Seeking the commonwealth of Europe -Jun 5, 2005

In the run-up to the French and Dutch European Union referenda old Europe’s political leaders, scenting defeat and craving victory, seemed in a bullishly apocalyptic mood.

French president Jacques Chirac said that a ‘no’ to the proposed EU constitution would mean “a rejection of the future”, while Luxembourg prime minister (and EU president) Jean-Claude Junker predicted it would be “a catastrophe” for the world.

Since then, in spite of behind-the-scenes backbiting about the “childishness” of electors in two of the EU’s founding states, pragmatism has reasserted itself. British prime minister Tony Blair has led calls for a diplomatic ‘period of reflection’.

Meanwhile the Nice Treaty remains operative, a leading Italian strategist has suggested ‘parachuting out’ key elements of the constitution, and in the corridors of Brussels and Strasbourg there is already talk of ‘a retrieval strategy’.

Ditching the constitution altogether will be difficult for the chief architects, and no-one wants the political stain of pronouncing its sad demise. But with the council of ministers, a new EU presidency and the G8 summit upcoming, there is time to bide.

The ‘non-nuclear’ option is for the planned referenda in the UK, Poland and the Czech Republic first to be postponed and then revived (or superseded by an alternative political gambit) rather than buried – unless someone blinks first.

The political mood-swinging among the EU’s fixers mirrors a problem they could not avoid – asking people for a yes/no verdict on a complex 66,000 word treaty drafted by 25 different states at a time of major transition and no underlying consensus.

But if voters who gave a certain Euro-vision ‘nul point’ at the polling booth think that the Anglo-Saxon market-led approach to European relations will simply go away, they are likely to be disappointed.

With France in hiatus, business wanting liberalisation, economic pressure from China and India, Turkish accession in doubt, Eastern Europe seeking investment, the US looking on and Germany about to elect a CDU government, anti-globalisation sentiments carry little weight with key decision-makers.

So if the British PM can resist his evangelistic zeal, sucker the punches of Euro-sceptics at home and preside over a ‘listening presidency’, other voices can make tougher free market policies palatable – that’s how Blair’s allies figure it.

Ex-Hong Kong governor, former EU commissioner and Tory moderniser Chris Patten spoke sagely for the pro-market patricians shortly after the French vote. He said that a revised presidency and voting system could still be extracted from the wreckage of the constitution.

As for market criteria, they remain built into the complex array of settlements that the politicians will have to iron out through a longer game plan than was previously hoped for, Patten pointed out.

So after periodic political earthquakes, it is still business as usual; that is the mandarin’s prescription. Crises are there to be talked out, but at the end of the day the key players have too much invested globally to let the EU reform agenda unravel.

Therefore if the Dutch and French referendum results are to be anything other than a hiccup for the onward march of mildly tempered EU neo-liberalism, more is needed than a nostalgia for security, the assertion of old sovereignties and fear of enlargement. But what, exactly?

In order to look forward it is important to recollect where the current European institutions have come from. Hope resides first in memory, then in boldness.

The project for a post-war zone of peace in Europe started half a century ago. Along the way it has achieved remarkable successes: the reduction of conflict, the shift towards East-West reunification, economic cooperation, gains in human rights, the birth of a single currency, and the end of dictatorships in Greece, Portugal and Spain.

What began as a common market created an economic community (EEC) and then a political community (EC). More recently it has morphed towards a union (EU). But there is no agreed perspective on what further integration would mean, and the growth of un-elected institutions has engineered a dangerous democratic deficit.

Moreover, in the absence of common political aims, the narrative of global economic liberalism, the weight of the old Franco-German steel and coal alliance, and the complex legal frameworks needed to facilitate change have reproduced their contradictions at the heart of the quest for integration.

These are the tensions that, together with the demands of accession states, led to the constitutional impasse the EU is now in. Given the dominance of the centre-right’s agenda and the state of the world economy, the outcome of the resulting clash between the forces of protection and marketisation will favour the latter.

Disengagement, internally or externally, makes no sense. Individual states left to bargain with the US, China, Japan and India on trade, energy, the environment, finance, security, arms, aid and global governance would easily be outmanoeuvred. And acceding to an economic reductionism based on sweatshop labour, unfettered consumerism and deregulation is not realism, it is a recipe for disintegration.

What is required now, therefore, is an alternative vision for Europe as a realistic commonwealth of nations openly engaged with an international agenda, committed to genuine civic debate, structured politically towards cooperation (rather than uniformity), and rooted in shared concepts of sustainability and welfare.

This renewed path would involve recognising that the gap between electors and elected in the EU cannot be bridged by making the choices even more unwieldy; it has to move in the direction of decision-making between electorally accountable parliaments.

Thus the gear change from a ‘union’ to a ‘commonwealth’: something resistant to nationalism, deeper than an umbrella market, wider than provincialism, transforming of nation states, and more flexible than a super-state.

Under such a model nationally elected parliamentarians might split responsibilities between their own assemblies and a pan-European one seeking to harmonise policies in conjunction with a council of ministers and an elected secretariat.

Alongside this could go the development of civic gatherings at different levels, utilising both public meeting and information technology to revive popular debate and lobby politicians.

It is not impossible to imagine how such arrangements could be developed partly out of recast and re-layered EU institutions. But it would also involve a more fundamental commitment to ongoing political reform.

Economically, the continued development of shared markets would not require uniform deregulation, but a common preparedness to live with different strategies through privately and publicly borne costs, effective regional policies, and loan-based pan-European investment in infrastructure.

Socially, what Will Hutton has called the ‘European way’ (welfare, minimum incomes, universal health and education, and the recognition of public and environmental interests) would be the basis for linking national policies.

Such a positive shift in the European idea requires both political mobilisation and civic space to generate alternative vision and structure. It cannot happen overnight. But then nor can a strategy to resolve the current EU impasse based on current premises.

The key to change is political will. Politicians with a communal and environmental vision (greens, lefts, social liberals and independents) need to think well beyond exiting party lines toward fresh forms of association and supra-market agendas. This requires rather more than saying ‘no’ to the status quo.

Within the civic arena churches and faith communities are among those who have a lot to offer to an emerging notion and practice of ‘common wealth’ in Europe. They have large pools of volunteers, buildings, local links, international relationships and diverse resources to invest.

Consider, for instance, the shared potential of social teaching in the Catholic Church, radical discipleship among Anabaptists, community action from Anglican and Free Churches, and the mobilising ability of agencies likes Christian Aid and Tear Fund.

Alternatives do not often fall from those at the top of the political tree, where room for radical change is most restricted. They develop at the grassroots and through mediating networks. In this way pressure can be brought to bear on the larger system. That is one lesson from the recent debt relief and trade justice movements.

So maybe the argument about Europe’s future also says that it is time for Christians to imagine an alternative ecumenical impetus not restricted to church structures and instruments, but based on a sense of mission alongside others who seek a quality of life and relationship beyond buying and selling; people with the courage to say ‘yes’ as well as ‘no’.

Simon Barrow (www.simonbarrow.net) is co-director of Ekklesia. His background is in journalism, adult education, politics and theology, and his weblog is: http://faithinsociety.blogspot.com