Europe, as-tu une âme ?
The question asked by this book (the title of which translates as ‘Europe, do you have a soul?’) inevitably reminds the older ones among us of the calls made in the 1980s by the former President of the European Parliament, Simone Veil, to give it one. The most direct response is ‘no’, as Veil’s calls led to nothing. Under this title, the author, who is clearly an assiduous reader of the Bulletin Quotidien Europe, serves up a tome nearly 500 pages long, replete with philosophical references and quotations spanning the centuries from antiquity to the modern day. Although it sets out to be edifying, the volume of information it contains, together with endless to-ing and fro-ing between European and French politics, is sometimes quite hard to keep up with. Yet it offers a rich selection of Christian, mainly Catholic, thought. Here is a fairly random selection of our highlights.
“The current project of the European Union is not the one we believe in for Europe. Given the defiance surrounding it, and the stalemate it is currently stuck in, we would like to try to win back the hearts and minds of Europeans”, Vincent Carbonel writes (our translation throughout). He goes on to say that “apart from a few insiders, specialists in European affairs numbering barely a few hundred, Europe is becoming inaccessible; those wishing to penetrate its mysteries fell by the wayside long ago. When it comes to the details of the questions, we are in reality dealing with a labyrinth with numerous ramifications. Furthermore, the European Ombudsman herself, Emily O’Reilly of Ireland, is not asking the European authorities for more transparency in the legislative process; for instance, an investigation showed that the Council is incapable of clearly identifying the positions of the member states”. This is a perfectly justified comment, although it might have been useful to point out that it is the governments of the member states that are rejecting this necessary measure of transparency, as the diplomats find they can live very comfortably with their role as legislator, most often without the slightest national parliamentary control, as is particularly the case with France.
The author goes on to identify areas for projects he considers “vital for getting European integration back on track”, which he sets out to expand upon in the book: (1) the moral dimension and education, which he starts off describing in terms of proposals, specifically “to give Europe the moral and spiritual dimensions it is missing; to review the question of languages in Europe; to tackle the issue of primary and secondary education in schools”; (2) the economic and social domain; (3) political construction.
“In summer 2024, European integration was as much in the hands of the member states and their experts, taking their decisions independently of their people, as it was in the past. Some individuals, scared off by fairly recent experience, fear nothing as much as they do consulting their people on certain major ideas that alone would be enough to get the whole process moving again. We are living in an inter-governmental construct. Europe, which began in the 1950s, has made considerable progress, it is true, but it has not yet found its trail of breadcrumbs, because it was built from the roof down instead of starting with its foundations. It is time Europe to reinvent its foundations, if it is to get its people on board”, the author writes.
Describing the 24 official languages of the European Union as a “real stumbling block to contact, particularly given the sheer number of international meetings held in the framework of the EU in Brussels and Strasbourg”, Carbonel makes an urgent plea for a “change of mindset” that would make it possible “seriously to tackle the language barrage” and allow the EU to move forward towards “European unity”. And to ignore “unity in diversity”, to use the EU’s motto! Without wishing to play down the difficulties caused by this diversity or the language question as a factor in unity, in the formation of nation-states, we remain deeply convinced that diversity is a source of richness and that European linguistic heritage deserves to be preserved. The European Union will not make itself any friends if it destroys this heritage and the French model of negating cultural differences and, at various times in its history, repressing “regional” languages and cultures, in other words those of the old-regime countries, is neither desirable nor acceptable. The author’s recommendation to “reduce the European linguistic field to three official languages: German, English and French” is unacceptable, in my view, because it would be outrageous to force a member of the European Parliament to speak in a foreign language and/or to introduce linguistic discrimination in the European elections, making it less likely for people who can speak only one of the other 21 official languages of the EU to be elected or properly represented. There cannot be two classes of citizen, those who share one of the three aforementioned languages while everybody else, simply because they speak only Portuguese, Italian, Polish, or Bulgarian and Russian, or Czech and Slovakian, would be sidelined. Apart from an almost desperate attempt to restore the place of the French language, the decline of which primarily reflects the decline of French influence internationally and the lack of presence and work of the French within the European institutions, starting with the Parliament, it is hard to see what good a proposal of this kind would do. Indeed, as Carbonel himself acknowledges, “among the 24 languages of the EU, all of which are considered working languages, in reality, only French, English and German are actually used, due to administrative and budgetary constraints. It would therefore only be a matter of scaling up a movement that already exists and which is moving in the right direction”. The reality, however, is far more complex: firstly, the use of languages is still far more varied at the Parliament, although greatly reduced compared to 30 years ago, and, secondly, English has massively supplanted German and, even more so, French everywhere else, with a few niche exceptions such as the legal services, the Court of Justice, etc.
In a later section on education and “moral and civic education”, the author argues that “learning moral and civic values, instead of sticking to strictly national traditions, should be based on the ‘spiritual heritage of Europe’”. This is followed by a long list of controversial subjects and “values” of which the least that can be said is that they are conservative. In no particular order, we find: - medically assisted conception, surrogacy, uterus transplants; - marriage, which the author defines as the “heterosexual union between a man and a woman for the purpose of procreation”, with teachers called upon to develop “above all education on friendship, relationships between men and women; education on sex within marriage; education on affectivity (feelings, emotions, affections)”; - “adoptive affiliation and single-sex parenting (informing pupils of the dangers of ‘gender’ ideology in school)”; - contraception, which “should not be free of charge and anonymous, as parents, who are primarily responsible for the education of their children, should not be removed from a necessary dialogue”; - abortion; - drugs; - learning about prescription medication; - road safety; - the end of life; - suicide and euthanasia.
After a fourth section on tackling unemployment, particularly youth unemployment, the author switches his attention to the political and institutional dimensions. “Europe does not exist, it is a Union in name only. We have to build its architecture as soon as possible, because without political union, Europe will be condemned to ‘watch the trains of History passing by’, or even simply to fall into decline as a construct. What should we be aiming for? A unified political unit bringing together, at least initially, just a handful of countries selected from among the 27 current members of the EU, pending the accession of others”, Carbonel writes. He then goes on to propose a new institutional architecture: “with a view to a balance of powers, [the Commission] would abandon its right of legislative initiative and concentrate exclusively on its executive mandate. The Commission, a true supranational collegial body, would be a kind of European government with limited and strictly controlled powers. The institution’s College of European Commissioners and President would be directly elected by the EP, with no prior nominations from the European Council. A parliamentary system abiding by the two-chamber principle would be set in place: first assembly: a Chamber of States, in other words merging the current European Council and Council of Ministers, which would represent the governments of the member states and would work in accordance with a majority decision-making system”. Apart from the fact that the author, who spoke of a dialled-down Europe, does not tell us which Commission he is talking about (does he plan to create a new one for a pioneer group? What will he do with the old one? What would happen to the States that were not part of this pioneer group?), we might question the point of this burlesque fusion between European Council and Council that would bring together ministers with the broadest range of portfolios, appointed in accordance with variable systems and even Presidents in some cases… Some coming from, and controlled by, their respective parliaments, and others largely autonomous. The second chamber would be the equivalent of the current European Parliament, elected by direct universal suffrage. The two chambers would jointly hold legislative powers overall, the author continues, going on to add that the “European Union would culminate in the election by direct universal suffrage of its future President […], who would replace the current President of the European Council”. To do what? Plant chrysanthemums? It is worth noting that as things stand at the moment, the President of the European Council has no duties other than to chair the European Council, which the author is getting rid of, and to represent the EU externally, a responsibility he or she shares with the President of the Commission of the High Representative.
“Europe must invent a kind of specific political community, avoiding becoming a super-state like the United States of America, as the political model of this great democracy has in reality slipped a little bit towards a model of hegemonic power. We need to find a compromise of a dynamic middle ground between a Europe of nation-states and a supranational Europe: two kinds of Europe, back to back. We need to imagine an original model somewhere between these two extremes, the weft of which could be modelled on a confederation, at least initially”, Carbonel adds. He ends losing his readers somewhere among the threads of this institutional fabric that goes off in every direction. (Olivier Jehin)
Vincent Carbonel. Europe, as-tu une âme ? Essai pour une pédagogie de l’Europe (available in French only). L’Harmattan. ISBN: 978-2-3365-2006-3. 487 pages. €48,00