End of solidarity
by
Marcel Van Silfhout |
Where Europe and its euro are heading is not clear
Let’s forget about the euro-crisis and focus on the real issue: the project of a united Europe - once a dream, today more like a nightmare. In both cases it’s better to awaken as soon as possible.
It’s been said before that Europe is missing leadership, there’s a worrisome lack of vision and the faith of the economy on the old continent is disastrous as well.
Clearly there is ‘some’ relation here. But even then it’s still not the most important aspect of the current crisis. There’s only one matter at the top of them all; the Grand Idea that forms the basis of the European project started after World War II, easily to summarise in one word: solidarity. If it’s true that we’re at the end of solidarity, we’re at the end of the Europe as we know it too.
In the last week something amazing happened, within just a few days, the current European leaders we’re able to formulate a complete new treaty. Normally this would have taken weeks if not months or years. Even more amazingly, a massive majority accepted the outcome. At the end only one country out of 27 nations spoiled the party with a stand alone position: Britain. It’s an old reflex action of the former world empire: ‘let’s go for a splendid isolation.’
In a crisis one will learn who his real friends are.’ There’s a northern (prosperous, but high taxed) and there’s a southern Europe (less money and budgetary discipline, but more hours of sun and nice food). Westwards there’s also the United Kingdom, the liberal-conservative-oriented island ‘offshore.’
Though, the European crisis is much deeper. In the last weeks a Dutch parliamentarian committee held hearings to investigate the crisis before the last crisis: the financial meltdown in September 2008 and the decisions made by bankers and the ruling government ministers back then to cope with bankrupt banks. In just two weekends two giant Dutch and Belgian banks (ABN/AMRO and Fortis) were fully nationalised. The Netherlands and Belgium, together with tiny Luxembourg, are known to be the founding fathers of the current European constellation.
If there is one thing to learn from the current ongoing parliamentarian hearings, it’s about the way the Dutch politicians acted in the case of ‘helping’ Fortis. In fact it was an arrogant hostile take-over of the Belgium bank Fortis by The Netherlands.
So what about solidarity? Another, similar issue is the old dispute over deepening the old channel ‘De Westerschelde’, the waterway from the North-Sea into the Belgian harbour of Antwerpen (Anvers ). After decades - if not centuries - a few years ago the two countries formulated an agreement which at last would have ended the dispute. But the current Dutch minority coalition cabinet doesn’t want to fulfil to the agreement.
The learning curve is clear: even if the two old close ties within Europe don’t match with each other anymore, what does this say on behalf of the whole continent? It says clearly that there’s a lack of good-old mutual understanding and solidarity, even amongst close friends.
Where Europe and its euro are heading is not clear. The two main political answers are a misfit too. There is this technocrat Goldman-Sachs-look-a-like school, saying ‘we just need more Europe , more budgetary discipline, less social welfare state and a more neo-liberal oriented economy.’ At the other end there are the popular parties, saying ‘we need less Europe, an autonomous national social-economy policy to keep our social-welfare state in shape and a less neo-liberal economy.
It’s hard to say that all populists follow a similar line, some of them are extreme right or leftwing. Other populists, like the Dutch ‘Party for Freedom’ (PVV), lead by provocateur Geert Wilders, try to be a sort of schizophrenia both. In between, the so called political centre, it’s quite empty. As mentioned earlier, there is a lack of ideology and lack of a good future-based story to believe in.
Where is Europe leading us to? The bitter truth is that no one knows. For most of the people it’s clear that party time is over. But still, what’s next? Whatever answer one can give, if solidarity indeed is gone, there will be a total mess, even bigger than the one we’re experiencing now. Revolutionary times indeed, though the outcome of this chaos is as misty as the weather forecasts for coming months or years. We’d better be real: stay awake and keep dreaming of a better world.
Oman Tribune |
Other comment for Marcel Van Silfhout
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