysts in both countries say that may be beyond the reach of Bush's team. "The German political class wants nothing more than a reasonable partner in the U.S.A.," says Henrik Uterwedde, deputy director of the German-French Institute in Ludwigsburg. "But an attempt to separate them from the French is bound to backfire; they need each other too much."
While German aides say that Schröder would like to play an honest broker role between Chirac and Bush — one that Blair can no longer pull off — he would never risk a public break with a France that has become Germany's battered twin not only in the Iraq debate, but in many other controversies in Europe as well. Chirac has muted his position somewhat on Iraq, and no one is talking about a French veto this time. In Berlin, the French President spoke of a transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqi people "within a few months"; a mere week before, his excitable Foreign Minister, Dominique de Villepin, had demanded it "within a month." But that doesn't mean France is ready to fold, and with the German population as critical of U.S. actions in Iraq as the French, Schröder is not likely to switch from old to new Europe now; Blair knows it, and Bush should, too.
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But the euro isn't to blame for Continental stagnation; the parlous finances and lack of reform in Germany, France and Italy are. "We are a small, orderly country that plays by the rules," says Olof Ruin, a Stockholm political scientist, "and there was skepticism over France and Germany's failure to abide by the rules." The absence of Sweden's 9 million people will hardly be noticed by the 300 million who currently use the euro. "It's now clear that the euro is not for everyone," says Holger Schmieding, Europe economist at Bank of America in London. And what's wrong with that? If Swedes see interest rates rise and investment and competitiveness fall as a result of staying out, then they can have another referendum and join later — or stay out and pay the price. Either way, the euro goes on. And so, of course, does Europe.
There is a rich irony in the fact that the French government seems to be as opposed to Brussels' dictates as the Swedes, at least when it comes to economics. Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin scorned the European Commission's warnings about his country's disdain for the E.U.'s 3% cap on budget deficits. Earlier this month Raffarin said his duty was to France and not to the E.U.'s "mathematics." At least the French and Germans have each other. Most of the French government flew to Berlin for a joint cabinet meeting on Thursday, and they had a warm reception. The same cannot be said for the main outcome of their meeting: a "growth initiative" to funnel investment into big European infrastructure projects, like linking France's high-speed train system with Germany's; spending more money on the E.U.'s Galileo global positioning system; and investing in cleaner automobiles. "I don't think governments are very good at picking winners," says Dirk Schumacher, German economist at Goldman Sachs in Frankfurt. "We do need infrastructure, but they shouldn't use this as an opportunity to steer the business cycle. In the past it hasn't worked, and I don't see why it should now."
Further complications will arise next week, as representatives from all 25 member states begin formal discussions on the new constitution. It took 16 months of negotiating and the patriarchal hand of former French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing to arrive at the current draft's delicate power balance between the member states and the Brussels institutions. Many smaller countries are deeply unhappy about the draft's limit on the number of full-fledged Commissioners, which would leave some countries without a vote in the main executive body of the E.U. The French and Germans would like to see social and labor matters given greater prominence, while the British remain suspicious. London will take particular care to assure that the mutual defense clause in the constitution doesn't compete with NATO obligations. "One messy horse-trading session" is the prediction of one British official.
It will help no one if it gets too messy. The point of the exercise, after all, isn't just to streamline the treaties and clarify the roles of various E.U. institutions. It is also meant to breathe a spirit of shared purpose into the project of European integration. Voters will only feel further alienated from the E.U. if the intergovernmental talks drift too far off into the arcane and remote.
As the Swedes showed last week, many Europeans aren't disposed to take the recommendations of their governments as gospel. They've got to be sure that a European constitution gives them room for their own aspirations. "Up until now all these referenda had no real cost against you for saying no," says John Palmer, political director of the European Policy Centre in Brussels. "This round over the constitution will be different: it's put up or shut up." The advocates of integration better make sure they have a big tent.
- JAMES GRAFF | Paris
- Tony Blair's summit meeting with Gerhard Schröder and Jacques Chirac shows Europe is as divided as ever. But that's not all bad ...