Why does Europe need a
constitution?
By Jurgen Habermas, Germany
The-re is a peculiar contrast between the expec-tations and demands of those
“very first Europeans” who dedicated themselves immediately after the Second
World War to drafting the project which would further the goals of political unity in
Europe and those who task now consists of fostering the original aims of that same
project. What strikes onlookers is the downward spiraling rhetoric register allied to the
stark contrast regarding objectives. Although forerunner generations talked freely about
the “United States of Europe” and made frequent comparisons with the USA,
current discussions make no reference to such role models. Even the word
‘federalism’ is unpalatable. One current European situation can’t be
compared to the one experienced by the ‘federalists’ or the Assemblie nationale
members. After 200 years of practical constitutional experience we no longer simply follow
well-trodden paths and the constitutional issue can’t solve the problems at hand.
Indeed, the challenge involved is not so much to invent something new but rather to
preserve the achievements of the European nation state beyond its national boundaries in
some other form; the only novel aspect is the new entity that will arise from this.
The most powerful driving force behind integration right up to Helmut
Kohl’s generation was the desire to put an end to the history of bloody wars in
Europe. Another reason was to bind Germany firmly to Europe to mitigate the great historic
distrust towards the politically insecure nation at the heart of Europe, which was soon
restored to economic health. From the outset, of course, there was a third consideration:;
quite simply, an interest in the economic unification of Europe. Since the onset of the
Coal and Steel Community, 1951, more and more countries have been brought together through
the mutual exchange of manpower and goods, capital and services; a process which
culminated in the creation of the common market and the introduction of a common currency.
However, economic expectations do not suffice when it comes to mobilizing popular
political support for a high-risk project like the establishment of a union worthy of its
name. For that you need a mutually compatible set of values.
The transition societies in central Eastern Europe that wish to join the
European Union have to cope with the hard challenges posed by the break-up of a system;
yet in response they chose to return to the nation-state. Such countries can’t muster
any enthusiasm for the transferal of their newly reinstated sovereign rights to European
authorities. The lack of motivation on both sides only serves to reveal more strongly the
shortcomings at the purely economic level. These should be joined together with quite
different types of ideas in order to convince the majority of member states of the need
for a change in the political status quo; for example, through the idea of preserving
specific cultures and ways of life whose existence is now threatened. The great majority
of European citizens are united by their desire to protect a way of life which they were
able to develop during three post-war decades last century while being fortunate enough to
live on the right side of the Iron Curtain. Of course, rapid economic growth provided the
basis for the social welfare state, which allowed for a regeneration process in post-war
societies. Yet only one result counts in this regeneration process-the emergence of wealth
and national diversity in distinctive, separate ways of life based on an appealingly
renewed culture going back hundreds of years and bolstered by prosperity and security.
A social model, more than a market: In the argument over further EU expansion
the economic advantages of European unification are viable only insofar as they have
cultural appeal, a context which stretches far beyond economic considerations. The threat
to this way of life and the desire to preserve it arouses visions of a future Europe which
is rising to the correct challenges with one last innovative burst of strength. In his
brilliant speech of May 28, 2001 the French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin referred to this
“European way of Life”’ as the core of the political project: “Until
very recently, the efforts of the European Union focused on the creation of monetary and
economic union…Today, we need a wider perspective going beyond this, otherwise Europe
will become simply just another market which will disintegrate under the effects of
globalization. After all, Europe is much more than a market. It symbolizes a social model
whose growth has historical dimensions”.
However, are our small or medium-sized states capable of acting independently
when left to their own devices in order to resist being drawn into becoming assimilated to
a social model which today’s dominant world economic force is proffering to them?
Just as the Europeans want to balance out the undesirable social consequences of
increasing inequality in distribution as well as exerting influence on a certain
re-regulation of the world economy, they should also be interested in the negotiating
power which an EU politically capable of action would have as one of the world’s
global players. By setting an accession date for Eastern European states, the EU has put
itself under pressure to reform since expanding the Union by twelve economically and
socially relatively heterogeneous countries increases the complexity of regulation and
voting requirements which can’t be overcome without further integration or
‘absorption’. And the conference in Nice did nothing to ease the backlog of
reforms either. Attempts to use the current problems involving expansion as a means of
tackling more deep-seated structural problems have been unsuccessful. The crux is the
disparity between the close-knot economic cooperation versus the relatively loose-knot
political one in addition to the democratic shortcomings of the decision-making processes.
The discrepancy between the advanced economic integration and the lagging
pace of political integration could be overcome by means of a policy aimed at promoting a
higher level of political freedom of action in order to keep up with the deregulated
markets. The coordination of other areas of politics would undoubtedly lead to a
concentration of authority, further exacerbating yet another dilemma. The dense layer of
European decision making, the lack of transparency as to how such decisions come about and
the absence of opportunity for European citizens to get involved in the decision-making
processes cause mistrust among the people. Euro-skeptics reject a transfer of a basis of
authority from international agreements to a European constitution on the grounds
“that there is no European people”’, as the former constitutional judge,
Ernst-Wolfgang Bockenforde, wrote. What is lacking, apparently, is the subject necessary
to all constitutionally-based processes:; the collective singular known as
“people” which could then set itself us as a nation with its own citizens. This
“‘no-Demos-thesis” has been criticized on abstract as well as empirical
grounds. A nation of citizens should not be confused with a community bound together by a
common fate unconnected with politics and characterized by shared origins, language and
history. For this would deny the voluntary character of a nation-state whose collective
identity did not exist prior to the democratic process which, although not vital to such
states, nevertheless gave birth to them. The national democratic state’s greatest
achievement is reflected in the contrast between a nation state and a people’s nation
through the status conferred by national citizenship which created a completely new and
indeed abstract sense of legal solidarity.
Even although a common language and way of life have facilitated this process
of conscious awareness it can’t be assumed that the people take priority over the
republic simply because democracy and the nation state have developed at the same pace. On
the contrary: this process is part of an ongoing cycle in which national awareness and a
democratic sense of citizenship have provided a mutually stabilizing basis. These two
elements combined to produce the completely new phenomenon known as civic solidarity which
has bound national societies ever since. The lessons to be learnt from the history of the
emergence Europe’s nation states are that the new forms of national identity have an
artificial character which was only able to take shape under specific historical
circumstances in the course of a lengthy process which lasted throughout the 19 Th.
century. This formation of an identity owes itself to a painful process of abstraction
which finally elevated local and dynastic loyalties to conscious awareness among
democratic citizens of the desire to belong to the same nation. Should this be true, there
is no reason to assume that the formation of such a form of civic solidarity should stop
at the boundaries of the nation state. The circumstances under which a sense of national
identity emerges do however remind us of the empirical requirements which have to be
fulfilled in order for such an improbable formation of identity to spread beyond a
country’s own national boundaries: first, the necessity of a European civic society;
second, the build-up of a politically oriented public throughout Europe and third, the
creation of a political culture.
Initially, a Constitutional Referendum : These three functional requirements
of a democratically organized EU can be regarded as points of reference for complex yet
converging developments. Such process can be guided by a constitution acting in a certain
sense as a catalyst in order to accelerate and steer everything to converge at a given
point. Europe has to exercise on itself, so to speak the reflexive logic of that ongoing
cycle which produced both the democratic state and the nation respectively. Initially,
there would be a constitutional referendum which would unleash a great debate in the whole
of Europe since the constitutionally-based process is, in itself, a singularly effective
means of cross-border communication. A European constitution would not only expose the
shift in power which has been quietly taking place: it would also encourage new
constellations of power.
First: Once the EU was able to raise its own taxes and become financially
autonomous and once the Commission and a permanent European Council were prepared to share
government functions then the Parliament, as part of competing legislative system, would
theoretically also be capable of communicating its already considerable powers better to
the public, thus attracting more attention. The political axis would resolve away from the
national capitals closer towards Brussels and Strasbourg. The perceived transnational
overlap of parallel running interests and similar sets of values would encourage the
creation of a European party-political system and cross-border networks.
Second: Undoubtedly, the sole remedy for the democratic deficit is the
simultaneous emergence in europe of a public firmly rooted in the democratic process.
Third: The politically oriented public throughout Europe is dependent on the
one hand on the lively petitions of civic minded actors; yet it still needs to be rooted
in a mutual political culture. Even although intellectuals up to the 19th century saw
no apparent reason to reflect on the idea and essence of Europe, a troubled debate on the
subject is now under way. Concerns centers around the fact that the achievements of
European culture have now spread worldwide. This applies not only to the missionaries of
Christianity but also to secular achievements like science and technology. Roman law and
the Napoleonic code as well as the nation state, democracy and human rights. Yet two
specific experiences within Europe have had a resounding impact on events. Europe, more so
than other cultures, has undergone a history of far reaching structurally rooted conflicts
and tension, both on a time scale dimension as well as social level. This doubtless
explains its aggressive disposition regarding expansion as well as its considerable
potential for violence. However, Europeans have displayed a productive attitude towards
such challenges and have learned two important things: how to live with permanent
stabilized conflicts and how to adopt a reflexive attitude towards their new traditions.
Within this social dimension modern Europe has devised procedures and
institutions for dealing with intellectuals and social and political conflicts. In the
course of painful and often fatal entanglements Europe has learned to deal with the
rivalry between ecclesiastical and secular powers, the schism between faith and knowledge,
the quarrels endemic among religious denominations and even the hostility and the rivalry
which exists between warmongering natiuon states. We have achieved this not by resolving
such conflicts but by turning them, by means of reutilization, into a permanent situation
and a source of innovative energy. In response to the breaches, discontinuities and
tension inherent in all modernization process which it has experienced throughout the
course of time, the Europe of the French revolution has instituted an ideological rivalry
between political parties. The classic-party political system ensures the reproduction of
a broad spectrum of conservative, liberal and socialist interpretations of capitalist
modernization. IN the wake of the heroic intellectual assimilation of an incomparably rich
Jewish, Greek, Roman and Christian heritage. Europe has displayed a consistent ability to
adopt a sensitive attitude to the Janus-face of modernization. Certainly, the egalitarian
and individualistic universalism which characterizes our overall conception of ourselves
to this day is not the least of European modernism’s achievements.
At the heart of European identity lies the nature of the painful learning
processes rather than the results thereof. The memory of the moral depths into which
nationalist extremism led us makes our present political commitment, by contrast, look
like an achievement. This historical background could smooth the way to post-nationalist
democracy, founded as that is on mutual recognition of the differences between proud
national cultures. Neither “assimilation” nor mere “co-existence” can
serve as suitable models for history such as this: history which has taught us how to
manufacture increasingly abstract forms of “ among strangers”.
Courtesy : Deutschland, No.
6/2001 |
