Europe

One of the difficulties of discussing the future (if any) of European countries is the insistence by people who are supposedly sceptical of the European Union of talking about “Europe”. This is true about numerous American publications and websites and the worst perpetrators are the think-tanks on both sides

When the British think-tank Centre for European Reform, which is wholly sympathetic to the “European project” (it used to take a perestroika view of a need to reform and readjust but no longer does so) talks of a “European social policy” or a “European farm policy”, the terminology is understandable. But when a website like Brussels Journal, which boasts of its opposition to European integration, or a think-tank like Open Europe produce postings or, in the case of the latter, papers and discussions about the best way forward for “Europe” one needs to call a halt.

Let us return to our muttons. To all political intents and economic purposes, there is no such thing as Europe. To argue, for instance, as one well-known American Republican politician did some years ago in London that the European Right must have the same crucial debate that the American Right had had some time before, in order to recreate itself and face the new century is fatuous. The European Right does not exist in any coherent sense. The Right in Central Europe is completely different from the Anglospheric British or American one, though there is the occasional overlap. France divides politically along fault-lines that are not repeated anywhere else. And the Right in Scandinavia tends to be somewhere around the moderate Left everywhere else.

Europe is a geographical expression, though there is some debate about its boundaries. It is, to a great extent, a cultural expression but mostly as opposed to certain other cultural entities. Even in this we can see the almost unbridgeable differences when we look at the spread of “European cultures” to the New World. The massive difference between the Anglospheric and Hispanic colonization and the countries that have grown out of them has been well documented.

Historically, the European experience is very varied. In the west it was largely defined by various wars between Catholics and Protestants and the ongoing struggle between England (later Britain) and France, the east’s experiences centred first on the split between the Latin and the Orthodox Churches, then, for centuries, on the fight against the Ottoman Empire.

Even such supposedly unifying historical events as the Second World War left very different marks on the many different countries. It is not just a question of whether you were on the winning or the losing side. There is the matter of whether there had been an occupation and if so, how many, how popular and how long did they last. Which parts of the population or the political elite supported which occupation? Where does treason lie? One can go on asking these questions for a very long time.

There is, of course, the European Union, a political construct of massive complexity, which has reached the point of non-reformability. One assumes that the muddle-headed calls for European reform often mean the reform of the EU. They usually come from people who have no understanding of the organization or its structure. In order to hand social policy back to the member states, as suggested by a recent Open Europe paper, there needs to be an amendment to the consolidated treaties. To achieve this, there needs to be an Inter-Governmental Conference and an agreement by all 25 member states; the amended treaty has to be ratified by all of the latter. An unlikely sequence of events.

It is true that the EU frequently prevents the member states from developing their own changes and reforms. On the other hand, if the various governments were really determined to carry them through they could do so, without monumental EU reforms. (This does not apply to anything that has become EU competence like external trade.)

But to talk of reforming the European economy or agriculture or social model is to accept the whole European integration project, which is nonsensical in most ways. There is no such thing as a European economy, as the tensions within the eurozone prove quite conclusively.

There is no such thing as a common European interest, which means there can be no common European foreign policy.

The differences in the agriculture of the various states are so great that the straitjacket of any common policy, however reformed is unlikely to help anyone. How can countries like Greece, Finland, France and Britain all be part of a common agricultural policy? It is pointless even to talk about its reform that would somehow push European agriculture into the world. Individual countries might be able to open up to the world (or might decide not to do so) and might compete. Europe can do no such thing.

The creation of the European concept in economy, agriculture, environment etc is merely a method to enhance political integration. Those who talk of European reforms, European opening up, European development in the twenty-first century have accepted the integration project and cannot see its inherent senselessness.

Cross-posted from Albion’s Seedlings

What a silly question, you might say. Would it not be easier to ask what is right with the European Union? It would take considerably less time to enumerate. However, I should like to go to the very nub of it: its idea of governance.

One talks much of the way legislation and regulations are passed in the European Union with the peoples and legislatures of various member states being presented with a fait accompli and an assurance that nothing can be done to reverse European legislation.

We also know that the process of legislation and amendment of legislation is so cumbersome and secretive that achieving changes is well nigh impossible.

Most of all, we know that the legislative programme of the EU pays no attention to elections either within member states or, even, to the European Parliament; nor does it pay attention to changes in the Commission. Legislative plans are laid out for five or ten years; the Commission’s work programme is decided every year; the process goes on regardless of any democratic or constitutional developments.

Over and above that there is the problem of the Opposition. The European Union and its supporters do not acknowledge its right to exist. This was summed up very neatly by Professor Jeremy Black in his latest book: The European Question and the National Interest. Writing about the response to the two negative referendum results last year, in France and the Netherlands, he explains:

“Posing long-term issues provides a context for looking at the current conception of the future, which is largely defined by the issue of how best to respond to the rejection of the European constitutional treaty by the French and Dutch electorates. After an election, commentators rush to explain results, and generally over-simplify the situation, but there does seem to be a contrast between French criticism of the process of European change as threatening to dissolve social safety, and Dutch views about the overweening demands of the EU.

If, however, hostility to the real, or apparent, pretensions and activities of the EU comes from different sources, and much was made by Euro-enthusiasts about contrasts between French and Dutch views, this does not imply that the EU is an appropriate via media or necessary compromise, both views voiced by supporters of Euro-convergence. Such an appoach accords with a tendency to see different views to those of Euro-convergence in terms of factious opposition that necessarily needs to be ignored or overridden, a view that is in accord with the ‘official mind’ of the EU and also with a centrist, or generally left-of-centre, political alignment. Politically, this attitude is at variance with the Anglo-American practice and precept of shifts in government control with the concomitant understanding not only that opposition is constitutionally valid, but also that its political place includes the role of gaining power.”

While this summary of the difference between the whole idea of an integrated European state and a political system that is based on democratic accountability is entirely accurate, sadly one must relate that the rejection of the validity of political opposition is gaining ground within British politics, particularly at local but also at government level.

Cross-posted from Albion’s Seedlings

There was a brief report on the BBC about a call for a common European position issued by a French member of the Assemblée on the Danish cartoons and subsequent events. There is, of course, a problem with a common position: you need to define it before you can pronounce it. The truth is that, as usual at times of crisis, the European Union and its member states are in complete disarray.

The Danish government has, famously, refused to sanction the newspaper in question. Some politicians have spoken up for freedom of speech. Others, like our own Foreign Secretary, has shown himself to be on the side of censorship and tyranny (another dog bites man story).

Then l’escroc Chirac has waded in to condemn “all manifest provocation that might dangerously fan passions”.

Read more

Ralf wrote a thoughtful post where he states that Anglosphere claims of a future domination in Europe by Muslims is simply not supported by any evidence. In fact he thinks that it’s nothing but nonsense. The numbers of non-Muslims are so great that there’s no chance they will be overwhelmed, and a glance at German population statistics bears this out.

In other words, people under 20 in this country alone outnumber the 15 million Muslims (and that’s the very high end of the estimate) in all of Europe, of all ages, by a considerable margin. Immigrants’ birthrates in the first generation are higher than the ‘native’ birthrate, but the difference narrows by the second, and disappears by the third generation.

Ralf doesn’t link to any sources which back up his claims on the total number of Muslims in Europe, or that the birth rate of Muslim immigrants decline by the 3rd generation. That doesn’t surprise me, but only because there seems to be some disagreement as to the numbers involved and sources are hard to come by.

This page at The Islam Project states that there are “35 to 50 million Muslims” which lived in Western Europe in 2000, numbers which are significantly higher than what Ralf asserts to be the “very high end of the estimate”. The figures found at IP should be taken with a grain of salt for two reasons, though. The first is that they themselves admit that “no reliable statistics are available”. The second is that IP is devoted to promoting Islam in a positive light, so they have a strong incentive to inflate the numbers.

Daniel Pipes wrote an article where he asserted that “5% of the E.U., or nearly 20 million persons” identified themselves as Muslim. He didn’t link to any source for his numbers either, but he did link to this article which discusses Europe’s declining population.

An article at The Times Online places the number of European Muslims at 13 million. Where did they get that number? The author doesn’t say.

An op-ed which originally appeared on the United Press International wire also states that Europe has no more than 13 million Muslims, but that they comprise 10% of France’s population.

And so it goes, on and on. No hard data, the numbers cited are conflicting, and it’s extremely difficult to separate an example of biased agenda-driven reports from thoughtful analysis. The problem is made worse by the fact that professional journalism rewards those who publish alarmist fare while ignoring boring articles that claim there’s really nothing much going on. The bottom line is that the claims of an Islam dominated Europe might be hogwash, but so might the claims that there’s no problem at all.

I notice two glaring blind spots in Ralf’s post.

The first is the assumption that Muslims are only created through childbirth. Islam aggressively recruits, and the number of European Musilms appears to be growing while the number of Christians seems to be shrinking. (This presupposes that a citizen will be one or the other instead of being neither, of course, so it isn’t wholly compelling to me.)

The other problem with his argument is that he seems to be ignoring the fact that France has real potential crises. 10% of the population is simply too large a segment to ignore, and there’s no reason to think that the numbers won’t continue to grow.

Most of the democratic governments in Europe are based on the parliamentary system. A party that controls about 35% of the vote can muster enough support to defeat their opponents. We already know that 10% of France’s population is Muslim. Is there a chance that it could approach 35%? If so, how long is it going to be before it reaches that number? Even if the rest of Europe manages to marginalize or assimilate their Islamic citizens, a nuclear armed France with a ruling government formed from a fundamental Islamic political party isn’t a reassuring picture to contemplate.

But so far no major political party has emerged in France that claims to speak for the Muslims. Why this is so is beyond me, but I’m sure there are reasons. It’s not clear that it will never happen because it hasn’t yet, though.

It’s important to define your own position when discussing a contentious subject such as this one. I’ve never said that we will see a Europe with an Islamic majority, but I’ve always maintained that the numbers of muttering malcontents presently there are large enough to become a very serious problem unless they are assimilated into the general population. That, I think, is a perfectly reasonable viewpoint.

But, of course, I could be wrong.

The current intifada in France has stripped the American Left of its second Utopia in a generation.

The Left lost its earlier worldly utopia when the Soviet Union fell apart. 1989 was not only the year that the countries of Central Europe regained their independence, it was also the year that the Left began to lose its organizing principle, its focus, and to begin casting around for a new organizing principle. The Soviet Union had been the focus of ardent loyalty amongst many American Leftists in the 1930s and for some up to the 1950s. After that the Soviet Union, whatever its defects, was seen as the supporter of progressive forces – and Leftist poster-children — of the day, like Mao, Castro, Che Guevara, the Viet Cong or the Sandinistas. Even into the 1980s there were many Leftists in the West who could come up with good things to say about the Soviet Union. And even as the rotten juggernaut began to crumble more and more visibly, it was at least still possible to attack its enemies as “McCarthyists”, and to despise anti-communists as hicks, militarists, religious cranks, and otherwise unsophisticated and contemptible.

With the Soviet Union gone, the Leftists shifted or intensified their focus on various “progressive” causes, such as anti-globalization, environmentalism, multiculturalism and radical feminism. However, there was no particular geographic locus for these causes, no place where “real existing” progressivism could be found. The enemy, however, remained clear: The West, especially the United States and its capitalist economic system.

What I have observed in the last few years, especially since the Iraq war began, is a strong revival of an older liberal vision, which saw Europe as being a model for a more socialistic society, which the USA should supposedly emulate. (Remember Mike Dukakis went on vacation with a book on Swedish land-use regulation for beach reading?) The idea has been promoted more and more that the European model of multiculturalism, socialist management of the economy, a relaxed attitude toward work, high taxes, lavish benefits, antipathy to Christianity, and pacifism is the one that the United States should emulate.

This “European social model” has been presented and accepted by many as a more humane alternative to the savage capitalism of the Anglo-Saxons. This model is based – supposedly — not on competition and greed, but on solidarity, on protecting workers and citizens from the gales of creative destruction which make life for the grasping, vulgar Americans so insecure. Educated, well-to-do Americans envy their peers in Europe, who seem to get more respect just for having advanced degrees, and they don’t have to work as hard. This makes Europe seem like a worldly paradise to elite Americans. (I got exasperated with one friend who kept going on about how great it is in Germany – “look, I don’t envy them their life, and I don’t care what they think of mine.” He could not understand why I did not want to make America more like Europe, even when I explained it to him.)

The deep problems the European “social model” suffers from are not focused on by our friends on the Left. The demographic death spiral, massive structural unemployment, increasing levels of crime (at or exceeding American levels in most cases), bureaucratic stasis which holds down growth and prevents the creation of new businesses, a business community focused on rent-seeking, a stifling PC multiculturalism, an unresponsive and unaccountable government at national and Union levels – this is all off the radar. And the biggest of all these elephants crowded into the room is the very large, unassimilated, unemployed and unemployable, welfare-supported Muslim minority. Warehoused in public housing projects which have been abandoned by the police, with no opportunity for gainful work, yet supported by relatively lavish benefits, this community has been a time-bomb waiting to go off. We now see that the French state, one of the most expensive, intrusive and arrogant there is, falls on its face when it is asked to perform its core function of providing physical security to lives and property. This is not a model anyone who is paying attention will want to emulate or adopt.

In addition to thousands of cars, lots of buildings, and at least one elderly old lady doused with gasoline by the rioting “youths” of Paris, the American Left is also watching its default Utopia – their dream of the European welfare state — going up in smoke.

(Of course they may not realize it yet. But I think these riots cannot be buried on page 8 of the newspaper forever.)

Utopia: By popular demand, here is exhibit A (Mr. Rifkin’s book) of how Europe generally and France in particular have served recently as a Leftist utopia. There are others, such as Exhibit B (Mr. Kupchan’s book).

Really, also, I do have friends who are lefties. I even married one. They often tell me how Europe is better than the dear old USA, more social justice, socialized medicine, etc. I say: So move there. One has. That’s fine. To each his own. I’ll stay in Chicago, thanks.