The Decline of Europe

The leading states of theEuropean Union, and in particular of the eurozone, are dogged by a growingsense of decline. But this is still a confused awareness, as demonstrated bythe fact that it is the individual states, their production systems and their societiesthat are said to be in decline, rather than Europe as a whole, and also by thefact that no one appreciates the historical as opposed to cyclical-economicnature of Europeís decline, or understands the causes that prompted itin the first place and that are ensuring its continued deepening. But Europe is in decline, and there isa vague realisation of this fact. The quality of civil cohabitation in Europeis being damaged by lack of confidence. The future is perceived as dark anduncertain. The spirit of innovation and of enterprise and the will to plan arefrustrated at every turn.

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This decline concerns,first of all, international politics, and its effects have emerged with starkclarity in the events surrounding the Balkan crisis and, more recently, the warin Iraq. In this latter case, the Europeans have been obliged not only towatch, helpless, the unfolding of a senseless war that they did not even want,but also to sustain a considerable share of the enormous costs it has generatedand continues to generate.

That Europe no longercarries any weight on the international political stage, and is subject to thehegemony of the United States, is hardly a new discovery. It is a reality thatbecame clear at the end of the Second World War, even though the phenomenon wassubsequently ó during the Cold War ó concealed by the threat thatthe presence of the Soviet Union represented to both the US and Europe. Thefact that the United Statesí hegemony had a clear rival in the USSRprevented the Europeans from feeling dominated, and gave them the sensationthat they were contributing to the realisation of a joint project and to thedefence of common values.

This is no longer the casetoday. Now, the danger lies not in the risk of a possible attack from outside,but in terrorism fed by Islamic fun-damentalism, whose network extends to theUnited States and all the countries of Europe. And American hegemony certainlydoes nothing to guarantee European security in the face of this danger. It is afact that Europe could play a decisive role in the attempt to eradicate evil atgrass roots level, favouring unity, economic development and the democraticevolution of the states of North West Africa and the Middle East, with which itenjoys a positive relationship characterised by geographical proximity andclose interdependence. But its impotence prevents it from playing an effectiverole in this area, or in any other sensitive world region. As a result,Europeans are finding, more and more often, that they serve merely to make upthe numbers in the international equilibrium. Whereas new actors, like China,India and Brazil, are entering the world political stage, and old actors, likeRussia, are making a comeback, Europe is exiting the scene and counting for lessand less in the strategic calculations both of the only major power thatcurrently exists and of those that are emerging.

The European governmentsare perfectly aware of Europeís rapid international slide, just as theyare aware of the need for European foreign and defence policies. But theybelieve, or more accurately, they feign to believe, that this problem can beresolved by strengthening collaboration between the Unionís memberstates (or between some of them), through the formation of small multinationaltask forces or the achievement of a degree of coordination of arms production;and possibly by creating figures who, despite being entirely devoid of thepower to make and implement decisions in Europeís name, can representthe Union formally and allow it to ìspeak with a single voice.îClearly, this is not the way to halt Europeís international decline.

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Equally shocking iseconomic decline of the leading eurozone countries, which are recording, inrelation to their GDP, extremely weak, and sometimes even negative growth.Their unemployment levels are sky high and their production systems arebecoming less and less able to fend off the growing competition from eastern Asia.The euro, despite its apparent strength, has failed to take off as aninternational currency, and continues to be conditioned by the trend of thedollar; at the same time, depreciation of the dollar is cancelling out thebalance of payments surplus of the countries belonging to economic and monetaryunion, but in the absence of any compensatory growth of these countriesídomestic markets. There exists no European policy to relaunch public spendingó in spite of the fact that a growing number of countries have exceededor look set to exceed the budget deficit limit imposed by the Stability Pactó and no infrastructure development policy. The number of productionsectors in real difficulty is multiplying, as is the number of financialcrises.

Politicians and observersalike cannot help but note this trend. But they fail to appreciate the truenature of it. This much is clear from the fake remedies that are proposed, thefirst of which consists of overcoming the so-called rigidity of the labourmarket and dismantling, at least in part, the welfare state, which was built onthe social achievements that have made Europe the world region that hasaccomplished most in the fight for social justice and better civilcohabitation. And all this in the name of a sort of social Darwinism whoselogic is that of enriching the rich while condemning a considerable section ofthe population to an existence of insecurity, marginalisation and poverty. Thesecond is to push the European Central Bank into lowering further the alreadyextremely low base interest rate, a measure that would create practically noextra room for manoeuvre, thereby failing to learn from the example of Japan,which, despite having almost zero interest rates, has nevertheless endured anextremely protracted period of stagnation.

In reality the causes ofEuropeís economic decline lie in the incapacity to act that is aconsequence of its division. They are political and in-stitutional, that is tosay, structural causes, not ones linked to economic trends. This is not to denythat the current downward trend will go through cyclical phases. But it willnot be reversed until Europeís political weakness has been overcome. Itis this political weakness that prevents the euro from taking its place alongsidethe dollar as an international currency, discourages the labelling ofcontracts, particularly oil supply contracts, in euros, and reducesinternational investorsí faith in the European currency. In this way theeuro, and with it the whole of the eurozoneís foreign trade, submitspassively to the consequences of the fortunes of the dollar, which appreciatesor depreciates according to the policy of the US government.

The truth is that theEuropean Monetary Union is not backed by a European power, with a sphere ofinfluence that is dependent on Europe for its security and development, intowhich Europe can channel resources, and with which it can intensify trade,adopting the euro as an international currency.

Obviously, the urgent needfor a European power with the capacity to act is dictated by more than justthis need to strengthen the international role of the euro; it is also linkedto the question of internal control of the currency.

As things stand at themoment, the single currency has been left in the hands of a technical body,whose only role is to keep inflation in check. This body urgently needs to bejoined by a political body that, governing the real economy and promoting itsgrowth, is in a position to influence the value of the currency. This body musthave its own budget, funded by direct taxation of the citizens, the size ofwhich will depend not on difficult agreements between countries whose soleconcern is to contribute as little as possible to the Union, but instead bedecided democratically at European level. It must be equipped to counternegative economic trends with a policy that is effective, and not strangled bythe obligation (in reality, often not fulfilled) to adhere to the parameters ofa Stability Pact imposed as a result of the absurd co-existence of a singlecurrency and a number of sovereign states, each with responsibility for its owneconomic policy. It must have at its disposal the instruments needed to developand put into practice a great infrastructural design capable of relaunching theEuropean economy.

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The economic decline ofthe eurozone is paralleled by its technological inferiority to the UnitedStates, especially marked in the sectors of information networks, spaceexploration and the biotechnologies, and increasingly to China, which hasrecently approved an ambitious space programme. It must be underlined that thedegree of technological progress recorded by Europe, the United States andChina, shows, in all three cases, absolutely no relationship with the size ofthe respective countryís GDP. This is because great technologicalprogress can be achieved only if it is actively promoted by the public powers,and adopted and developed by industry only when it has reached a level at whichit allows the production of goods and services for which there is a potentialmarket. This is what happened not only in the obvious case of the spaceprogrammes, but also in that of the Internet, which started out as a militaryproject, and in that of the biotechnologies, which have evolved thanks topublic funding of research conducted in the laboratories of universities,research centres and hospitals. Technology is thus able to evolve when theresources of a large, developed (or developing) market are coordinated andemployed by an applied research policy conceived to support a design capable ofmobilising the resources of an entire country.

It cannot evolve in Europeó with the exception of the odd success in the field of space researchó because in the technological sphere, as in many others, the Europeancountries have separate, intersecting and overlapping policies, whose fundingis wholly inadequate. In truth, the European Union is a bureaucratic and not apolitical entity, and no one of its member states, being weak and impotent, isable to recruit the energies needed to support a great project for the future.

This situation naturallyhas repercussions on the sphere of basic research, which represents thenecessary foundation of technology. There is no point dwelling upon thelamentable state of scientific research in Europe, which is widely known anddemonstrated by the mass exodus of young researchers to the United States. Allwe will say is that Europe, which still has a valid secondary school anduniversity system, pours moneyinto the education of young scientists, only to lose them to the United States,whose secondary schools and universities, with the odd exception, are of a farlower standard. The United States is thus able to profit from the work offoreign-trained scientific personnel from the very moment these individuals,having represented a cost for the states in which they were schooled, becomeproductive.

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In fact, the technologicaland scientific decline of the eurozone is nothing more than the most obviousmanifestation of the process that is turning its countries into a culturalwasteland. It is true that cultural decline in its broadest sense is somethingthat is hard to establish, given that quantitative analysis of it is difficultand qualitative description inevitably subjective. There can also be no doubtthat continental Europe has great traditions, deeply rooted in its history andcultural institutions, which enjoy notable prestige, acquired over decades andsometimes centuries, and which puts a brake on this inexorable decline. But it isalso a fact that the arts, architecture, literature, the theatre, music,history, philosophy, and the social sciences follow the migration of power andwealth, and that they have now abandoned Europe in favour of the United States(a phenomenon less marked in the UK, thanks to Britain and America enjoying aìspecial relationshipî and sharing the same language). It is afact, too, that the leading cultural institutions in the United States areenjoying a boom ó not only are they increasing in number, they are alsobecoming more wealthy and more active ó , whereas the opposite ishappening in Europe. On the other side of the Atlantic, there exists a wealthypublic and a vast publishing market that together stimu-late the creation ofculture and feed cultural debate. Americaís leading cities, New York inparticular, have the irresistible attraction of being the most important stagesof what is the last remaining great global power, and are thus the focus of theaspirations of all those seeking success and renown through the production ofculture. As all this is going on, Europe is becoming increasingly impoverishedand moving slowly towards its own curtain-fall.

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At this point, one canhardly be surprised that a mood of demoralisation, due to the lack of futureprospects, is creeping over the citizens of Europe, that the most talented ofEuropeís youth is forced either to leave or to downsize its ambitions inaccordance with the widespread medi-ocrity that prevails within the continent,or that there lack collective projects with the potential to stimulate as yetunexpressed skills and resources and to mobilise energies. Neither can one besurprised that this attitude generates a deep lack of faith in a politicalorder that is unable to halt Europeís downward slide and incapable ofinvolving the citizens in a great design that represents an important stepforward towards the liberation of mankind.

All this is theprogressive decline of politics, politics being a term that, in Europe, now hasnothing to do with the idea of the pursuit of the com-mon good. Of its dualnature, based on ethos and kratos, all that remains is the power struggle aspect. Andthis, stripped of the values that ennoble it, appears merely repulsive.Politics is no longer about things that need to be done and objectives thatmust be pursued; instead it is degenerating into a sort of squalid theatre inwhich a political class without ideas is interested only in its own selfpromotion in the media. European politics today is preoccupied solely withimage and with squabbling, putting on a spectacle for the benefit of a passivepublic that is incapable of reacting.

Civil society, in anadvanced industrial state, is without doubt made up of men and women who areconcerned, above all, with their own private affairs and their own welfare. Butwhen the political climate heats up, and the issues are important, the citizensshow themselves to be sensitive to the appeals and entreaties issued by thepolitical class and by the most lively and active sections of society, andready to be drawn into political debate. This is true not only when, like atelection times, they are instruments in the struggle for power, but also inrelation to the vicissitudes of everyday politics. The opposite occurs when politicsis unable to come up with ideas or develop projects. In this situation, anywillingness of the citizens to engage in political debate is repressed, ordegenerates into sterile protest that is devoid of new ideas, or, at best, ischannelled into non political voluntary work. When this happens, there is nopoint directing rhetoric at the citizens, and appealing to them to haveconfidence, unless you also show them a vision of a better future and the paththat must be followed in order to attain it. Confidence cannot be built bydelivering proclamations and vague incitements, but only by proposing a preciseplan that, based on clear ideals, has real value and is thus likely to induce agreat many people to become committed to its realisation.

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It is therefore up topolitics to reverse the trend, showing the citizens a clear and concreteobjective that, once more taking the great values of European civilisation asthe ultimate point of reference for political debate, gives meaning to thelives of all, and instils a sense of hope in the young. And given thatEuropeís division is at the root of its decline, then this objective canonly be the unification of the continent. Indeed, there can be no denying thatthe waning of public spirit in the European states has, quite clearly, gonehand in hand with the weakening of the ideal of European unification.

In order to renderconcrete and visible this project for our continent, European unification mustnot be allowed to remain an ambiguous and general term; instead, it must besynonymous with a clearly defined point of destination. Europe can regain arole on the international stage, give its currency a role comparable with thatof the dollar, and give its citizens the feeling that they are contributing tothe decisions determining the evolution of the process of the liberation ofmankind, but only by becoming a leading actor in world affairs, by conducting aforeign policy that serves the values of peace, collaboration and development,and by rendering this policy credible through its control of an army that isanswerable to a democratic power. It can inject new life into its economy, butonly if it has its own budget and the power to fund this budget throughtaxation, rather than depending on the goodwill of the Unionís memberstates. In this way, it will be able to develop and carry through a great planfor internal and international economic development and an ambitious policy fortechnological advancement, which will render its production system once morecompetitive and foster a spirit of enterprise, without jeopardising the greatachievements of the welfare state. In this way, it will regain the stimuli andthe resources needed to get back to the cutting edge of scientific research andto become, once again, the worldís leading centre of artistic creationand cultural debate.

But to give a Europeangovernment exclusive control of an army, that is, a monopoly on physical force,and to enable it to have at its disposal a budget of its own and the power of taxation,in other words, to give Europe the instruments of the sword and the purse, means to attribute itwith sovereign powers. In short, to establish, in Europe, a federal state, beginning within thelimited sphere in which this project is truly feasible, and ending with a greatentity that embraces the territory of the entire European Union, whatever itsconfiguration. Today, in Europe, the state exists only in the historicallysuperseded national framework, that is, in a dimension that does not allow thedevelopment of great projects or the taking of great decisions, and that thusbelittles the aspirations of its citizens and saps their energy; meanwhile, thedimension in which all this would be possible is filled with bureaucraticinstitutions, whose decisions, whenever they are arrived at, are expressions ofslow and laborious compromises reached between the governments of numerous(formerly fifteen, now twenty-five) sovereign states, and not the result ofdemocratic debate among the citizens of Europe and the parties that representthem.

The founding of a federalstate in Europe is an enormously difficult objective. Like all the historicalobjectives that have required a radical transformation of the power order, itmay even seem impossible. What is beyond doubt is that it cannot be achievedthrough technical fudging of the issues, which serves only to mask the reality,that is the nation-statesí continued preservation of their sovereignty.

In truth, no alliance, noconfederation or customs union, no complex institutional construct óeven one that goes by the name of constitution ó can get round the factthat sovereignty is either left in the hands of the nation-states ortransferred to Europe: and that this transfer can come about only if Europe becomesa state,even one based initially on a re-stricted group of countries set within ageographically expanding framework.

This is the only coursethat will not only enable Europe to face up to the great problems ofinternational collaboration, security and economic growth, but also makepolitics once more synonymous with commitment to the common good, and thus themost noble of human activities. Only a state with a decisive role in the globalequilibrium can devise and pursue a great design ó internal or internationaló that gives citizenship the value of being involved in the promoting ofpeace and the building of an open, innovative and solid society, and by sodoing gather consensus and mobilise energies.

This is why, today, thedifficult battle to found a European federal state is the only one worthfighting.

The Federalist