This year marks the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Maastricht, and the ideal of European integration eventually becomes a political entity. After the catastrophic tragedy of the twentieth century, Europe began to clean up its political heritage and rethink the concepts of sovereignty and nation. After a series of historical moments such as post-war reconstruction, decolonization, and French-German reconciliation. EU tried to stop repeating the tragedy of the politics of a big country with its own decision, and intervened in the world system again with a new moral ideal.
The EU represents farewell to the 20th century racial disaster and social Darwinism , and rebuild its own political map with multilateral ism and universal ideals. The pacifism and market economy model contained in European values are also regarded as important values at the end of history after the victory of the Western camp in Cold War . However, cracks within Europe always exist, and we find that the EU is not a perfect "ideal country" in the concept. The problem facing Europe 30 years ago was how to absorb immigrants from Eastern Europe, how Germany played its own role in the geographical location of Central Europe, and whether the European welfare system can continue under the impact of neoliberalism. Europeans at that time were optimistic that consensus politics and market economy were enough to absorb all this. So today, when the right-wing leaders in Europe return in a familiar way, the COVID-19 pandemic has made people realize that sovereign borders, the European debt crisis is about to move, and the debate between refugee issues and multiculturalism has begun to rediscuss people with the bottom line of consensus politics and the civic community, this optimism seems to have disappeared. The EU, as the greatest and progressive suprassori-sovereign political experiment in European history, is in sway and controversy with its future and imagination. To continue this experiment, it means that we not only need to go back to history and transcend the cruel historical scars of the 20th century, but also test whether the leaders who drive the giant ship of the EU have the courage to change and the prudence of decisiveness, and continue to agree on the political route between concepts and reality.
This article is from the B04-B05 edition of the special topic "Europa at the Crossroads" of the Beijing News and Book Review Weekly on June 10.
"Theme"B01丨European
"Theme"B02-03丨European "Odyssey"
"Theme"B04-05丨EU Thirty Years: History and Ambitions of Consensus Politics
"Theme"B05丨Ma Chunhua: Diversification of marriage form should be respected
"Theme"B06丨Zheng Fei: Super-national entities may not necessarily be fragile
"Literature"B07丨"Ode to Orange: To Zhang Zao" Modern transformation of Zhiyin Poetics
"Literature" B08丨" The sound of the wind in the Liulin ": Youshi, fantasy and poetic journey
Written by | Wang Zichen
When the bell of the 20th century rang, Europeans seemed to be the darling of the golden age. The empire they live in has control over the world's territory, wealth and rights, and the prosperous business exchanges, unprecedented population mobility and the formation of cross-border ideology, accompanied by the development of material civilization and the Whigist concept of progress, all promised unprecedented splendor and greatness of the 20th century.
However, all this imagination about the beautiful era of Europa dispersed in the artillery fire of World War I . Eric Hobsbaum proposed the concept of the so-called "short 20th century", believing that the real 20th century was a time period from 1914 to 1991. Before 1914, it was an old Europe that was elegant, compatible with traditional aristocratic politics and the new era of mass politics, and hoped for the development of civilization and progress, and had long become yesterday's old dream because of the fire of the total war. That was an era that Zweig, who committed suicide desperately in 1942, once missed.Then there was the cruel and bloody World War , a fanatical ideology that made people unpredictable during the interwar period and the resulting fascism. It was a horrifying crime in World War II , and it was a slavery, torture and massacre that could occur in Europe at the turn of the century. Even though the shadow of fascism finally dissipated, the Europa continent was still shrouded in the horror of the confrontation between the two poles. The martial arts competition between the two giants has created an arsenal that can threaten human survival. Once the battle begins, most of the strategic weapon will fall on the European battlefield. Europe, once prosperous and rich, could be called the "center of the world", will then become a barren land among the ruins.
The Maastricht Treaty has become a common rule on the European continent, and the European Union Constitution has been brewed by ambitious European designers. Perhaps the first time since the Middle Ages, a common and universal political authority and order was widely accepted from Scandinavia to Mediterranean , from the British Isles to the Great Plains of Eastern Europe and the unfallen city of Constantinople (i.e. Turkey city Istanbul ), a common and universal political authority and order was widely accepted.
European debt crisis, refugee crisis and sovereignty crisis have impacted the EU system built on the Maastricht Treaty. Strength from the far left and the far right questioned the efficiency and nature of European Union . However, more than ten years after the EU crisis has become a common term for academics, EU citizens' support for the EU remains above 70%. After thirty years of crisis, this huge and exquisite political entity with realistic considerations and idealism still shows her unique vitality and vitality.
"Brexit: Unreasonable Battle" (2019) Stills.
Beyond nationalism: a utopia of liquidity
Although the era of nationalism in the 19th and early 20th centuries was regarded as nationalism, people must face a paradoxical fact: in this era there were no real nationalist countries in Europe. A nation-state is more like a normative concept than an existing fact to guide people's actions. In the distant European history, the concept of nationality has never been as important as in modern times, and population movement and migration are not extinct. The long historical process mixed a large number of people with different languages, cultures and religious backgrounds, which brought great trouble to the formation of nation-states under stereotype . There is no need to discuss the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russian Empire , which are regarded as "national prisons", even Germany and Italy, which are regarded as "national unification", are trapped by the domestic Polish and Catholic population issues, and the other is trapped by the barriers of national identity between north and south Italy. As the importance of nationalist issues continues to increase, cultural and linguistic differences that were once undervalued have become the number one issue for the country.
People from the feudal period were bound to land, lords and manors, but their mobility was still free for members who had not become serfs.If livelihoods are forced, they have at least the opportunity to move to cities or move to foreign lands. Man is not considered to belong to a specific community, and a political community is only the land property of the lord, without a normative sacredness attached. However, when the concept of “people’s sovereignty” is raised, a direct question follows – who can be regarded as people and have sovereignty?
A complete set of discourses about the rights and obligations of ideas, identity and community are constructed, and each person must be forced to choose the community to which they belong and their collective identity. A person's geographical mobility may be enhanced, but he no longer has mobility in concepts and identity. A person who lives in Alsace and can speak both German and French may never have imagined his identity issue, but after the end of Franco-Prussian War, he must choose whether he is a German or a Frenchman - this is not only a choice in nationality, but also a choice in cultural, psychological and identity levels. The anti-Semitism and the tragedy of Jewish in modern European history came from then on. Jews who are engaged in the financial industry, choose their masters and serve, and live in the place have their own cultural qualities and beliefs that can be recognized, but they do not have the recognition and ownership of any existing political community. They have the highest liquidity both physically and psychologically, and on the other hand, they do not belong to or cannot belong to any community. They cannot guarantee their loyalty to any community, and they should not obtain the right to belong to the community.
In any case, the difference between ethnic nationalism and civic nationalism is always hard to deny: the frenzy of nationalism led to the two world wars that sent Europa into a catastrophe. On the ruins of the World War, in ethnic settlements in Europe, especially Eastern Europe, unprecedented population exchanges and migrations have made the concept of "nation state" truly a reality. However, it was also after the catastrophe and disaster that Europeans began to reflect on the concept of nationalism and the framework of the nation-state.
"A History of Post-War Europeans" Set (full of four volumes), author: [US] Tony Jute, version: Sanhui Books·CITIC Publishing House, 2014-9.
The European Community with the French-German reconciliation as its core was established in Europe, which is in ruins. Huntington believes that the construction of a community is always centered on fighting against enemies outside the community, which constitutes the core logic of his " Civilization Conflict ". However, in the European Community, or European projects based on European identity and European cooperation, that "external enemy" is not any objective threat, but a historical ghost of Europe. New Europe takes the ruins of the two world wars as a mirror. What the designers of the European Community and the EU want to conquer is not the power that may invade or destroy Europe from the outside, but the scars and concepts that the shadows and hatred of the old era remain in people's hearts.
This requires courage, wisdom and perseverance, and what is more necessary is to deconstruct the concept of racial nationalism. European designers chose to create a liquid utopia. A hypothesis for the interpretation of nationalism is that it is the expansion of political participation in modern society, and the lack of sufficient mobility of most participants, which leads to the rise of nationalism: because most people do not have the ability to move freely and choose their identities, they will naturally support the community they are born with and strengthen their identity with this community.
The European Community and the EU have thus become a liquid utopia. Higher liquidity means lower exit costs, increasing individual choice space and thus increasing freedom. In addition, higher mobility can make individual cultural preferences and choices easier to adapt to the group they choose, thereby reducing the depth and intensity of social disagreements. In a more basic sense, higher mobility can promote the circulation of goods and population, enhance commercial, cultural and social ties between the European Community and the EU member states, and thus gradually eliminate nationalism, the only way of identification.The EU takes the four major freedoms, namely the free flow of goods, services, personnel and capital as its foundation. These four are inseparable and jointly builds this utopia of liquidity.
When the Maastricht Treaty was signed, these designers who were eager to transcend nationalism through the EU seemed to have achieved their purpose. The President of the Pan-European Association, who made great contributions to the EU's eastward expansion and European integration, was the last crown prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and he served as a member of the European Parliament as a member of the Christian Social Union. Daniel Cohen-Bondy, an opinion leader dedicated to the federalization of Europe, is the once famous "Randmao Danny". Hill Robles, who served as the president of the European Parliament in the late 1990s, was the son of Jose Maria Hill Robles, the right-wing leader of , the Second Republic of Spain, and it pushed the right-wing politics to radicalize it and opened the way to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Political leaders from different backgrounds, different political positions and different countries may have been irreconcilable in Europe a hundred years ago, but now they can jointly devote themselves to the cause of European integration.
"Reflection on Europe", author: (France) Moran, version: Life·Reading·New Knowledge Sanlian Bookstore, 2005-01.
The concept of Europe and interests of Europe
However, no systematic political project can be established based solely on ideas. Shocks and crises followed one after another after the new century, resulting in the growing popularity of Euroscepticism. If the EU is only a product of progressive ideas that transcends the old era, then we must conclude that Eurosceptics are embracing the old ideas of the old era and are limited to the shackles of nationalism, conservatism and even reactionaryism to oppose this European Union, which represents the new era.
However, this moral arrogance is tantamount to seeing political opponents as a party with a lower morality, intelligence and decision-making ability. In the era of nationalism, one of the outbreaks of conflict was that the subject nations regarded non-subject nations as moral and capable groups. If European integration and the EU's ideals can only be achieved by treating Eurosceptics as irrational groups that cannot be communicated, the European ideal itself will inevitably fade. If you carefully examine the European-sceptics' statements, you will find that there are many reasonable statements. The target of this type of argumentative attack is also a root cause of the criticism of European integration: in the European integration cause, we can see two supporting reasons and policy directions. One is based on concepts, and the other is based on interests.
European enthusiastic supporters praise the EU's conceptual side, or "idea EU". From the symbolic meaning of the EU transcends nation-states, to the EU's right to free movement guaranteed, to the EU's guarantee of human rights and welfare provided by European citizens, the EU's philosophy seems to be the Europa version of the world's harmony. What is more special is that the EU constitutes a kind of " negation of negation of " for European history: through the construction of Westphalian system and nation-states, European political practice denies the idea of monarchs to establish a universal empire, and takes a big step towards people's sovereignty; through European integration and the establishment of the EU, European political practice denies the narrow concept of nation-state and continues to move forward towards the establishment of a universal republic.
"On Europe", author: Tony Jute, version: Sanhui Books·CITIC Publishing House, 2014-7.
The criticism of this concept of Europe often falls into conservative false statements: The Paris Declaration: A Europe that we can trust in in 2017 was a typical case. The Paris Declaration, in the name of conservatism, actually declares the practice of Europe and the political phenomenon of in the past two or three hundred years as an ancient tradition of Europe, and declares the "nation state" that truly existed only after World War II as an object that Europe must protect.The declaration regards the integration of the EU and Europe as a betrayal of many great traditions and values in Europe, but never mentions that these "traditional values" are mostly products from the 18th century and are a phased understanding gradually formed in the changing concepts. The Paris Declaration called for the Christianity of European civilization, and also rebuked the multiculturalism of it for its existence only in the empire, but forgot the Holy Roman Empire, which once hoped to establish a universal empire, insisted that the empire belonged to Catholicism, and the founders of the Westphalian order in 1648 they praised were pioneers of the hope of seeking and establishing a 17th-century version of "multiculturalism" within the empire. This is a clumsy reappearance of the historical ghost, and its ending can only be submerged in the long history of concepts: five years have passed, and most of the crises encountered by the EU come from the real political game, and not many political movements and politicians have launched an ideological confrontation against the EU in the name of the Paris Declaration.
However, the EU still has a side of interest, which the author calls it the "Entertainment EU". Many EU policies are packaged in noble moral sentiments and values, but there is inevitably a bias of practical interests.
is represented by the most well-known Common Agricultural Policy (CAP, Common Agriculture Policy), which accounts for 40% of the EU's public budget every year. This is a considerable expense, given the increasing amount of the EU's public budget. The primary purpose of the common agricultural policy is to subsidize the agricultural population damaged under the EU's free trade policy, and its main beneficiaries are farmers in France and Spain. Common agricultural policy has sparked many debates and contradictions within the EU: if protecting farmers and maintaining agricultural product prices is a reasonable reason, then the liberalization of European markets will obviously have an impact on more industries. Why is it that only common agricultural policies require such huge funds and special protection? Further, from the perspective of concepts, free trade is generally beneficial to all participants in trade. If free trade is conceptually worthy of protection, then why should special measures be taken to reduce the impact of free trade policies?
Stills of the movie "Brexit: Unreasonable Battle".
Common agricultural policy is a typical representative of the "European Union". In order to promote the European integration and the cause of the European Union, EU designers have to make the four major freedoms of the EU politically acceptable to all member states through this kind of transfer payment system design. Similar and often criticized policies include the establishment of the euro zone and the provisions of European fiscal discipline. To achieve the ideal of a unified currency, the eurozone must dispel the worries of relatively wealthy and conservative fiscal disciplines. The Maastricht Treaty stipulates strict fiscal discipline. Through the EU-level treaty provisions, the annual deficit of member states must be controlled within 3% of GDP, and the national debt should not exceed 60% of GDP, and it is regarded as a hard requirement to join the euro zone.
However, the core member states of the EU themselves cannot rent and sell the limits set forth in this requirement. After experiencing the financial crisis, the European debt crisis and the COVID-19 crisis, Italy's debt has accounted for more than 150% of GDP, and France, one of the core pillars of the EU, is also more than 100%. At the same time, the European Central Bank insisted on a "sustainment policy" and demanded that the rescue be accepted during the European debt crisis reduce public spending in a way that reduces social welfare, thus boosting the distrust of Greek left-wing forces in the EU. It is certainly reasonable to uphold fiscal discipline, but if this value is so important, why are there no rigid fiscal discipline restrictions on the core countries of the EU? When these requirements, titled core ideas and standards, can be selected through expedient calculations in political practice, it is no wonder that many people fundamentally began to oppose EU ideas and policies.
Many policy disputes that plague the EU were born from the conflict between the "concept EU" and the "interest EU".From the perspective of the ideal of European integration, the next step in establishing a common monetary policy is destined to establish a common fiscal policy. Even within a single country with high liquidity, due to the imbalance of regional development, after unifying the value of monetary money, it is still necessary to balance regional development through transfer payments. The underestimation of the euro has led to a staggering trade surplus in Germany. The economy with a total GDP of 3563.9 billion euros in 2021 enjoys 172.9 billion euros of net exports to , a proportion of nearly 5%. However, Germany refused to assume more transfer payment obligations to the EU in the name of fiscal discipline and EU regulations. As the most important engine of the EU economy, Germany hides its own fiscal interests behind the shield of EU values. For European Federalists who truly support the "value EU", it is worth criticizing Germany's hypocrisy; but for those voters who have skepticism and tendencies towards the EU, it is worth denying the EU's philosophy itself.
Soviet Europe: imagination, courage and reality
The biggest tragedy is that it confuses the scope of EU ideals, thus making many EU specific policies regarded as all the values represented by the "EU" as a whole, and thus provides infinite space for the expansion of the momentum of Eurosceptics.
It is true that many of the criticisms of Eurosceptics are based on old values and are even rooted in false news. When France's Marina Le Pen attacked the EU's adoption of "effective majority" rather than "collective consensus" decision-making methods on many major issues, her voters were not sure what decision-making methods the EU adopted on what issues, and how the "effective majority" decision-making in common agricultural policy protected the interests of French farmers. For example, when the British Independence Party (UKIP) organized propaganda for Brexit during the Brexit referendum, it implied that once the UK leaves the EU, £450 million will be transferred from the EU budget to the UK's National Health Insurance System (NHS).
However, many times, the attacks of Eurosceptics are not based solely on rumors and political propaganda, especially the criticism raised by the radical left in Europe is a problem that the EU cannot avoid. European countries have corresponding labor protection legislation, but while the EU emphasizes the four major freedoms, the EU ignores that the free flow of labor and capital may have an impact on the power of trade unions and the stability of the social security system. Of course, criticism of the radical left and the radical right can be just as hypocritical: the radical right welcomes the free flow of capital, but opposes the free flow of population; the radical left is the opposite, they support the free flow of population, but opposes the free flow of capital. However, aside from the ideological rhetoric adopted by the radical left and the radical right, the issues they are concerned about are indeed necessary for the EU to reflect: liquidity and the dissolution of borders are certainly related to the ideal of transcending the nation-state and realizing European integration, but the resulting real political issues cannot become issues that the EU is unwilling to face.
EU policy makers are increasingly experiencing negative tendencies of conservative reality. Due to the complex decision-making mechanism and the divided political interests between member states, any structural adjustment to the current major EU regulations and policies may not only fail to do as they wish, but also create more differences and entanglements. If it weren't for the impact of the new crown epidemic, it might have taken several years for the EU to generate its first joint bailout budget. However, the EU's rulers use the ideal of European integration as a shield to resist all criticism of the EU, which is of course not helpful to the solution of the issue: some Eurosceptics originally criticized part of the EU's policies, but when the EU's bureaucratic system lacks a democratic foundation shows an insensitive and conservative attitude, this opposition will be directed at the EU itself. Eurosceptics have reasonable reasons to believe that the EU has no room for comprehensive structural reform, so exiting the EU will also become a feasible option.
After the chaos of the Brexit referendum, Eurosceptics have suffered a lot of blows in EU countries.Germany's alternative party AfD, which advocates Brexit, has begun to decline in momentum in parliament. In the EU-skeptical alliance formed in 2018, the five-star movement of populist turned to a pro-European stance after taking over by Giuseppe Conte in 2021, and the far-right party coalition party, which advocates withdrawing from the euro zone, has also begun to dress up its "moderateness". After the French traditional far-right party, the National Front, was reorganized into the National League, also lowered its tone to always demanding to leave European issues. However, this moderateization of "European skeptics" is not because these political leaders accepted the EU's philosophy, but because the systems and systems of the EU and the euro zone are too complex, forming an influence that is "big and cannot be defeated". Many people hope to stay in the EU not because of their enthusiasm for supporting the EU philosophy, but because they are worried that the disintegration of the EU system will cause serious economic shocks, or rely on the benefits provided by the EU, and hope to continue to stay in the EU.
"Europa at the intersection", author: Li Qiang / Duan Demin, version: Commercial Press, 2020-1.
It can certainly be a strategy to win EU supporters with interests rather than ideas, but relying on such strategies will ultimately lead to the hollowing out of EU values. The legal crisis created by Poland and Hungary within the EU is enough to prove this. In all polls in Poland and Hungary, more than 90% of the people hope to stay within the EU. The two countries are relatively underdeveloped, with a large population requiring job opportunities from other developed countries in the EU, and the investment and appropriations brought by the EU are also crucial to the economic development of the two countries. For many years, it is the benefits and development opportunities brought by the EU that attracts Eastern European countries to join the EU. These countries strive to meet the value standards established by the EU, including political systems, judicial systems, social security and economic freedom, based solely on interest demands. And after they joined the EU, the value that was not generally recognized and pursued in these countries could no longer be well maintained.
So, Poland and Hungary became the two "thorns" within the EU. Focusing on issues such as judicial justice, political competition neutrality and anti-corruption, the European Commission, the European Commission, and the governments of Poland and Hungary have been constantly quarreling. The ruling authorities of Poland and Hungary regard EU intervention as a threat to the continuation of their political life, while the European Commission European Commission believes that Poland and Hungary are important value standards against the EU while accepting EU appropriations. A miracle that is almost a political performance unfolds: the majority of voters in Hungary and Poland show positive attitudes towards the EU, vote for a sharp opposition to the EU on specific issues, and even claim to defend their sovereignty in front of the EU; while the leaders of the European Commission condemn Poland and Hungary's deviance from EU values, while working closely with these ruling authorities in Poland and Hungary under the EU's established decision-making administrative framework. The EU's philosophy seems very important, but it seems to be a bargaining chip that can be used to compromise at will.
Therefore, differences in interests and ideas can be hidden behind these performance quarrels. When the current EU policies and structures are attacked by supporters of the philosophy EU, those voices committed to further promoting European integration, EU authorities can claim that the EU is facing a crisis, claiming that any further reform will be subject to enough opposition; and when the attackers are Eurosceptics, EU authorities use European ideals as excuses, while deterring them with the actual benefits brought by the EU and the potential harm of leaving the EU. The justifications of these defenses may make sense, but they reveal that EU policymakers are no longer willing to launch bold, imaginative reform plans, or even discuss them seriously.
Emmanuel Macron After being elected President of France, he proposed a series of policy creations to revitalize the EU. The core is to revitalize a "sovereign Europe", which hits the key to the criticism of many EU critics at present.The European Parliament lacks influence on European core policies. As a substitute for the European Constitution rejected by France and the Netherlands, its legitimacy has been questioned. At that time, European leaders at that time gave up their efforts to give the EU super-sovereign nature to promote the acceleration of formal European integration and made the "concept EU" compromise for the "interest EU". However, "democratic deficit" and "sovereignty contradictions" have become increasingly controversial points around the EU. Poland, Hungary and other EU skeptics accused the bureaucracy of Brussels and tried to deprive countries of sovereignty, and the radical left also believed that the implementation of European policies interfered and violated the sovereignty of member states for reasons such as environmental protection and labor protection. In the 2022 French parliament election, the New Ecological and Social People's Front (NUPES), led by Jean-Luc Melanchon, advocated that it is possible to selectively refuse to implement some EU terms and policies, and this position has even been supported by the consistent pro-European French Green Party.
However, in the era of globalization, the concept of "sovereignty" itself is also worthy of reflection. Sovereignty provides a false illusion, as if as long as this concept exists, the final decision of all policies within a country can belong to those living in this country. However, if liquidity becomes increasingly increasing, is policy decisions within a country's land really important? In fact, the vast majority of countries in the world today are actually restricted by suprassorial treaties. To give the most extreme example, the Non-War Convention and the UN Charter 1, which are inherited, limit the right to war in the sovereign states in a legal sense. Even if the exact answer is not available, the mechanisms and possibilities for sharing sovereignty between EU member states and the European Union need at least the courage and imagination of political and thought leaders who support the EU to discuss it.
This article is exclusive original content. Author: Wang Zichen; Editor: Zhu Tianyuan, Li Yongbo, Liu Yaguang; Proofreader: Xue Jingning, Zhang Yanjun. Reproduction may not be made without the written authorization of the Beijing News.
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