[lbo-talk] The Road to Nanosocialism

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Thu Sep 18 16:15:08 PDT 2003


dredmond at efn.org wrote:


>The EU is finally acting like the superpower it is.

Hmm. With 10 new members coming in, it's going to be even harder for the thing to act coherently. It looks to be tending towards a looser federal structure than a unified state.

I just interviewed this Siedentop fellow on the radio.

Doug

----

Financial Times - September 15, 2003

The future of Europe is Swedish By Larry Siedentop

The contrast between the referendum results in Sweden and Estonia this weekend is remarkable only at first glance. The outsiders want in, while the insiders want to keep a distance from the main project of the European Union: the euro.

Why should we be surprised? Behind the Swedish vote lay two very different motives - and neither could operate in Estonia in the same way. One Swedish motive was the defence of self-government against integrationist measures that might threaten it. Swedes were clear-headed enough to see that concern about self-government differs from nationalism. Of course Swedish identity came into the picture. But it entered not so much as chauvinism but as pride about the tradition of representative democracy in Sweden. The other powerful motive at work was dissent from the neo-liberalism associated with Brussels - that is, anxiety about the implications of ceding control not only of monetary but also of fiscal policy for the Swedish welfare state.

The latter motive is unlikely to be so powerful in a country that has only recently embraced a free market economy. The gains in that process are still far more obvious to Estonians than possible losses. But what about self-government? Is that not a motive the Estonians can appreciate as much as the Swedes? The answer is Yes and No. I have no doubt that the aspiration is there. But the form of its expression was bound to be different. For Estonia, emerging from the domination of the Soviet Union, must consider that membership of the EU is a necessary condition of securing self-government against possible threats from its powerful neighbour, Russia.

So the real question behind the weekend's results is about the future working of the EU. How will it be conceived by the people of different member states? What idea will they have of the Union? Here the contrast between Estonia and Sweden begins to weaken, if not disappear altogether. For it is clear to most observers that the new member states will be very assertive once the formalities of enlargement are over. We can expect an unapologetic defence of national interests, a suspicion of encroachments from Brussels and an intense dislike of what might be called lurking double standards in the EU. The sacrifices and changes that have been imposed on the applicant countries have made them keen students of the failures of the existing members to observe these standards.

That suspicion of double standards - closely joined to a determination not to become second-class members of the European club - has grown during the decade of preparation for enlargement. But it received a massive boost in the run-up to the Iraq campaign, when Jacques Chirac, the French president, berated the applicant countries for seeking an influence and a profile that their status did not warrant. It was as if the tutelle or tutorship that the French state has in the past applied to its own citizens was being extended to the rest of Europe.

A second ground for suspecting double standards in the EU is provided by the current struggle over applying the rules of the stability and growth pact. The sight of France treating those rules with contempt - and the unwise words of Jean-Pierre Raffarin, its prime minister, which suggested that France was not just another country - conjure up a vision of the Union that is anathema to the new member states. They will doubtless be applauding, even if only silently, the Netherlands' attempt to stand up to France and see the penalties applied.

Still another way in which the suspicion of double standards has been reinforced stems from the recent assertion by a number of leading intellectuals of a European identity and values that contrast sharply with those of the US. That assertion has not been entirely free of a sub-text - namely, that perhaps only the original core group of EU members can be relied on to articulate and promote that identity and those values. In that way, a line of argument at first directed against the US could almost be seen as turning against an enlarged EU, as being ideologically unreliable. Convinced that the US has historically been the more reliable defender of liberal democracy, the new member states will be hard to persuade otherwise, especially if they feel consigned to second-class status.

In consequence, the view of the proper workings of the EU emerging in the new member states will probably be quite close to that of the majority of Swedes. It will be a pluralist vision rather than a unitary one, a preference for something more like a confederation than a federation. For behind the quasi-federalist form projected for Europe that is promoted, at least intermittently, by France, such countries detect a wish to give the EU some of the attributes of a unitary state. Their contribution could decisively shift the balance of the debate away from that particular vision.

The writer is a fellow of Keble College, Oxford



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