The Hindu Business Line : The road ahead for the EU

DOES THE European Union today find itself at the crossroads which may even affect the original dream of Jean Monnet and his band of enthusiasts who signed the Treaty of Rome on March 25, 1957, heralding a new Europe?

The question is important because there have been no shortage of critics of the project ever since the idea was mooted nearly half a century ago, and even when the vision was restricted to one of just economic union (which, incidentally, gave the name European Common Market to the project in the early years).

Since then, the project has come a long way, the focus having been enlarged from the ambit of the common market to something much wider, so much so that the European landmass today — including Turkey which is on the fringe and connects Europe with Asia — is on the point of being bestowed with a supra-national identity.

The issue is whether half a decade is enough to have brushed under the carpet the fiercely nationalist characteristics of a set of peoples who have had resort to arms on countless occasions over the past centuries to settle scores with one another.

It may be argued that the "supra-national" content of today's Europe is still weak and, therefore, the issue cannot be presented in this specific form.

This may be so, but the fact remains that strenuous efforts are being currently made (the Treaty of Nice, etc) to get for the European Union a new Constitution — which would centralise in Brussels (the European Commission) many of the powers of the member-states relating to a pan-European canvas — a movement which itself strongly represents an urge to implement a "supra-national" Europe.

The question is: Is this urge realistic?

Seen a bit differently, can it be said that the recent French and Dutch negative referendum results actually point to something much more serious as far as the future of Europe is concerned, more specifically to the fact that political unity with a common foreign policy and defence establishment is simply not on the cards for Europe.

Going to the grassroots levels, can it be stated with confidence that an average French villager will consider himself an European first and then a Frenchman, or a German farmer an European first and then a German, not to speak of their English and Belgian counterparts, among a host of others.

The issue is important because if the "supra-national" European consciousness does not trickle down to this basic, building-block level, then it can be said with some certainty that the EU project will, in the final analysis, fail and that, as a corollary, it would be far more sensible to stick to the "common economic unit" line originally envisaged by the likes of Jean Monnet.

Indeed, to the average European today, the over-riding importance of the economic aspect of the union was clearly underscored by the fact that a crucial factor affecting the referendum vote was the high unemployment rate in some parts of the EU and sluggish overall growth.

If one reads the Principles governing the 1957 Treaty of Rome, one can sense that, at the time, the founding fathers of the United Europe experiment had nothing on their minds other than forging an "economically" integrated Europe.

This is perhaps the earliest indication that the way forward for any enterprising national unit in the 20th Century and beyond was to cooperate closely with other national units in the economic sphere and compete effectively in the international market jointly.

The common currency and a common monetary policy, not to speak of a common Customs area, was all a part of the original scheme.

In fact, this model is being replicated in other parts of the world, not excluding Asia, the only difference being that the other schemes have stopped at economic "integration" in the specific shape of free trade arrangements, etc.

Europe is alone in having taken the supra-national plunge.

If the experience of recorded world history is any indication, the project is destined to end in failure.

Of course, it will take time for the realisation to finally sink in but, at the end of it all, it is more than likely that only the economic basis for integration will remain.

And that stands to reason in a rapidly developing world market, competitively speaking.

Ranabir Ray Choudhury

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