It has happened. After France and the Netherlands rejected the European Constitutional Treaty, Ireland’s “No vote is the second and probably decisive blow against a united and strong Europe.
June 12, 2008, will have to be remembered as the day that made European history. No matter what desperate rescue efforts will be undertaken, they cannot hide the fact that the European Union has left the world stage as a serious foreign policy player for at least ten years (if not for much longer).
This has happened at a time when the problems on the Balkans remain unresolved, America is experiencing a relative decline, Russia is regaining strength, Turkey’s domestic policy is taking a wrong turn, the Near East – the EU’s direct neighbor – threatens to explode, and the speed of China’s and India’s rise as emerging powers will define the global economy and politics of tomorrow.
Poor Europe! With the Irish referendum, it has blindly and needlessly thrown itself into a political calamity. Certainly, the EU will continue to exist and its institutions will continue to function, for better or worse, on the foundation of the Treaty of Nice. But a proactive, strong Europe capable of determining its own fate will not be in the cards for quite some time.
When respectable British media such as Financial Times warn against a renewed European psychodrama and instead call for working toward a “Europe of results, this should be regarded rather as a bad joke than a serious alternative. Neither by cajoling nor by beating can a donkey be turned into a racehorse, unless one is secretly satisfied with the donkey. And that is exactly Europe’s core problem: several members do not want more than a donkey.
Institutions, however, may be reformed if they no longer work, and this is exactly what the EU has been futilely trying to do for 20 years. After 1989, history has made EU enlargement indispensable, but, without institutional reform, a Europe of 27 member states will inevitably deliver ever worse – and, to its citizens, increasingly disappointing – results.
What will be the consequences of the Irish referendum?
1) A strong European foreign policy, badly needed given the current state of the world, was buried on June 12, for the time being. The nation states will have control over foreign policy once again. The same is true for the democratization of the EU and thus for its greater proximity to, and acceptance by, ordinary citizens. Given this point, the Irish decision is especially grotesque, because it rejected exactly what it called for.
2) The EU will stagnate. The process of enlargement will either be delayed or stopped completely, because the EU can no longer admit new members on the basis of the “Nice constitution. The price will first be paid in the Balkans, and then by Turkey.
3) The EU’s smaller and mid-sized members, above all, will pay the price for the Irish decision when foreign policy becomes re-nationalized. They will lose influence. There is nothing really new in that if one only looks at the foreign policies of France and Great Britain. But the case of Germany is different. Germany has long seen its strategic interests from within the framework of an integrated EU. A long-term blockade of a strong EU will necessarily change this viewpoint.
4) As an alternative to a large and strong EU, the German-French relationship will return to the fore. In the future, close cooperation between Germany and France will more than ever form the old and new center of gravity in a blocked EU. But, given the Treaty of Nice, this will lead to the EU’s internal disintegration and the formation of two camps: the EU of integration and the EU of the Common Market. Basically, the old European Economic Community and the old European Free Trade Agreement will de facto emerge anew within the framework of the EU.
5) Within the wider EU, solidarity threatens to decline. Solidarity is not a one-way street. Ireland, one of the countries that benefited the most in material terms from the idea of European unification, has rejected this idea.
Thus, negotiations on European financial transfers, the core of European solidarity, will be much tougher in the future than they were in the past (when they were already difficult enough). The poorer EU countries will suffer from this development.
There is still a minuscule chance to avert the debacle if Ireland with its “No vote remains isolated within the EU. Beyond that, however, we should seriously consider whether, within the framework of the Treaty of Nice and on the basis of the Common Market, all parties involved and Europe would be better off parting ways: members favoring political integration should move on, while those satisfied with the Common Market should stay behind.
This formula worked with the Monetary Union. So why not with political integration? At any rate, comprehensive opt-outs are better than long-lasting blockades and disintegration of the European project.
Joschka Fischer, Germany’s Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor from 1998 to 2005, led Germany’s Green Party for nearly 20 years. This commentary is published by DAILY NEWS EGYPT in collaboration with Project Syndicate/Institute for Human Sciences (www.project-syndicate.org).
