HOPE AND STRUGGLE AFTER 3RD NOVEMBER 2004: EURO-NATIONALISM IS THE WRONG ANSWER

The re-election of George W. Bush was a sad and dangerous event. But the comparative advantage some countries and regions now have is no reason for any of us to take our domestic problems more lightly than before.

November 3rd that witnessed the re-election of George W. Bush was a day of distress for citizens around the world struggling for solidarity, justice and democracy. It reconfirms the urgent need for us all to contribute both to the work against US-dominance in world affairs and to efforts to improve the quality of the power that comes from the USA. Both tasks are equally necessary and neither can be left to committed citizens of the US alone.

We need hope. It is understandable if many good people now fail to see much hope coming from the polity of the United States. Some of them think hope must now be due primarily to the old imperial homeland.

That is fine, within limits. The political forces struggling against the neo-liberal onslaught along the lines outlined, for instance, in the declaration of the World Social Forum need to strengthen their effort and cooperation everywhere. Western Europe has much to contribute.

We must not forget, however, that our essential task is not to redistribute power along the East-West axis. The essential task is empowerment of the global South.

For this reason we must make very clear that we reject the new "post-national" euro-nationalism that is promoted by EU-fanatics coming, mostly, from the neoliberal centre-right, but sometimes also from the left and green ends of the political spectrum.

The notion that the only or main hope now rests with "Europe" is, at best, sentimental nonsense. At worst, the tremendous crisis in the USA can become a reason for a new “post-national” nationalism: for an uncritical, uninformed and dangerous euro-chauvinism that will leave us all powerless in front of accelerating depoliticization and technocratic centralization of powers on this sub-continent.

The emerging super-power of the EU has a better track-record than its trans-atlantic sibling in some areas of vital interest including post WWII military warfare, some environmental issues (notably, the Kyoto protocol and GMO-policies) and with respect to international law.

None of this should become a reason for indolence or indifference to the dismal performance of the EU in some other areas in which it has already emerged as global super-power, including notably, the World Trade Organisation. (See e.g. http://www.s2bnetwork.org/cancuntohongkong.pdf)

The proposed new constitution for the European Union is the best measure of the current balance of power in the European Union. It has been often been said that the constitution will, finally, allow EU to emerge on the global scene as a counter-weight to the unilateral hegemony of the USA. But the problems with this assessment will be evident to all who have read the constitution closely.

The proposed constitution is not just a summary of the provisions of the existing EU-treaties. The constiutional form alone is a novelty with vast implications for identity politics and for juridical traditions. There are many immediately nationalistic elements, including a national hymn, flag, day and the complacent Preamble. Substantially the proposed constitution is radical: it scraps several historical democratic achievements, including the division of powers and the fundamental provision that the power belongs to the people, it gives the Union the right to global military intervention without the approval of the security council of the UN, it constitutionalizes military build-up, it vastly strengthens the powers of the commission to bypass and overrule concerns for human rights, social justice and the environment in international trade negotiations, it re-enforces and restructures the unfair asylum and migration policies of the EU, it threatens to mitigate key achievements in the fields of economic, social, and cultural rights in many member countries, it enshrines the undemocratic monetarism of the Maastrict Treaty, and it makes EU-support to the Tobin-tax a very remote dream, just to mention some of the problems.

Naturally, not all of the EU-constitution is equally disappointing. Nevertheless, we must be perfectly clear that the present constitutional proposal is a blueprint for enhanced technocratic control and deepened neoliberal hegemony in Western and Central Europe. It is neither what we want nor what the world needs. Our disapppointment with the USA must not become a reason for any uncritical acceptance of a "stronger Europe". Such EU-nationalism will only lead us into the dark.

In the process required to sustain political traditions in Western Europe polity that can provide hope and global leadership for justice the referenda on the proposed constitution play a central role. We should work for reasonably fair referenda in as many member countries as possible. And we should work to win the referenda. But in cases like this “winning” is not decided by the number of yes and no votes. It is decided by the quality of the votes. Only if the proposed constitution is rejected for the right reasons, will the subsequent propositions for a new EU carry more hope for Europe and the world than the present one does.

Helsinki, November 8th 2005

Thomas Wallgren
Chair, Network Institute for Global Democratization (NIGD)