This Saturday in Rome, the sixtieth anniversary of the Treaties of Rome will be “celebrated” on the Capitoline Hill by the heads of state and/or government of the countries which are members of the European Union – and determined, it would seem, to remain so. To their minds no doubt will come the distant school memory that “the distance from the Capitoline Hill to the Tarpeian Rock is short” – a fine line separates honour and glory from failure and disaster. History is the bearer, if not of lessons, at least of symbolic messages. It would be foolish to ignore them rather than look truth in the face: Europe which has been under construction for 70 years – it’s true that it must constantly be repeated that the Treaties of Rome were not the foundation agreement, only the start of a second episode and there have been many other episodes since then – is now under threat of being put to death by the very ones who are supposed to ensure that it flourishes.
In truth, there is nothing very new under the sun in the light of which bathes our little peninsula of Asia. Having had the excellent idea of delving into its archives, Agence Europe dug up a comment from one of the signatories of the Treaties of Rome on the tenth anniversary: “renewal could become a funeral”. Italian Foreign Minister in March 1967, Gaetano Martino stated thus the extent to which European construction is a constant battle waged against national conservatism. Something that is moving forward does not need “renewal”. Today, as lack of progress insidiously becomes stagnation, or even regression, it’s no longer renewal that’s needed but quite simply revolution!
The well-meaning will, of course, say that the picture painted here is too black, that lots of progress has been made. Probably. Certainly, reducing telephone roaming charges or helping a few thousand students who want to Europeanise their university courses, and other examples, demonstrate that not everything is negative. But are these what is really crucial at a time when nationalist-populist forces are gaining ever more ground throughout Europe? Let’s not delude ourselves: the victory of the Green, Alexander Van der Bellen, in Austria and the semi-failure of Geert Wilders in the Netherlands are no more than two trees preventing us from seeing the wood of discontent among citizens that is continuing to grow across all of Europe. And it would be foolhardy to claim that the European Union is not partly to blame.
Peter Altmaier, the head of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s private office saw fit, once the results of the Dutch elections had become known, to tweet: “For populism and extremism, the trees won't reach the sky” (Handelsblatt Global, 16 March). He even thought it useful to add, with assurance: “Democracy and reason is stronger than demagoguery”. How comforting it would be to believe that were so! Unfortunately, we have rather to acknowledge that, in many countries of the Union, not least in the Netherlands and France, the nationalism-populism of the extremist forces is winning the battle of ideas. After all, as was pointed out by Henk van der Kolk, a political scientist at the University of Twente, the outgoing Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, undeniably “adopted parts of the rhetoric” of Wilders’ party in carrying off a kind of smoke and mirrors victory. The worm is well and truly in the European fruit, the rot has, indeed, set in.
The really good news coming out of the Netherlands lies in the dyke that was formed against nationalism-populism by the more Europhile parties – or, at least, the parties which support a less despondent Europe, one that offers more hope. According to Kees Aarts, Professor of Political Institutions at the University of Groningen, the clear victory won by the pro-European parties – the Christian Democrats, Liberal Democrats D66 and GreenLeft – was “also a strong expression of Dutch trust in the European Union”. There’s the ray of sunshine that was wished for! It shows that, at last, European citizens are on the move in order, as journalist Nathalie Steiwer wrote from Berlin, “not to leave a clear field for the anti-Europeans” (La Libre Belgique, 13 March). It is tempting and pleasing to think that those taking part in the demonstrations organised by the “Pulse of Europe” movement and the Dutch electoral rebels are the heralds of a “silent majority … repulsed by the anti-European populism of Geert Wilders, Marine Le Pen and Alternative für Deutschland”, as Jeroen De Preter wrote in the magazine Knack.
Should we see these European citizens as the dispatch riders of the coming revolution? Perhaps. At the very least, they are there to make sure that those who, tomorrow, will celebrate with great pomp the 60th anniversary of the Treaties of Rome on behalf of the citizens of Europe are reminded of their duty (see EUROPE 11743). They are there to remind our leaders that in the citizens of each of the countries of Europe are European citizens whose dreams do not stop at their national borders. They are there to provide our leaders with a reminder of what MEP Sylvie Goulard wrote exactly ten years ago, at the time of the 50th anniversary. “Europe is not in crisis for the simple reason that, over recent years, Europe, in the sense of a community of people standing together in solidarity, has not been completed. The European Union, as it is being constructed, is not ‘Europe’. At best, it’s an intermediate stage, at worst a fake”. Ten years on, this view remains just as valid, unfortunately. More than ever, Europe remains a struggle that looks more likely to end in a funeral than in victory. But this time, new forces are arising, rekindling hope.
Michel Theys