Human Wrongs Watch
Seventy years ago Europe came out from a terrible war, exhausted and destroyed.
That produced a generation of statesman, who went about creating a European integration, in order to avoid the repetition of the internal conflicts that had created the two world wars.
Today a war between France and Germany is unthinkable, and Europe is an island of peace for the first time in its history.
This is the mantra we hear all the time. What is forgotten is that in fact a good part of Europe did not want integration.
In 1960, the United Kingdom led the creation of an alternative institution, dedicated only to commercial exchange: the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), formed by the United Kingdom, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, then later Finland and Iceland.
It was only in 1972 that, bowing to the success of European integration, the UK and Denmark asked to join the EU. Later, Portugal and Austria left EFTA to join the European Union.
The UK was never interested in the European project and always felt committed to “a special relation” with United States. Union would mean also solidarity and integration, as the various EU treaties kept declaring. The UK was only interested in the market side of the process.
Since 1972, the gloss of European integration has lost much of its shine. Younger generations have no memory of the last war.
The EU is perceived far from its citizens, run by unelected officials who make decisions without a participatory process, and unable to respond to challenges. Where is the external policy of the EU? When does it take decisions that are not an echo of Washington?
Since the financial crisis of 1999, xenophobic, nationalistic and right wing parties have sprouted all over Europe.
In Hungary, one of them is in power and openly claims that democracy is not the most efficient system.
The Greek crisis has made clear that there is a north-south divide, while Germany and the others do not consider solidarity a criterion for financial issues.
And the refugee crisis is now the last division in European integration.
The UK has openly declared that it will take only a token number of 10,000 refugees, while a new west-east divide has become evident, with the strong opposition of Eastern Europe to take any refugee.
The idea of solidarity is again out of the equation.
Germany moved because of its demographic reality. It had 800,000 vacant jobs, and it needs at least 500,000 immigrants per year to remain competitive and keep its pension system alive. But that mentality is even more clear with the East European countries, which experience increasing demographic decline.
At the end of communism in 1989, Bulgaria had a population of 9 million. Now it is at 7.2 million. It is estimated that it will lose an additional 7 per cent by 2030, and 28.5 per cent by 2050.
Romania will lose 22 per cent by 2050, followed by Ukraine (20%), Moldova (20%), Bosnia and Herzegovina (19.5%), Latvia (19%), Lithuania (17.5%), Serbia (17%), Croatia (16%), and Hungary (16%).
Yet, all Eastern Europe countries have followed the British rebellion, and take a strong stance on refusing to accept refugees.
Now the idea of European integration is reaching a crucial challenge: the United Kingdom will hold a referendum by the end of 2017 to decide if remain in the European Union or not. Prime minister David Cameron, has invented this referendum, in order to renegotiate with EU the terms of British participation, get enough concessions to appease the Euro-skeptics and thus win the referendum in favor of Europe.
Only 10 years ago, such a maneuver would have gone nowhere. But now things are different, and there is a general tendency among European countries to take back as much as possible space given to the EU.
Germany has already indicated that it is open to debate, and it wants to avoid a Brexit as much as possible. Cameron has not yet indicated the detail of his requests to remain in the EU.
But it is widely believed that they will be about unhitching from European political integration, requesting exceptionality for the British financial sector, demanding a voice in decisions in the Eurozone (of which the UK is not a member), eliminating social benefits for European immigrants and giving to the British parliament a strong say over European decisions.
Cameron has already indicated that he will withdraw from the European Court of Justice.
Once Great Britain obtains these concessions or even part of them, other countries, beginning with Hungary, will follow. And this will be the end of the process of European integration. We will take the route of EFTA, not the one envisioned by the founding fathers: Konrad Adenauer, Robert Schumann, Paul-Henri Spaak and Alcide De Gasperi.
Meanwhile, Europe will have to accept that it is not going to be the homogenous and white society that the right wing and xenophobic parties dream of reestablishing. The lack of global governability has created a staggering figure of 60 million refugees. Of those, 15 million live in refugee camps.
One of them, Dadaab, in Kenya, has now half a million people, more than the population of several members of the United Nations. It is estimated that climate change will create by 2030 another 10 million refugees.
Solidarity or not, Europe demography will require the arrival of some million. What will be the Europe of 2030?
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*Roberto Savio is the founder and former Director-General of international news agency Inter Press Service (IPS).
In recent years he has also founded Other News, a service providing ‘information that markets eliminate’.
Roberto Savio: utopie@ips.org. http://www.robertosavio.info.
The author has granted permission to Human Wrongs Watch to publish his article.
Other articles by Roberto Savio in Human Wrongs Watch:
Misinformation Hides Real Dimension of Greek “Bailout”
The Kiss of Death for the Original European Dream
The Hidden Truth Behind the Greek Drama
Greece – A Sad Story of the European Establishment
Immigration, Myths and the Irresponsibility of Europe
Voracious Finance Growing Like a Cancer
The Crisis of the Left and the Decline of Europe and the United States
The West and Its Self-Assumed Right to Intervene
A Guide to the Religious Conflict in the Arab World
Blissful Ignorance Makes the West Slide into Mishaps
Pillar of Neoliberal Thinking Is Vacillating
It Should Be Clear What to Expect from the World Social Forum
Foreign Policy Is in the Hands of Sleepwalkers
What if Youth Now Fight for Social Change, But From the Right?
The Exceptional Destiny of U.S. Foreign Policy
Climate Change: Governments Say All the Right Things But Do Exactly the Opposite
Global Governance and Common Values: the Unavoidable Debate
Of Banks, Inequality and Citizens
The Paris Killings – A Fatal Trap for Europe
Ten Major Handicaps Facing 2015
The Steady Decline of Social Europe
The “Incestuous Relations” Between Governments and Energy Corporations
Four Key Reasons to Understand the Irresistible Attraction of Radical Islam
Europe Is Positioning Itself Outside World Arena
Planet Racing Towards Catastrophe and Politics Just Looking On
OP-ED: International Relations, the U.N. and Inter Press Service
Ever Wondered Why the World is a Mess?
Economic Growth Is Anything But “A Rising Tide Lifting All Boats”
Banks, Financial Institutions and Citizens — The Urgent Need to Update the Seven Deadly Sins
The Decline of the Middle Class
The Rich Complain That We Do Not Love Them
The Free Market Fundamentalists Are Now in Europe
The ‘European Dream’ Going the Way of the ‘American Dream’
Thatcher, Reagan and Their “Revolutions”
Cyprus: Do You Understand What Has Really Happened?
Hugo Chávez’s legacy to Latin America
“The Tide Is Growing, But The System Does Not Realise It”
The Palestine Drama, Public Theories and Hidden Realities
China Opening a Confrontation on the Sea
After Two Lost Decades, Japan Went to Sleep
Japan – Ethics, Democracy, Growth
China, Japan Brewing a Serious Conflict
A Personal Experience with the American Justice System
Finance’s Ethics: a Leap into the Past
Banks and Politics Do Not Mix Well
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