This question may seem relevant: is another edition of Beacons really having to return to the latest ‘resistible rise’ of yet another Arturo Ui?
After all, the European Union and its institutions are not directly affected by this phenomenon, as the tarnishing of the corridors of the European Parliament remains contained. Even so, the stain is spreading across virtually the whole of Europe (and the world) and this is no time for shameful indifference or playing a waiting game because, as George Orwell pointed out, only foolish people believe that not resisting evil will somehow lead it to destroy itself. It is certainly taking the risk that it turns out like that. Yet, as Gianni Buquicchio, President of the Venice Commission, recently told Véronique Leblanc, we are unquestionably currently living through “a phase of a worrying regression of democracy” (La Libre Belgique, 28 December 2017; our translation). Disregarding the opinion of the Council of Europe’s Commission for Democracy through Law is tantamount to stepping into the shoes worn by Daladier and Chamberlain back in the day.
From Brussels, in its role as capital of Europe, how can this abscess be lanced? The most important thing is to analyse it carefully, take multiple biopsies to pin down all the reasons it is growing, differently but with the same end result, in the countries of the EU, as its roots in central Europe are not fed on the same harmful tendencies, to identical degrees, as those that exist in Western Europe. It is even more important that the political parties that have been infected are identified and treated, without partisan blinkers on. This is not the least of the problems, going by the disgraceful way the political families represented at the European Parliament tend to protect those under their banners who in fact deserve to be admonished and, if needs be, condemned and banished.
To give you one example, the former Polish dissident Adam Michnik said, late last year, that it was “scandalous” that the European People’s Party had, according to Slawomir Sierakowski, Director of the Institute for Advanced Study, seen its way clear to blocking, 107 times out of 199, the European Parliament’s attempts to condemn by means of a resolution the government of Viktor Orbán for its repression of the Central European University, which stands ‘guilty’ of being financed by George Soros. The Party of European Socialists is hardly any better, proving that it is capable of shamelessly turning a blind eye to the misdeeds of its affiliates in power in Malta or, previously, Slovakia. And it doesn’t end there, as the Liberals, embarrassed by some of the stances taken by their businessman fellow traveller in the Czech Republic, maintain a deafening silence on the subject in every language of the EU.
The attitude of these politicians is just as incomprehensible as it is reprehensible! It is incomprehensible because, make no mistake about it, it is, more than anything, the failings of democratic political forces, their shady deals, the liberties they take with ethics and the common good in the name of realpolitik, which always aims first and foremost to serve their own short-term electoral interests, that are meat and drink to extremists of all political persuasions. The historians Dorothea Bohnekamp and Nicolas Patin provided a timely reminder of this, jogging our memories as to what caused the fall of the Weimar Republic in 1933: “the elite – of all political parties – shared the same fatal weaknesses: they always put the identity of their political party – be it Socialist, Communist, Catholic or Liberal – ahead of the common good” and, furthermore, dipped “regularly into politico-financial scandals” (Le Monde, 29 April 2017; our translation). Are things actually any different in this day and age?
Quite the reverse. Once again, the citizens are deeply suspicious of the world of politics that seems to exist in a vacuum, entirely cut off from their expectations and the problems they face. And so, times of democratic distrust have rolled around again, bringing with them a return to favour for the miasma of populism, demagogy and nationalism. Everywhere in Europe, democracy is ailing, to a greater or lesser extent, as evinced by the protest votes of citizens who are more often to be pitied than blamed. Because, let us be quite clear, they are very often quite right to be dissatisfied with the fate reserved for them by the national democracies.
Today, discontented citizens like to conclude that the EU is responsible for all their problems. Obviously, they are barking up the wrong tree. But if you look a bit more closely, have they actually got it so wrong? Do they not in fact have some very good and entirely rational grounds to detest the toothless Europe that is served up by manipulative states, which care only about blocking anything that may appear to erode their sovereignty? In actual fact, this is a moot point in any case, as sovereignty is already shared in many areas. This is the case with the single currency and the budgetary, economic and financial constraints it brings with it. In these matters, the member states of the Eurozone no longer have a free hand: they decide together on the policies to be pursued, in closed-off rooms out of sight of the citizens.
This is the very negation of democracy! Because the states want it to remain confined to their own turf, their servants – i.e. the national governments – block the emergence of a European democracy worthy of the name. In so doing, they are the leading destabiliser of national democracies, as these democracies are prevented from taking account of the sensitivities of public opinion. They are hence leaving the door of their national power bases wide open to extremist parties!
In order to contain the ‘resistible rise’ of these parties, what is first needed is for the national political leaders – and those enthralled to them at European level (as there is scarcely a Commissioner or member of the European Parliament who is not, to some degree, under an obligation to them), to listen to the citizens, who are protesting because they want a more democratic Europe, one that is more in line with their wishes. If they do not, nationalists and architects of illiberal democracies will win, once and for all, and the national leaders who stood by and allowed them to do it will go down in history as the gravediggers of the European dream. (To be continued)
Michel Theys