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Why should we get excited about such a lacklustre topic as the future of Europe?
My answer is: if we are not able to hold a Europe-wide referendum
before the next European elections in 2009 on the shape Europe should
take, the future of the Union will be decided in favour of neo-liberal orthodoxy.
Avoiding this touchy issue for the sake of a convenient peace and
muddling along the well-trodden path of compromise will give free reign
to the dynamic of unbridled market forces. This would force us to watch
as the European Union's current political power is dismantled in favour
of a diffuse European free-trade zone. For the first time in
the process of European unification, we face the danger of regressing
to a level of integration below what has already been achieved. What
irks me is the paralytic numbness that has set in after the failure of
the constitutional referenda in France and the Netherlands. Not taking
a decision in this context amounts to a decision with major
consequences.
Three pressing problems are bundled together in the single issue of Europe's inability to act:
(1)
The international economic situation has changed in the wake of
globalisation. Today's conditions deprive the national state of the tax
resources it needs to satisfy its population's demands for collective
goods and public services, or even to maintain the status quo. Further
challenges, such as demographic developments and increased immigration,
only aggravate the situation. Here the only defence is offence:
winning back political clout on a supra-national level. Without
convergent tax rates and medium-term harmonisation of economic and
social-policies, we are in effect relinquishing our hold over the
European social model.
(2) The return to ruthless hegemonic
power politics, the clash of the West and the Islamic world, the decay
of state structures in other parts of the world, the long-term social
consequences of colonialism and the immediate political consequences of
failed de-colonisation – all of this points to a high-risk international situation.
Only a European Union capable of acting on the world stage - and taking
its place beside the USA, China, India and Japan - can press for an
alternative to the ruling Washington consensus in the world's
economic institutions. Only such a Europe can advance the long overdue
reforms within the UN which are both blocked by and dependent on the
USA.
(3) One cause for the rift in the West that has become apparent since the Iraq war is the clash of cultures
that now divides America itself into two camps of almost equal size.
This clash has also caused a shift in the hitherto valid normative
standards of government policy. America's closest allies
cannot remain indifferent here. It is precisely in critical cases of
joint action that we must break free of our dependence on our superior
partner. That is one more reason why the European Union needs its own armed forces. Until now Europeans have been subordinated to the dictates and regulations of the American high command
in NATO deployments. The time has come for us to attain a position
where even in a joint military deployment we still remain true to our
own conceptions of human rights, the ban on torture and wartime criminal law.
For these reasons, I believe Europe must pluck up the courage to introduce reforms which will give it not only effective decision-making procedures, but also its own foreign minister, a directly-elected president
and its own financial basis. These could be the subject of a referendum
held concurrently with the next European parliamentary elections. The
draft would be considered passed if it received the 'double majority'
of votes of the states and the electorate. At the same time, the
referendum would only bind the member states in which a majority had
voted in favour. Europe would then move away from the convoy model
where the tempo is set by the slowest member. Even in a Europe made up
of core and periphery, countries preferring to remain on the periphery retain the option of rejoining the core at any time.
These ideas dovetail with those of the Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, who has recently published a manifesto for the "United States of Europe."
*
The full version of this speech originally appeared in German in Der Standard on March 10 and March 11, 2006.
Jürgen Habermas,
born in 1929, is one of Germany's foremost intellectual figures. A
philosopher and sociologist, he is professor emeritus at the Johann
Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt and the leading representative
of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. His works include
"Legitimation Crisis", "Knowledge and Human Interests", "Theory of
Communicative Action" and "The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity".
Translation: jab.
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