Yale University historian Professor Timothy Snyder recently observed (Le Monde, 20-21 September), shortly before Donald Trump was elected, that Americans were “no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism or communism”, taking comfort in the thought that “our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience”. Is he not deluding himself? Can the human being really learn from the mistakes and errors of the past? Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s hailing the billionaire’s victory as a sign of a return to “real democracy” and to “honest talk, away from the crippling constraints of political correctness” does not, unfortunately, give grounds for optimism. More than ever, then, the big question that has to be asked is Frans Timmermans’ “Where have we gone wrong?”. It is dramatically stark. What response can be delivered by a European Union that is much more fragile than the United States?
In his last, posthumously published, book French economist Bernard Maris (L’avenir du capitalisme, see European Library No 1159 of 15 November 2016), says that Albert Einstein once declared or wrote: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”. He’s right, of course. And one could add that one cannot seek to build the future if one’s eyes are constantly on the rear-view mirror. If the challenges facing the Union, its member states and European citizens are to be met, what is needed is, if not boldness, then at any rate the widest possible openness of mind. The blinkers that prevent political leaders seeing beyond national concerns and interests will have to be removed. It is high time to remember that the common good is greater than the sum of national interests.
For a European political “leader” worthy of the name, removing the blinkers means admitting that the European institutional system has become seriously distorted. Frenchman Alain Lamassoure, a potential candidate for the presidency of the European Parliament, has set an example in speaking out against “the European institutions being, in a way, held to ransom by and for governments” (Toute l’Europe.eu, 18 November). That a former minister of the French Republic that General De Gaulle was instrumental in putting in place can say that “inter-governmentalism is cannibalising the European institutions” suggests that the die is not yet cast, that common sense still holds sway in some minds. Those who resist are in the minority in many national political circles but they are all the more precious for that. Just as precious is this warning from the economist Pierre Defraigne, Executive Director of the Madariaga Centre-College of Europe and a former director general at the Commission: “Europe in the grip of paralysing, Berlin-dominated inter-governmentalism, facing Brexit, divided on refugees and impotent in the face of weak, widely differing and unequal growth will, without the slightest doubt, be the first target for ‘Trumpism’”.
For a political “leader” keen not to be remembered by history for failing to show leadership, removing the blinkers means finally looking at figures and percentages more with the heart than with reason. There have been moves in the right direction. It was good, for example, to hear Pierre Moscovici acknowledge last week that the Commission could not continue to defend “narrow austerity” and that growth remained too weak “to entertain any hope of being able to bring a reduction in unemployment and inequality any time soon” (see EUROPE 11669). That’s an improvement but it is not enough because it amounts to admitting that populism will be here for some time yet, long enough to further undermine the foundations of the European project. Should we not go deeper into economic and social analysis and openly ask if really it is honest to try to make people believe that we will be able one day to return to full employment? Would it not be wiser to consider a paradigm shift, as French philosopher and sociologist Raphaël Liogier invites us to do when he suggests (in Le Soir, 15 November) that thought be given to introducing a universal or basic income so that society is no longer divided “into those who have a work contract and those who do not”? Folly, many realists will cry. Maybe, but, given where wisdom has taken us, might it not be a good idea to make a little room for Utopian folly? In any event, that is what respected economist Yanis Varoufakis thinks, suggesting a way to fund this social upheaval, financing the basic income guarantee through “capital returns”.
Is a universal allocation the answer? Maybe not. But the debate has, at least, to be opened and the triple blinkers of national sovereignty, the status quo and the Thatcherite “there is no alternative” must be removed, otherwise the populists, extremists and nationalists will continue to reap the benefits. Are politicians up to the task? It’s unlikely. But they had better realise that civil society – and some politicians acting in a personal capacity – are taking up the calls to arms and will not allow them to wallow in the inaction that can lead only to tragedy. Soon they will have to choose which side they are on – Einstein and Timmermans’ or Orban and Trump’s. (Original version in French by Michel Theys)