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Whither Europe? A Sheffield blastfurnaceman shows how. That’s an article I wrote in my impetuous Euro-sceptic days but Whither Europe is now the major preoccupation of our ruling class, the Euro-elite. They’re worried by the fact that an organisation which has to keep moving on has stalled in a pause for reflection which could turn into paralysis.
The shambling mass we call the EU began as a third order institution with a minor role, like a sewer or, given the CAP, a cowshed. With pretensions. Called the Common Market it was really neither being driven by the Euro-elite not the common people and not a single market at all, merely an agricultural protection regime hoping to become a nation state in its own right. If it ever grew up.
That growth process is the cause of our present problems. The growing blancmange which called itself successively the CM, the EEC, the EC and now the EU, moves forward not by accreting powers through a good job well done, but by new initiatives, grabbing new roles and constantly straining to become something different, bigger, better and more powerful. It must shuffle forward without the consent of the people.
First move was to bring in Britain to dilute French dominance and finance the follies. This added control of Europe's fish, Britain's cash and Britain's consumers to pay for the CAP. We handed over the lot and Europe's industry took a dominant share in our market. The trade surplus we'd had with Europe before turned into an ever gaping deficit, keeping Europe's industry happy while ours shrank.
Initiative One worked. Two didn't. The ERM attempt to build Europe by the back door first stalled into deflation then fell apart.
Number Three, the Single Market, did better, though only after decades of struggle and efforts to dodge. Yet it was Number Four, the Maastricht EMU and the Euro which proved to be the first dead end street. Based on the proposition, always attractive to the economically illiterate, that political union could be built by one currency needing one set of institutions to handle it, it was nationbuilding the wrong way round and without the consent of the people. That didn't work either. Europe needs to be about democracy. This led to plutocracy imposing a deflation so whatever the people do to escape economic difficulties voting out the government, striking, turning French cars into outdoor barbecues, they can't get demand boosted or the economy expanded because government's hands are tied by the bankers.
Never mind. Try again. With a new Constitution. A massive amount of Euro-work and hopes were vested in an unreadable document whose only justification was that it kept Euro-lunatics off the street, only to have it ignominiously rejected by inconsiderate voters. Now it sits as a permanent distraction in a darkened room somewhere in Brussels in which Luxembourgeoises and other religious fanatics hold séances to call up the spirits of the dead.
Time to try something else. The next initiative, once again pursued without the consent of the people, was enlargement. Wider still and wider shall Europe's bounds be set, by bringing in the former Soviet satellites on terms much inferior to the massive bribes offered to Spain, Ireland or Greece but which they could be conned into seeing as a good deal for them. This boosted the EU for a short time. Yet it can't maintain momentum because settled Europe doesn’t really want Slavs competing with Moslems. In any case, only two mafia states remain. However hard Britain pushes it, the EU isn't going to bring in Turkey. So the enlargement route to greatness is blocked too.
So there the EU sits, stalled, deadlocked, bickering, miserable, going nowhere with nowhere left to go, becoming less and less relevant to its people and increasingly left behind by the world as other countries grow while Europe moulders: We're a high unemployment low growth blackspot with delusions and pretensions but no initiatives left.
So whither Europe? I'd say "yes please as quickly as possible" but our wonderful Euro-elite which has led us in to the present impasse seems lost and bemused, casting round hopelessly for yet another initiative to move the Euro-lump forward again.
They see no way ahead. Which leaves us in a mess. A Europe which lacks momentum falls apart with a growing demand for some kind of rebalancing between the smaller states, like Ireland, who do better out of it, and the bigger ones doing badly and fed up of paying for a party they no longer enjoy which their taxpayers are getting fed up of and their citizens see less point in. So Little versus Large will be a long bickering row while the EU sits there with no drive, no dynamic, no ideas and nowhere left to go.
Article for The Sprout |
