Nestes
dias de consumação do Brexit e de outros conflitos,
com
implacável lucidez, George Friedman faz à Europa uma
autêntica
“ressonância magnética” que mostra o seu interior,
que
revela e diagnostica o seu verdadeiro estado de “saúde”.
The Fragmentation of the European Union
George Friedman | Geopolitical Futures | January 28,
2020
At the end of this week, the United Kingdom, the
second-largest economy in Europe, will exit the European Union. Meanwhile,
Poland is under intense attack by the bloc for violating EU regulations by
attempting to limit the independence of Polish judges; Hungary is also under attack
for allegedly violating the rule of law; and one of the major parties in Italy
has toyed with the idea of introducing a parallel currency that would allow the
country to manage internal debt without regard for EU regulations and wishes.
The
founding principle of the EU was the unification of hitherto warring nations
into a single bloc, built around common economic and political principles and a
common European identity. The assumption was that given Europe’s history,
putting aside differences was a self-evident need for all European countries.
But as we see in the case of Italy, it is not clear that there is a common
European economic interest. Given the tensions with Poland and Hungary, it’s
also unclear if there is a common political interest. And the U.K.’s decision
to leave also raises questions over whether these common interests persist and
whether national identity can be subsumed under a European identity. The
tensions within the EU do not reflect marginal disagreements; they represent
fundamental questions over whether national interests and identities can be
reconciled with poorly defined European interests. The EU, therefore, is moving
toward an existential crisis. It may survive, but only as a coalition of
nations representing a fraction of Europe.
Self-Determination or Nothing
The
fundamental issue is national identity and sovereignty. The U.K., Italy, Poland
and Hungary are all European nations, but they have different histories and
therefore different sensibilities. What it means to be Italian is not the same
as what it means to be British. They in turn have a different sense of self
from the Germans or Romanians. The question, therefore, is: What is this
European sensibility? The common assumption is that it is liberal democracy.
The problem is that there are many types of liberal democracy and, more to the
point, the fundamental principle behind liberal democracy is national
self-determination – the idea that the nation must select the government and
that the government is answerable to no one other than the nation. If you sever
the idea of national self-determination from liberal democracy, you undercut
liberal democracy’s fundamental principle and, with it, the European identity.
Liberal democracy is national self-determination or it is nothing.
The
governments in the U.K., Italy, Poland and Hungary all have been elected. Some
politicians who were defeated in elections have made the claim that these
elections were the result of fraud or illegitimate manipulation of public
opinion, as was the case with the Brexit vote. But the fact is that those of us
who know these countries know that the views the governments hold are not alien
to the countries. Poland and Hungary have their own understanding of what state
power should look like; Italy has a long history of complex and fragmented
government needing to control its own economy; and the United Kingdom’s
constituent parts have national identities that are very different from those
of other countries.
Europe’s
nations are all different, and while history made each adopt the garb of
liberal values beyond just national self-determination, they never gave up
their own identities because they could not. They are what history made them,
and while German or Soviet occupation shaped them, a few decades of horror –
and the adoption of the idea that national self-determination must be
determined through elections – was not enough to cause them to abandon who they
were. France was France before it held its first election. In other words,
national identity may exist prior to and outside of liberal democracy for some
countries. This is not the case for the United States; its very identity from
its founding was liberal democratic. German identity, however, has varied
dramatically over the decades, and Germans were still German in spite of the
variations. Hitler represented the national will well after he abandoned
elections.
This
takes us to extreme places we need not go, but it also points out that national
identity and national self-determination can be expressed in ways that are
faithful to the national will but violate the liberal democratic methodology in
nations with ancient and complex foundations.
The Illusion of European Identity
If
the idea of national identity is so complex, then how can we define the
European identity? The European identity that the Maastricht treaty embodied
was a snapshot of a unique moment in European history in which the
Anglo-American occupation of Western Europe and the Soviet occupation of
Eastern Europe were ending. The liberal democracy that was imposed on Germany’s
destroyed cities seemed to be part of German identity, history notwithstanding.
The Poles and Hungarians yearned to be Europeans, and the liberal democracy
that emerged from World War II was their template, as it was for Italy.
But
I would argue that that European identity was an illusion to which Europe
clung, fearing that the only alternative was a return to its own bloody past.
After the Berlin Wall came down, there finally appeared to be one Europe, and
all would be gathered into it. The problem, as I have said, is that the
histories of Italy, Germany, the U.K., Poland and Hungary were all wildly
different. At that moment, they all yearned for the same thing, but as the
moment passed, each country recollected what it was, and they are now – without
the shame it would have brought in 1991 – resurrecting it. The European
invention of technocratic liberalism was alien to them, and the right of
national self-determination was both an empirical reality and a moral
principle.
And
so they begin to go their own way, with EU officials hurling threats and
condemnation over frustration that the EU bureaucracy is not only no longer
authoritative but also no longer frightening. The British economy grew in
January, an indication that the catastrophe Brussels had wished for the U.K.
may not visit London, or Italy, if it should decide to go its own way with its
currency. And certainly, neither Poland nor Hungary, having survived Stalin and
Hitler, is likely to be cowed into submission by increasingly small EU
subsidies. The weakening of the EU has undercut its ability to pay for
conformity.
Europe
once had a magnificent idea, a free trade zone called the European Economic
Community whose main focus was trade, not inventing identities. It was replaced
by the European Union, but the EU can now look to another example, the North
American trade zone, which has a slightly larger gross domestic product than
the EU. The two are fundamentally different; the North American bloc does not
claim to represent a North American identity, its members sometimes dislike
each other intensely, and it does not have a secretariat to dictate how they
should live. But then, the North Americans did not live through what the
Europeans lived through and they are not trying to suppress who they were and,
of course, still are.”
