A
crisis without end
The
disintegration of the European project.
BY BRENDAN SIMMS AND
TIMOTHY LESS
Perhaps the greatest
academic growth area over the past twenty years or so has been
“European integration studies”, a field that has both analysed
and boosted support for the European “project”. Almost all of its
practitioners have proceeded from the assumption that the process of
integration is – must be – “irreversible”. It is the
intellectual equivalent of the principle of the European acquis
communautaire by which powers, once surrendered or pooled, cannot be
retrieved. Or, more unkindly, one might see it as a “European
Brezhnev doctrine”, by which socialism, being inevitable, could not
be allowed to fail in any country in which it was already
established.
But what if this is
not so? What if, as the Croatian political scientist Josip Glaurdic,
an expert on the collapse of Yugoslavia, once quipped, what we really
need is a school of “European disintegration studies”?
The stark truth is
that in the past century or so of European history there have been
many more examples of disintegration than integration.
Take the cases of
Austria-Hungary, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. Each was an attempt
to create a supranational entity that its proponents (and
inhabitants) imagined lasting, if not for ever, then nearly so. But
in the end, each of them collapsed. And if these examples provide any
guide, the days of the European Union are numbered, unless it can
effect fundamental reform.
What caused their
collapse? Each case is different, of course, but the common
denominator was an intractable crisis that lasted for roughly a
decade and for which there was ultimately no solution, except the end
of the state and a new beginning.
Austria-Hungary
could not contain the burgeoning desire for self-determination among
its myriad peoples within a centralised monarchical framework.
Efforts initially focused on a revised federal solution giving more
power to the various nationalities. But the more power the centre
conceded, the more power its peoples demanded. Eventually, the empire
endured a flight into war in 1914 as the leadership tried to stamp
out the south Slav problem once and for all. Amid the carnage, the
Czechs in particular pressed for complete independence, and others
did the same. At war’s end, the Allied powers granted them their
wish.
In Yugoslavia and
the USSR the problem was socialism, which had exhausted itself by the
1980s while continuing to demand excessive burden-sharing among their
respective national groups, some of which had a history of conflict.
In the case of the
EU, the problem is the ideology of “Europeanism” among the
continent’s ruling elites, who transferred power from national
capitals to the central European institutions at a faster rate than
most electorates were willing to accept. This was tolerated in the
good times: most voters did not pay a great deal of attention to what
powers their rulers were giving up, as long as life continued to
improve.
However, things
changed when the EU finally hit a major crisis and the institutions
found themselves responsible for matters, such as monetary and
migration policy, for which there was no European consensus. Not only
has this rendered decision-making very tricky, but the EU has found
that it lacks the legitimacy to impose decisions for the sake of the
common European good.
Decision-making has
become a two-stage process. At first, there is paralysis because the
institutions cannot find a solution with which everyone can agree.
Then, when crisis turns to emergency, power politics takes over and
the stronger states impose self-interested decisions on weaker ones.
This is
unsustainable. After many good decades, the EU is failing in its
promise to deliver lasting prosperity and stability. Now it is
reneging on its commitment to democracy. Unless the EU can find
solutions to the problems Europe is facing that are acceptable to its
members – and so far we have waited five years for it to end the
eurozone crisis – the Union will be on a glide path to collapse.
Can the EU turn its
fortunes around?
Perhaps, but recent
history does not hold out much hope. Potentially, individual states
could be allowed to opt out of the parts of the acquis to which they
object, recasting the Union on the basis of “variable geometry”.
Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union both confronted the same issue and to
some extent the constituent republics were allowed to go their own
way.
But this autonomy
operated within strict limits. The elites were still boxed in by
their basic commitment to socialism and burden-sharing, which limited
the scope of discussions on how to revive the economy and
redistribute power within the Union. Eventually, as living standards
tumbled, the richer republics – Slovenia and Croatia in Yugoslavia,
and the Baltic states in the Soviet Union – become ever more
resistant to sharing their scarce resources. As the economic and
political crisis deepened and the ship of state started sinking, they
each jumped off for safety.
***
Similar problems
prevail in the EU. Many of the elites are trapped by their belief
that Europe cannot repatriate powers to national capitals for fear of
opening the proverbial Pandora’s box, containing all the evils in
the world. Britain will demand greater control over immigration and
welfare, France a curb on the free market and Poland control over
environmental policy. By the time member states have each reclaimed
the areas of policy they most cherish, there will be no union left
and Europe will descend into nationalism and – just possibly –
armed conflict.
The alternative is
that the eurozone makes a concerted drive towards becoming a single
state in order to save the common currency and provide for the common
defence. But recent history offers no precedents for a move towards
deeper union at the moment when crisis strikes. Instead, separate
national interests sharpen. Most eurozone members probably recognise
the need for a political union, but they will accept it only if the
Union is designed in a way that suits their various specific
requirements. One wishes it were otherwise, but experience shows we
shouldn’t hold our breath as we wait.
If the EU is facing
a crisis for which there is no apparent solution, then what does
recent history tell us about the manner of its potential collapse?
One point is that
this can happen even if most people do not want it. In
Austria-Hungary, Yugoslavia and even the Soviet Union, most people
were afraid of life on the outside and initially pursued their
national goals within the familiar confines of the federal entity.
Another is that, when the final collapse does come, it can happen so
quickly that almost everyone is caught unawares. Even in 1989, few
people foresaw the collapse of Yugoslavia or the Soviet Union, which
is one reason why malcontent members pushed their demands so hard.
From start to
finish, the process of collapse exposed other common features.
One is an increasing
resort to “self-help” solutions. In all these cases, as the
crisis deepened and the central institutions became paralysed, power
informally shifted from the union to the national level as individual
members sought their own, unilateral solutions. In both the USSR and
Yugoslavia, the federal republics began to assert control over
economic policy, in violation of union law, and refused to “export”
essential goods (such as food) or surrender tax revenues that were
needed at home.
A second feature is
that, as the overarching structure buckled, so the individual parts
began to fracture. At the end of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan broke
when the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh rejected the authority
of Baku. Similarly, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Adjara broke away
from Georgia, Transnistria from Moldova and Chechnya from Russia
(although this was recaptured, in Vladimir Putin’s first notable
act as president). Meanwhile, as Moscow withdrew from its eastern
European hinterland, the bi-ethnic state of Czechoslovakia also
collapsed.
In Yugoslavia, the
disintegration of the federal structure was mirrored by the
disintegration of the individual republics. When Croatia and
Bosnia broke away from the union, so the large Serbian minorities
within those republics broke with the emerging independent states in
an attempt to remain part of Yugoslavia. In parallel, Kosovo made its
first, unsuccessful bid for independence from Serbia.
A third common
feature is the increasingly forceful exercise of power by the core
state, which had the greatest stake in the survival of the union and
primary responsibility for holding it together. Austria launched a
military crackdown against secessionism in the Balkans. In the Soviet
Union, Moscow deployed the Soviet army to the Baltic states and the
Caucasus. And in Yugoslavia, the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic
launched the “anti-bureaucratic revolution” in Montenegro, Kosovo
and Vojvodina, and ultimately sent the Yugoslav army in to Slovenia,
Croatia and Bosnia.
Paradoxically,
attempts to resist the fragmentation of the union were followed by
active attempts to loosen it. This happened at the point when the
core state realised it could not hold the union together in its old
form and sought to salvage what it could in the new circumstances.
***
In some cases, this
was a gradual process. As early as 1867, the Habsburg empire was
transformed into the dual monarchy, giving Hungary almost complete
autonomy within a system hitherto dominated by Austria. Yugoslavia
also loosened in 1974. The evidence suggests that such moves can buy
time for the union, something that may give the UK breathing space in
the coming years. The Austro-Hungarian empire survived five decades
after its reforms and the devolution of power to the individual
republics sustained Yugoslavia for another 16 years.
But moves to loosen
the union at a more advanced stage of decay can have the opposite
effect. Attempts by Belgrade and Moscow in 1989-90 to reconstitute
their unions as loose confederations against a backdrop of crisis and
threats of secession proved futile. Such moves were interpreted as a
sign of weakness, which only served to galvanise the secessionist
forces.
A final feature of
all three cases is the pivotal moment when the second major power
leaves the union. History suggests that unions can survive the loss
of a small member state, such as Ireland from the UK in 1921.
Conceivably the Baltic republics could have left the USSR, Slovenia
could have bailed out of Yugoslavia, and in the EU context Greece
could quit without the whole Union collapsing. When the second state
quits, however – Ukraine, in the case of the USSR, and Croatia in
Yugoslavia – the loss critically destabilises the balance of power
within the union.
At this point, the
smaller states are left in a dangerously asymmetrical relationship
with the dominant state and must leave to avoid becoming de facto
colonies of a single, unrivalled power. With Croatia’s departure,
Yugoslavia in effect morphed into Greater Serbia and states such as
Bosnia and Macedonia were forced to claim an independence they had
not previously sought. Once Ukraine left the Soviet Union, no state
would have been able to keep the power of Russia in check.
Yet there is one
interesting variation of this pattern, namely “central secession”
– that is, when the core state itself quits the union. In the
Soviet Union, the final scene in the drama of its collapse was
Russia’s declaration of independence in 1990, which Boris Yeltsin
led in order to marginalise Mikhail Gorbachev, whose power derived
from the Soviet federal institutions. At this point, the Soviet Union
in effect ceased to exist and the central Asians and Belarus, the
last states standing, became independent by default. In Yugoslavia
Milosevic and Serb nationalists first tried to reconstruct the whole
federation as a Serb-dominated “Serboslavia”, settling for a
“Greater Serbia” when this foundered on the opposition of
Slovenia and Croatia, which were practically extruded from the
federation. In the Austro-Hungarian context, it was the peripheral
nationalisms – using the stresses of war – that did for the
Habsburgs in the end, but at other times in its history the empire
was also under very great pressure from German and Hungarian
nationalism.
In other words,
during the process of collapse, the core power can pass through
stages, in which it first tries to hold the union together by force,
then pursues compromise with its secessionist partners, and finally
bails out of the union, bringing about the final collapse that it
initially tried so hard to avoid.
***
If this is how
unions collapse, what can we infer from it about the future of the
EU? One thing we should see is states resorting to unilateral
solutions to urgent problems, as the EU institutions prove
increasingly ineffective. In fact, this is already happening. Some
eastern European states have been quietly opting out of parts of the
single market for some years now, insisting instead that companies
operating in strategic sectors harmonise their activities with the
national government’s political objectives. Anyone who doubts this
should try to buy farmland or open a utility company in Hungary. They
will be in for a nasty surprise.
In recent weeks,
states in central and eastern Europe, including Germany, have also
abandoned their treaty obligations on borders and asylum (Schengen)
as the burgeoning migrant crisis has rapidly changed their political
circumstances.
We will also see
member states starting to fragment and, indeed, it is no coincidence
that Scotland made a bid for independence at a time of deepening
crisis in the EU. Scots (just about) feel their interests are secure
in a United Kingdom which is locked in to a larger, supranational
structure that exercises control over London. But if Britain were to
abandon the EU and fully restore its own independence, Scotland would
be both isolated from Europe and subordinate to a dominant English
state. If and when the Scots vote to leave, the position of Wales and
Northern Ireland in an even more asymmetric union could be untenable.
In Spain, Catalonia
is sensing Madrid’s weakness, given its dependence for liquidity on
an organisation in a state of existential crisis. Its grievance, that
Catalonia pays in far more than its gets out, is nothing new but the
opportunity for escape is unprecedented. Belgium is also at risk of
breaking apart; so is Italy, with the north seceding and then
breaking up into smaller parts such as South Tyrol.
So, too, are the
western Balkans, which lie within the Union’s hinterland. Over the
past decade, as the United States wound down its security commitment,
the EU has played the dominant external role in the region, enforcing
the sanctity of borders in the face of resistance from unhappy
minority groups such as the Bosnian Serbs and Macedonian Albanians,
who would ideally take their territory and go somewhere else. By and
large, peace has prevailed until now. But as the EU’s leverage
wanes, so fragile states are fracturing. After a grave political
crisis this year in Macedonia, the country’s future is hanging in
the balance. And with little to fear from a crisis-stricken EU, the
Bosnian Serbs have announced plans for a referendum on independence
in 2018, a move that would inevitably lead to unification with
Serbia.
As the EU comes
under ever greater stress, we will see Germany, as the dominant
state, asserting its power more forcefully over the rest of the Union
in an attempt to hold it together. This almost certainly does not
imply a resort to violence – Germany is a very different country in
very different circumstances from Russia and Serbia in 1990.
But already, Berlin
has trampled on the interests of the southern periphery by demanding
a punishing programme of austerity as the price for providing the
credit line that holds the eurozone (and, by extension, the European
project) together. And this summer, despite vehement protests from
the eastern Europeans, Germany has insisted that all EU member states
take a quota of the migrants pouring in to Europe and whose presence
threatens one of the pillars on which the Union is built – the
freedom of movement.
If events follow the
established course, this exercise of raw power will be accompanied,
after a while, by concessions on loosening union. Already Britain has
initiated discussions and other states, such as the Netherlands,
Denmark and Poland, may soon line up behind it. The next step is for
Germany to calculate that compromise is the way to avoid the early
collapse of the Union. Whether these efforts succeed depends on
whether the EU is facing its 1867/1974 or 1918/1990 moment.
Assuming it is the
latter, then the pivotal moment will come when the second state
finally throws in the towel, destabilising the balance of power
within the EU. In this respect, the EU is a more complicated entity
than Austria-Hungary, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia because it has
not one, but two second-tier states, Britain and France. But if one
of them left, and Britain is closer to the exit, those states that
remain would face the unpalatable prospect of remaining in a German
empire writ large, or leaving.
The first to go
would probably be Eurosceptic states such as Denmark, Hungary and the
Czech Republic. But, with each departure the rump union will become
ever more German-centred, with the result that others will be likely
to bail out rapidly.
Precedent suggests
that Germany, too, could secede. If the EU were to follow the Soviet
model, Jean-Claude Juncker or Donald Tusk would play the role of
Mikhail Gorbachev, trying to hold the Union together, while a
Yeltsin-like figure would emerge within Germany, making a bid for
independence in order to sideline the EU. More likely, however, the
EU would follow the Yugoslav model and, like Serbia, Germany would be
the last man standing after everyone else has left or has been forced
out for one reason or another. The one exception to this could be
Austria, which clings to Germany as Belarus once did to Russia and
Montenegro to Serbia.
***
As of 2015, the EU
is not at the point of no return as Austria-Hungary was by 1918 and
the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia were by 1990. There is still a chance
of turning things around. Another flare-up in the euro crisis could
lead to either the full political union it requires to function or an
orderly dismantling of the common currency. But this is where
historical forces give ground to more contingent factors. And the
wild card here is elections.
In both the USSR and
Yugoslavia, a round of relatively free elections in 1990 (the first
in their history) gave rise to nationalist parties across the two
unions, with explicitly rejectionist agendas. In Yugoslavia, the
Croatian Democratic Union led by Franjo Tudjman successively severed
all remaining ties with Belgrade and eventually organised a
referendum on independence. In Slovenia, DEMOS – the Democratic
Opposition of Slovenia – took the same path.
Meanwhile, in the
USSR, elections to the regional soviets brought to power overtly
nationalist governments in the Baltic states, the Caucasus and
Moldova whose primary goal was to deliver independence.
We are still
awaiting the moment when radical Eurosceptic parties take power in
Europe with an explicitly rejectionist agenda. Britain’s
Conservatives hardly fit this description, because they are
politically mainstream, and the UK is a special case whose status
could be renegotiated. Elsewhere, however, radical parties such as
the Front National in France, the Party for Freedom in the
Netherlands and the Sweden Democrats are (or have been) leading in
opinion polls across the continent. It is perhaps only a matter of
time before one of them gets into government.
So here is what
could happen, in what is an apocalyptic but perfectly plausible
sequence of events.
In 2016 or early
2017, Geert Wilders’s Party for Freedom wins the Dutch
parliamentary elections and leads an overtly rejectionist coalition.
Sensing the threat, Germany unilaterally “grants” Britain a new
deal on membership, including curbs on benefits for EU immigrants,
which, in the final analysis, do not matter that much to Berlin.
There is no broader discussion about this around the EU, and France,
which opposes concessions for Britain, is marginalised. Britain votes
to stay in (just, thanks to the Celtic vote) on the basis of the new
deal. But matters do not end there.
In an increasingly
radicalised atmosphere, caused mainly by the refugee crisis, Marine
Le Pen wins the French presidential election in April 2017 and
demands a comparable package of concessions, this time on things that
really do matter to Germany, such as French membership of the
eurozone, plus much tougher restrictions on immigration – all on
pain of secession.
Fearing a domino
effect around the EU, Germany refuses. This triggers France’s exit,
which critically destabilises the rest of the EU. The Netherlands is
the next to go. Within weeks, most other states announce their
departure, including Britain, which never got to implement its new
deal, and by 2018 the EU is all but dead. For the UK the only silver
lining is that Scotland remains in, partly because the option of
“independence” within the EU has disappeared, and partly in order
to seek shelter amid the fallout from the collapse of the European
project. With the passing of the EU, the UK remains the only modern
example in history of a successful, multinational parliamentary
union.
This is an extreme
scenario in some ways, but very optimistic in others, not least
because it does not presume war. Nor does it presume that any of the
other crises facing the Union will turn into an emergency for Europe,
be it Russian adventurism on the EU’s eastern flank, conflict in
the Middle East, international or domestic terrorist attacks or a
sudden collapse of the common currency, all or some of which are more
likely than not to happen, and all of which require a functioning EU
in order to master.
The collapse of the
EU would, however, be hard to contain and the shock would be felt
around the world. The next few years may be the time when everything
goes wrong – not just in Europe but everywhere, ultimately, because
of it.
If so, we will have
cause to remember the words of Count Ottokar Czernin,
Austria-Hungary’s foreign minister for most of the First World War:
“We were bound to die. We were at liberty to choose the manner of
our death and we chose the most terrible.”
Brendan Simms is the
director of the Forum on Geopolitics at the University of Cambridge
Timothy Less is the
director of the political risk consultancy Nova Europa and a former
British diplomat
Could
Cologne Unravel European Refugee Policies?
BY SIOBHÁN O'GRADY
JANUARY 8, 2016 –
More than 1 million
refugees — many fleeing the bloody civil war in Syria — arrived
in Germany to seek safe haven last year. Now, reports that two dozen
asylum-seekers may have carried out coordinated sexual assaults in
Cologne, Germany, on New Year’s Eve could threaten the entire
continent’s relationship with incoming Arabs and North Africans.
Around 120 women
reported being sexually assaulted or robbed on New Year’s Eve by
members of a violent crowd of 1,000 men in downtown Cologne, Germany.
By Friday, more than 20 asylum-seekers had been arrested in
connection to the attacks, and Cologne Police Chief Wolfgang Albers
had resigned. It was not immediately clear whether the rest of the
large crowd was also made up of refugees, and internal police reports
suggest German officers failed to adequately respond to the assaults.
But though the
attacks happened in Germany, they are not being treated as just a
German problem: Right-wing European leaders who have long disparaged
refugees as a danger to European values are now pointing to the
chaotic evening in Cologne as proof that the European Union should
deny entry to asylum-seekers from the Middle East.
Below, Foreign
Policy has compiled a list of some of the most extreme reactions to
the New Year’s attacks:
Germany: German
Chancellor Angela Merkel has been the face of a lax refugee policy in
Europe, encouraging asylum-seekers to seek refugee status in Germany
even if they had not been registered elsewhere. But on Friday, the
anti-Euro Alternative für Deutschland party demanded Merkel’s
resignation, claiming her immigration policies were to blame for the
Cologne attacks. On Saturday, protesters plan to occupy Cologne’s
train station to protest Berlin’s refugee policy.
Cologne Mayor
Henriette Reker also came under fire for suggesting that women should
keep themselves “an arm’s length” from strangers if they want
to avoid being assaulted in public. This week, social media users
posted #einearmlange to label the suggestion victim-blaming.
Following the
attacks, German officials negotiated with Facebook, Google, and
Twitter to screen posts for hate speech against Muslims.
Unsurprisingly, far-right parties aren’t happy about it and have
called it an infringement on freedom of expression. But officials in
Berlin worry social media could be used to incite violence against
refugees. German publication Der Spiegel disabled its comment
function after it was inundated with hate speech on stories about
migrants and refugees.
Austria: Vienna
Police Chief Gerhard Pürstl apparently didn’t learn from Reker’s
misspeak. After reports that at least 10 women were also sexually
assaulted in Salzburg over the holidays, Pürstl told the Krone
newspaper that women “should in general not go out on the streets
at night alone, they should avoid suspicious-looking areas, and also
when in pubs and clubs should only accept drinks from people they
know.”
The Austrian Green
party didn’t waste time in criticizing him. “Is the Vienna police
chief saying that he is no longer in a position to protect women from
sex attacks?” asked security spokesman Peter Pilz. “If so, then
he has failed in his job.”
Poland: In Warsaw,
the ultraconservative government has taken many opportunities to
criticize Merkel’s refugee policy. After the New Year’s attacks,
the ruling right-wing Law and Justice party called for a special
investigation into whether any Poles were harmed in Cologne on Dec.
31.
Slovakia: Prime
Minister Robert Fico never wanted Muslim refugees to come to
Slovakia. In August, a spokesman for the Slovak Interior Ministry
said the country could take a limited number of refugees, but that
there was room only for Christians. “We could take 800 Muslims, but
we don’t have any mosques in Slovakia, so how can Muslims be
integrated if they are not going to like it here?” he said in an
interview with the BBC.
Now, they aren’t
just using a lack of mosques as their reasoning. “We don’t want
something like what happened in Germany taking place in Slovakia,”
Fico said Thursday, adding that Slovakia must “prevent [its] women
from being molested in public places.”
“Multiculturalism
is a fiction. Once you let migrants in, you can face such problems,”
Fico said.
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