Europe’s Civil War
The
great schism that could pull the EU apart
Europe is once again divided –
this time between liberalism’s defenders in the west and north, and states in
the south and east who increasingly reject it.
By Timothy Less | New Statesman |17 October 2018
A contest is
under way for the future of Europe and the battle lines have been drawn. From
the east, Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, is spearheading a popular
revolt against the EU’s ancien régime. And
in the west, France’s Emmanuel Macron is leading its defence. Ahead of next
year’s European Parliament elections, the Hungarian has thrown down the
gauntlet to his rival, who has responded in kind. “If they want to see me as
their main opponent, they’re right,” Macron said in August.
This is an
ideological war about the true nature of Europe. In one camp are the defenders
of the old liberal order, who see themselves as the bearers of Europe’s
Enlightenment legacy – its commitment to democracy, the rule of law, liberty
and rights, rational enquiry, cosmopolitanism, the open society and economic
freedom. They pride themselves in having successfully faced down the forces of
prejudice, superstition and nationalist fervour, presiding over an
unprecedented period of stability, freedom and prosperity since the end of the
Second World War.
In the other
camp are the challengers to the liberal order who claim to embody the “true
Europe” – its Christian inheritance, its mosaic of national identities and the
traditional family structure on which the continent’s society is built. From
their perspective, liberals are destroying Europe with their promotion of
alternative lifestyles, their attack on the nation state, and their suppression
of liberty by an authoritarian bureaucracy and a stifling culture of political
correctness.
Crucially,
this ideological fault line is also geographical, dividing the EU’s core in
northern and western Europe from its periphery in the south and the east. This
division emerged at the start of the decade when Hungary, reeling from the
impact of the financial crisis, elected the charismatic Orbán, leader of
Fidesz, for his second stint as prime minister on a manifesto to correct the
defects in an imported liberalism and restore stability.
In a flurry
of activity, he brought strategic sectors of the Hungarian economy, such as
banking, energy, utilities and food production, back under national control. He
created new laws to protect and promote the family. And Orbán has repeatedly
changed the constitution, enshrining the pre-eminence of the Hungarian nation,
while effectively barring immigration from outside the EU.
Subsequently,
almost every state in eastern Europe has adopted a form of Orbánism, which fits
better with its social needs and traditions than the alien doctrine of liberalism,
imposed by outsiders in the 1990s.
Notionally,
the governments in Slovakia, and Romania are left-wing, Poland is pursuing a
21st-century form of Catholic-infused Christian democracy and the prime
minister of the Czech Republic is a maverick businessman. But the differences
are secondary to what they have in common. Across the region, a discredited
form of liberalism is in rapid decline and a form of popular national
conservatism based on family, faith and flag is the dominant mode of
government. From here, the new politics is spreading to the adjacent states of
Austria and Italy, on the back of a refugee and migrant crisis.
This
situation contrasts starkly with the state of politics in the north and west of
Europe – France, Germany, Benelux, Ireland and Scandinavia – where liberal
parties have successfully held on to power. Unsurprisingly, liberalism has
greater support in the region where it was incubated and whose needs it was
designed to meet.
This is not
to suggest that everyone in “core” Europe endorses the liberal status quo. On
the contrary, its demos is divided between defenders and challengers, just as
the south and east are also internally divided. But the numbers matter. In the
rich and urbanised north and west of Europe, adherents of liberalism still
constitute a majority; in the poorer and more rural south and east,
rejectionists do, and this has consequences at election time. Where once
Europeans were separated by faith, empire and superpower rivalry, they are now
split by ideology. Europe is once again divided in half.
****
Belatedly,
the battleground for this conflict has become the European Union, the
continent’s central authority, which sets the ground rules for its members and
determines what constitutes the true Europe. This was not always the case.
Prior to the financial crisis, eastern and southern Europe were happy to abide
by the liberal precepts on which the EU was founded – its promotion of open
trade and investment, the free movement of peoples across borders and the
dilution of national sovereignty. Although liberalism was an untested novelty
in the old eastern bloc, its promise of good government and prosperity was
eminently preferable to a Soviet-imposed socialism.
Even after
the onset of the financial crisis and the start of the Orbánist backlash, the
EU was marginal to the drama. Aside from some grumbling by MEPs about
democratic backsliding, the EU largely ignored the political transformation
taking place in countries such as Hungary and Slovakia.
Not only was
the bloc distracted by the need to deal with the eurozone crisis, but its
officials were slow to realise that countries that had long been paragons of
compliance were now in open rebellion – even more so since Orbán and his
supporters consistently expressed their support for European integration. For
as long as the EU left Hungary and others alone, they were content to do
likewise, and a facade of unity was maintained.
The turning
point came mid-decade following the EU’s tortuous stand-off with Greece; the
migrant crisis and the subsequent breakdown of the Schengen arrangements; the
election of the Law and Justice party in Poland in 2015; and the Brexit vote in
2016. Many at the heart of the European project acknowledged the risk of the EU
collapsing. However, with the election of Macron, and a return to economic
growth to buoy their spirits, the EU’s establishment belatedly embarked on an
effort to reverse the decline.
On the one
hand, the attempt at revival involved a bold new phase of liberal integration
that would make a success of the EU’s existing projects, especially the
eurozone. France and Germany initiated a European military capability (PESCO)
and the Commission took steps to demonstrate the EU’s relevance by cracking
down on tax avoidance by American multinationals. On the other, revival meant
disciplining those states that had openly defied the EU’s ideological
foundations.
The European
establishment’s weapon of choice has been the EU’s “Article 7”, a procedure
which, taken to its conclusion, can see a malfeasant state suspended from the
Council of Ministers, the key decision-making body. Last year, the European
Commission triggered this procedure against Poland for what it described as a
“serious breach” of the rule of law after moves by the Polish government to
change the composition and functioning of its judiciary.
In September
this year, the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to trigger the same
procedure against Hungary for what it called a “systemic threat” to the EU’s
fundamental principles. The two states dispute the charges against them as
politically motivated. The EU would deny that. But in the debate that preceded
the vote against Hungary, the veteran federalist Guy Verhofstadt hinted at the
real motives at work by accusing Hungary’s leader of being “the seed of discord
that will ultimately destroy our European project”.
In the
background to this, threats have been made to link the huge subsidies the EU
sends to the east each year to adherence to the “rule of law”. The French
foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian recently said that France “does not want to
finance a populist Europe”.
At the start
of October, in the same week that its government held a referendum directed
against gay marriage, the European parliament threatened to act against Romania
for a series of reforms to its judiciary. In his assessment to the Council of
Ministers, Frans Timmermans, vice president of the European Commission,
threatened to be “brutal”.
And after
months of insults and provocations, Italy too is finally being brought to heel
as the Commission threatens for the first time to reject a member state’s
spending plans, for breaching the EU’s Stability and Growth Pact.
Unsurprisingly,
pressure from Brussels has galvanised the rebels who refuse to submit to the
EU’s authority – not least because their own electorates would punish them
severely for it.
Instead,
Orbán has been marshalling his forces. After shoring up his position at home in
an election in April that delivered him a parliamentary supermajority, he is
building a regional coalition opposed to the EU’s liberal prescriptions.
His alliance
extends from Warsaw to Rome, via the Christian Social Union in Munich, and is
backed by powerful external allies such as Russia and Turkey.
****
The next showdown will be the
European elections in May 2019, in which anti-liberal parties are expected to do well, changing the
complexion of the European Parliament. This could be decisive in shaping the
new Commission which, Orbán hopes, will be decidedly less communautaire in its approach to its work,
allowing a revival of inter-governmentalism and ideological diversity at the
domestic level. As Orbán rallies his allies, he has predicted “only two
winners” in the election – himself and Macron – and that he, Orbán, will
achieve the ultimate victory.
That is mere
fighting talk, because nothing is certain. On the contrary, as the conflict
between Europe’s two halves escalates, its future becomes ever more opaque.
Perhaps the rejectionists will do well in the elections and Orbán’s rebel army
will make a push to transform the EU into a looser union of independent nation
states, bound together by trade and a common desire for security.
But the
immediate problem they will face is the continued presence of liberal
government in western Europe, and especially France and Germany, which will
veto any kind of systemic transformation of the EU away from liberalism. Beyond
that, there is the problem of the eurozone and, specifically, the question of
how to adapt an institution designed as an irreversible stepping stone to a
political union.
There are
two possibilities, neither viable. One is for its members to continue using the
currency while simultaneously reasserting national control over fiscal (and
monetary) policy, as Italy is now doing. However, it is hard to see how the
eurozone could survive the stresses and strains, and the corresponding loss of
market confidence, that this implies. The other is a negotiated dismantling of
the monetary union, allowing an orderly pathway out for those states whose
national interest compels them to leave. But that is no panacea. The exiting
states could well find themselves in precarious economic circumstances, with
capital flight, a weakling currency, an inherited pile of euro-denominated debt
and sky-high premiums for borrowing. When confronted by this reality in 2015,
Greece recoiled.
Hungarys’s Viktor Orbán describes next year’s European elections as a
battle with Macron
****
If the
rebels fail to take the citadel, then perhaps the European establishment can
suppress their insurrection by resolving the underlying problems that have
fuelled the challenge to the system. This would require the securing of Europe’s
frontiers and establishing Macron’s desired fiscal union, which is really the
only viable remedy for the shaky monetary union. In the course of time,
southern and eastern Europe would return liberal governments to power,
restoring the order that prevailed until last decade.
But how
likely is this? Amid a continued threat from migration, discontent with
neoliberal economics and ham-fisted attempts by the EU’s establishment to
impose its authority, rejectionist politics is spreading across the region.
Crucially, it is also gaining ground in western Europe, where mainstream
parties are having to adapt their programmes in order to stay in power, most
recently in Sweden.
At the same
time, after a decade of indecision, there is little prospect of Europeans
agreeing the kinds of measures that might make a success of the eurozone – even
less so as solidarity wanes. So, a return to business as usual is unlikely.
If neither
establishment nor rejectionist governments can establish their vision of
Europe, then the EU faces the prospect of stalemate and then retreat. This is,
in fact, its present reality as the EU struggles to reach agreement in any
major area of policy – the latest failure being the rejection of a strengthened
external border force.
Meanwhile,
rebel national governments are reasserting their sovereignty in areas of policy
vital to their national interest – unilaterally curbing immigration, ignoring
spending limits, restoring relations with Russia, and so on.
If the EU
proceeds in this direction, it will eventually come to resemble a kind of United Nations for Europe, in which its
member states discuss their concerns and cooperate when it suits them, while
the real politics takes place at the national level. An optimist might argue
that would not be so bad as the enduring idea of pan-European unity adapted
itself to the conditions of the 2020s.
The problem,
however, is that a loosening of the EU by neglect – effectively a victory for
the rejectionists – is intolerable to the EU’s establishment.
****
So there is
another possibility: that the EU splits. The basic problem the European
establishment has with its south-eastern periphery is the opposite of the
problem it has had with the UK – that wayward states such as Hungary and Italy
refuse to leave and insist on changing the system from within. This leaves two
options. Either the core must secede and establish an EU 2.0, comprised of
states that endorse its liberal precepts. Or it must expel the EU’s most unruly
members, starting with Hungary.
In the
context of recent events, this would be less a change of policy than a
continuation of an existing process. By triggering Article 7, the EU’s
institutions have already set Poland and Hungary on a glide-path to departure,
and Luxembourg explicitly called for Hungary’s expulsion in September 2016.
With other wayward states such as Italy, Romania, Malta and Cyprus similarly
out of favour, the outcome would be a reversion to the original concept of the
European project – a union comprised of a handful of like-minded,
geographically proximate states, at the core of which are France and Germany.
A Great Schism may seem
far-fetched from the vantage point of 2018. But the political calculus will be very different
come the start of the next decade when the EU confronts the next recession,
which is inevitable. With the eurozone unreformed, interest rates already at
zero and its weakest members sitting on a pile of new debt, the next crisis is
likely to hit hard.
What will
happen when troublesome elements such as Italy and Greece once again find
themselves in financial straits? Will the EU’s core members dig deep into their
pockets, as they did before?
That seems
improbable. More likely is that the creditor states cut the Mediterranean loose
and concentrate on shoring up their own defences. In the process, the EU will
squeeze out recalcitrant non-eurozone members such as Hungary and Poland, by
whatever means necessary. Already, the former head of the European Parliament,
Martin Schulz, has proposed a compulsory referendum in every member state which
offers just two choices – accept a political union or quit the EU.
That would,
of course, have massive geopolitical implications for the old periphery.
Hungary and Italy would seek to balance internationally between the new reduced
EU, Russia and China. Poland would focus its attention on the US and UK.
New
alliances would emerge in the region to replace the EU, encompassing not just
central Europe but the Balkans, Belarus and Ukraine. And issues suppressed by
EU membership would return to the fore, starting with Hungary’s unresolved
grievance over the status of its regional diaspora.
As for the
rump EU, it may overcome the challenge emanating from the periphery by
expelling its members, but its problems would not be over. It would still be
faced with the shortcomings of liberalism – the threat to identities, the
economic insecurity, and so on – that fuelled the populist uprising from the
east. The core EU may defeat the external enemy by banishing it from the realm.
But the challenge from within may prove even greater.
Europe is facing a new, potentially violent crisis as
territorial and ethnic tensions reignite in the troubled south-east of the
continent.
Timothy Less is leading the “New Intermarium” research
project at the University of Cambridge
