June 13, 2013 by Dr Simon Usherwood
13
Jun
2013

The structural limits to euroscepticism

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After the many months of a fast evolving debate on the European Union here in the UK, recent weeks have seen some of the steam being let out. Partly this is due to the fading profile of the eurozone crisis in news agendas, and partly because everyone is waiting for the next peg on which to hang their statements. The launch of a Tory website to press for a referendum (in a rather coy way, it must be said) is part of the longer game. Even yesterday’s rumblings about JHA opt-(back-)ins don’t seem to have made the weather.

The event that is being waited for is the first set of reports from the Review of Competences, managed by the FCO. While the guidance is clear that this is intended solely as a mapping exercise, it is evident that much politicking will ensue.

However, this hiatus in proceedings is instructive for reflecting on the nature of euroscepticism. As Tim Bale pointed out, the big drop in polling for UKIP this week highlights the need not to over-extrapolate data and the possibility of protest votes going as well as coming. Certainly, from my perspective, the limits to euroscepticism appear more evident than the potential.

This has three parts.

Firstly, euroscepticism is (by definition) negatively defined. It is an opposition, a position against something, rather than for any one thing. This is true of any eurosceptic grouping of any real size: there is agreement on disliking the EU, less so on why they dislike it and very much less on the solution to that dislike. Kippers (as we seem to be calling them now) will protest at this point that this isn’t the case for them, since they advocate withdrawal. True, but that’s still a negative policy, and no UKIP manifesto has even fully developed a plan of what a post-membership relationship with the EU, or the rest of the world for that matter, would look like.

This leads into the second point, namely that there is no one euroscepticism, but rather many. What positive agendas do exist among sceptics cover the full range of ideological positions, from radical right to communist left and all points in between. Indeed, this is the reason for the success of scepticism, that there is always someone who is unhappy with a given aspect of European integration. However, the consequence is that there is still not an emergent alternative pole of consensus for a different way of conducting pan-European relations. This is the myth of the continental altereuropeenistes (‘Another Europe is possible’); the alternative is one of the left, not of the centre, and so will always struggle to gain traction.

And this is then the third point. The EU is a compromise of interests, an entanglement of states. It is designed precisely to frustrate swift reform, so as to reassure all members that they retain some control of their affairs. This makes the Union slow to react, but it also makes it relatively stable.

Elsewhere, I’ve argued that the big danger with euroscepticism has been that it has been ignored, and left to grow ever stronger. The flip side of that is that given the likely lack of speed of internal reform by the EU, there is the chance that the more radical strands of scepticism will loose their momentum, making it easier for the Union to reform and bring back in the more moderate elements. Radical, withdrawalist, ‘hard’ scepticism remains rare, even with the eurozone crisis.

All of this is not a call to sanguinty, nor to say that it’ll all work out. If one thing has been apparent in recent years, it is the lack of positive agendas coming out of pro-European positions. In short, no one seems to have a handle on the situation at present. For the moment that plays into the hands of the Union – the reasons set out above – but it remains a dangerous position in which to stay.

Posted in EU, Europe, Eurozone, UK | Leave a comment
June 6, 2013 by Dr Simon Usherwood
06
Jun
2013

One year and counting to EP2014: sceptics rejoice?

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As Gallup have reminded me today, it’s only a year until the next European Parliament elections. At the moment, that looks like it will be a red-letter day for eurosceptics.

This is evident at a number of levels. Firstly, Gallup found that a third of French and Germans and a fifth of Poles would vote to leave the EU, if offered the option. This goes a long way beyond the usual suspects like the UK (the only one of the six surveyed states with a majority in favour of exit). Secondly, in all six states, more people felt the EU was moving in the wrong direction than in the right direction.

Overall, the picture is rather gloomy. Even though most people think that there is a value to the EU and to membership, there has been a spread of critical voices across the continent.

Moreover, the mobilisation of pro-Union voices and groups remains relatively weak. Texts by Verhofstadt & Cohn-Bendit or Beck that might have provided agendas around which to coalesce, have instead come to little more than some nodding of heads.

Taken together, it makes it more than likely that anti-EU parties will do relatively well next year: they have an improved position in relation to public opinion and a lack of serious competitors amongst parties, many of which are working through their own internal debates on the purpose and direction of integration.

This will not mean the end of the Union, whatever anyone says, but it will confirm a longer-term trend with which the Union has had to contend. By simple dint of its persistence, scepticism has become somewhat conventional and acceptable (at least in the sense of being present). The continued failure of the institutions and member states to find an effective repost to sceptical voices, either through challenging them or co-opting them, makes them stronger and more legitimate as positions: if what they stand for is unanswerable, then shouldn’t we be paying more attention?

Of course, this is only reinforced by the relatively low levels of knowledge and interest that most people display. The debate is thus largely notional, rather than substantive, which suits that large section of sceptic activity that has no deeper ideology behind it.

Unless and until the Union recognises the situation in which it is in, the longer and the worse that situation will get, which is not a good way to make public policy. Sadly, I would expect that even when the results come in, we will still find ourselves on the same path.

Posted in Elections, EU, Europe | Leave a comment
May 23, 2013 by Dr Simon Usherwood
23
May
2013

Cameron’s Petard

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After an eventful few weeks in the life of David Cameron’s EU policy, some of the heat has gone out of matters, albeit only in the sense that the heat shifted to the question of gay marriages. Interesting then, how much more willing Cameron has been to engage backbenchers on the latter issue than the former.

However, such contrasts are not the primary concern here, but rather how the development of policy has continued to paint Cameron into a corner.

With that in mind, we might disregard his remarks yesterday about being firm on when a referendum might run, as if this might actually be enough to keep his backbench in order after their recent series of successes. Instead, we should acknowledge that current policy risks making an positive argument about EU membership ever more difficult to make.

Yesterday’s European Council in a case in point. Following the multi-lateral initiative last month on sharing of tax information, the meeting agreed further progress in the field, albeit still having to work around Austrian and Luxembourgish objections. In this, the UK was a key mover, working with the other large member states to address a growing concern at a time of austerity. In short, a classic example of Moravcsik’s liberal intergovernmental European supply to meet national demands.

This is not in question, but we can also note how the government once again has chosen not to make much of their ‘success’ in ‘Brussels.’ Clearly, the news agenda was rather taken over by the events in Woolwich, but there does not seem to have been much appetite anywhere to dwell on a relative success (even the Austrian coverage has been measured). This is not only a British phenomenon, but it has particular implications.

If Cameron’s referendum plan is to succeed – and success here is taken to be renegotiation leading to approval of new terms in referendum – then several things need to happen (on the British side).

Firstly, there have to be some symbolic ‘concessions’ to take home from the renegotiation, things that people can relatively easily understand.

Secondly, there has to be enough renegotiation beyond the symbolic to let Cameron make the argument to his party that it was a success and so peel off some of the sceptics.

But thirdly, Cameron needs to be able to show that a British agenda of market-based integration has traction in the EU and that he is ‘winning the argument’ (telling phrase that it is) on liberalisation, fraud, etc. He needs this because without it, his referendum campaign will sound too negatively framed: ‘here’s what we’re rescued’, rather than ‘we’re setting the standard and leading the way.’ That will be important in building a coalition across party lines to win a vote.

All of which raises the question of why there is not more pushing of the successes, when they happen.

Of course, the reason is that the conditions just outlined are for the medium-term, after a general election that has yet to be won, and which won’t be won on European policy. The current perceived need to be ‘tough’ on Europe predominates. Indeed ‘success in Brussels’ is not a good strapline, precisely because it reminds voters and backbenchers that the government is in Brussels, and not at home, sorting out the economy or fighting terrorism.

It is one of the sad hallmarks of Cameron’s European policy that he has repeatedly had to return home from European visits to deal with urgent business, a strange reversal of the maxim that government leaders like to engage in foreign affairs because it gets them away from home difficulties. Cameron, on the other hand, seems not to want to spend any more time in cultivating his European partners than is strictly necessary. An odd way to go about setting the scene for a renegotiation.

Posted in Conservatives, David Cameron, EU, Europe, UK | Leave a comment
May 16, 2013 by Dr Simon Usherwood
16
May
2013

Righteousness and risk in building a European policy

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Another week, another car-crash of public policy. After last night’s vote on the amendment to the Queen’s speech – with more than half of all Tory backbenchers voting in favour of the motion – it is hard to see how today’s ballot for private member’s bills won’t result in the draft bill on a referendum (or some similar measure) being selected by one or more of the lucky winners. In the meantime, David Cameron flies to the US to push (in part) on a EU-US Free Trade agreement and talks of how ‘relaxed’ he is about it all.

The widespread view is of ‘Tory splits’ and there is a lot to that, even if the splits are largely between antis and pragmatists, rather than pros and antis. However, it also reflects two deeper trends on which we might more profitably dwell.

The first of these is righteousness. Perhaps the most striking feature of euroscepticism is not its existence, but rather its persistence. For all the bluster, eurosceptics have yet to make any real impression on policy – nationally or at a European level – at any point in the past two decades: even the British decision to stay out of the Euro was driven more by deep-seated ambivalence across the political spectrum of its political or economic value, rather than the actions of the Referendum party or Major’s ‘bastards.’

So the question has to be: why – in the face of such a lack of impact – have sceptics continued to fight their position? For me, a large part of the answer is this idea of righteousness, that the fight is a Good fight and must be fought, whatever the cost, whatever the set-backs.

Too often, non-sceptics assume that with a bit more education on how integration ‘really works’ and some engaged discussion, sceptics will have a moment of clarity and leave aside their views and actions. But this is to misunderstand the often visceral nature of much scepticism, its connection to deeply (and fundamentally) held views on the nature of the nation, identity and democracy. Such views would require a life-time of discussion to move, and a political system that didn’t undermine that message by constantly referring back to them. Even the brightest optimist could not bring that into being and I don’t know that I would want them to. In a political age when most people don’t believe in much and don’t trust in others, they hold on to what they do believe and trust and any challenge to that is a challenge to the fundaments of a democratic system that relies on some notion of community (national or civic).

If sceptics are righteous, and we cannot change their minds, then we need to think about how we construct institutions and policies that let them come inside and play a constructive role. In the case of the EU, whatever happens in the future, the UK will always be geographically, politically, economically and socially close to the continent, so we need to have some modus vivendi.  Indeed, I think we could argue (a la Beck) that this is a general problem across Europe rather requires some new form of social compact: we should not let the British case distract us from the structural dynamics in operation.

Unfortunately, this brings in the second element, of risk. Sceptic righteousness is inchoate, in that it is essentially negative (‘we don’t like the EU’) and does not offer a positive alternative. At the same time, no one seems to offer a positive alternative: neither ‘more Europe’ nor ‘less Europe’ really cut the mustard as rallying cries. This goes to the heart of David Cameron’s problem, in that his inability to articulate a clear vision of what the Union should be leaves him open to bidding by those around him. This is what the current ‘debate’ is about: how far can we move the Conservative leadership one way or the other?

It is – seemingly – only the pragmatism of government that seems to hold back the sceptics, and pragmatism isn’t a positive agenda, just a holding pattern. Like a besieged king in his castle, Cameron awaits a white knight to ride over the hill and rescue him, or hopes that some blight will kill off the gathering masses outside. Both those options are not inconceivable, but as time passes more and more of those knights will decide it’s not worth the effort and the growth in the number of besiegers will offset the loses to blight. To over-extend the metaphor, Cameron needs to break out of his castle, flying a bright standard under which both besieged and besiegers can rally.

All very nice, but not very likely. European integration is still not important enough to the electorate to make such a fight worthwhile, for one thing. However, this shouldn’t stop us trying to sketch out new options and work to find understandings and accommodations. Let us not forget that the EU itself is the product of a wave of righteousness that swept across the continent after the Second World War: that initial wave has passed, but we should not forget the value of the structures it has left.

Posted in Conservatives, David Cameron, EU, Europe, UK | Leave a comment
May 9, 2013 by Dr Simon Usherwood
09
May
2013

It’s Europe day, so let’s talk Europe

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As you are all doubtless aware, today is Europe day, the 63rd anniversary of Robert Schuman’s declaration on the creation of a coal and steel community that was to become the precursor to the current European Union. Everyone knows that, right?

That I even pose the question suggests that the answer is not in the affirmative. Most people don’t know or care and I think that it not only unfortunate, but also potentially damaging.

The traditional ‘solution’ to this lack of knowledge has been to suggest more education, either through schools or public media. I can see the logic of that, but as countless politicians and civil servants can testify, that approach very quickly runs into very deep sand, with charges of propaganda or undermining national identity being thrown around. Even if such charges are ill-founded, the mud has stuck and we are no closer to resolving the matter.

With this in mind, my suggestion here is that rather than focusing on education per se, we should instead concentrate on building discussion and debate across society.

As Albert Tapper writes, sceptics in the UK have too often taken their opposition to the EU to visceral levels – opposing without reflection – while pro-EU elements have felt themselves too constrained to speak out publicly. Thus, too often we end up with a ‘debate’ that is little more than cant and invective, not least because levels of mutual distrust are very high. The old pro-EU approach of ignoring opposition no longer works, especially since the sceptics have recast the debate in terms of ‘democracy’, rather than ‘Europe’.

It is tempting to bemoan the quality of public political debate generally in this country, but I don’t actually think that this is the issue: politicians, the media and publics have proven more than capable, when the occasion arises. The concern here is that the occasion hasn’t arisen, despite what both pro- and anti-EU elements would agree is becoming a critical juncture in the Union’s development.

Days such as today should be opportunities to talk about what we want from European integration and how we can achieve it. That means not only discussion within countries, but also between them. If we have learnt one thing from the eurozone crisis, then surely it is that European states are deeply interconnected, even when they aren’t part of the single currency: what happens in Nicosia matters to Berlin, decisions in Madrid have an impact on London.

In my many years of working on euroscepticism, I have almost never heard of sceptics advocating a policy of autarky, of shutting their country off from the world, a la North Korea. Instead, they talk of international engagement, of participation in the globalising economy, which they see as offering more opportunity than the European one. In essence, that is a difference of level of operation, rather than of fundamental principle and we might do well to consider that there is more in common between sides than we often care to imagine.

However, if we don’t discuss that, then we risk continuing to stumble along, which will serve no-one’s interests at all, least of all the peoples of Europe.

Posted in EU, Europe, Eurozone, UK | Leave a comment
April 25, 2013 by Dr Simon Usherwood
25
Apr
2013

The EU as a power-diffuser

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Fighting my prejudices, I went to a seminar about CFSP yesterday. In my defence, I was a) tired and b) knew that both speakers would be well worth it. And indeed they were.

Just to be clear, my prejudice is that the EU’s foreign and security policy is much more an object of academic study than it is a reality on the ground: I’m often struck at conferences by how many panels there are, talking so much about so little. Indeed, it might be fair to argue that any notion of a European security community is more a function of that academic interaction than it is of politicians or military types.

But no matter, since the seminar was precisely about the future paths for CFSP, and both Sven and Anand were more than aware and candid about those prospects.

Of course,  a key part of my attending was to help my thinking about the things that I usually work on, namely euroscepticism and the nature of integration. A couple of remarks made a real connection on this front.

Firstly, Anand noted that the EU is not designed to project power, but was rather conceived as a power-diffuser. Much as it might seem like ancient history, the EEC was founded in significant part to allow for the reintegration of West Germany into the international system – both politically and economically – in a way that would tie it in close to other states, thereby reducing the likelihood of it pursuing a path of autarky.

The side-effect of tying in Germany in an equitable way is – of course – that others are tied in too. As Scharpf’s Joint Decision Trap swings into effect, states want more and more to come out of the system, just as the system becomes less and less able to produce such outputs.

Much of the debate we see about the EU is on its failings to provide. In the absence of a European demos, output legitimacy is obviously front-and-centre. But it’s not the only story here.

A core tenet of all democratic systems is that they constrain power. We separate executives from legislatures from judiciaries precisely in order to stop an individual (or group of individuals) taking all power to themselves. We create constitutional orders so that we can hold government to account. The pay-off is a drop in efficiency, but that is a price we accept.

The EU is not a state, but the same ideas apply. The myth of ‘Brussels’ is a powerful one, but a myth nonetheless. We are the EU, not some anonymous bureaucrat.

States are pervasive in the EU: they structure public debate, work with the Commission to find appropriate legislative proposals, work with each other and the EP to agree those proposals into law, then implement them in national contexts. States lend their authority to the Union, but do so with a very close eye to keeping a say.

That say is in turn limited by the necessity of working with other states, hence a logic of negotiation and compromise that pervades the system. That doesn’t mean giving on everything, but rather that states work to accommodate the interests of others, just as others accommodate their own. And yes, often that means moving slowly or even not at all.

Without an understanding that the Union is constrained for a reason, we risk throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. If we have difficulty with a bargained and negotiated system, underpinned by a robust legal order, then are we not likely to have more difficulty with an anarchic free-for-all that does not safeguard national interests at all?

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April 11, 2013 by Dr Simon Usherwood
11
Apr
2013

Eppur si muove: Britain and the EU

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Having already spent some time this week discussing Thatcher and the EU, there is a temptation to revisit the topic as part of the on-going efforts by (seemingly) every political commentator in the country to appropriate her memory. However, such obsessing with the past is a big part of the British dysfunction when it comes to European integration, so instead I will try to look forward.

In the midst of other events, one story that nearly slipped under the radar was the announcement between the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy that they will now engage in more automatic sharing of banking data, in order to combat tax evasion. This (not so coincidentally) comes in the same week that other member states with more secretive banking sectors have finally signalled their willingness to open up on disclosure.

This is a good example of soft coordination. The genesis of the idea appears to lie in the US’s FATCA model and an emerging international consensus on the need to capture increasing volumes of tax evasion/avoidance.

What is particularly striking is the clear intention that this is meant to serve as a potential model for more formal EU regulation in a later phase. Even though it sits outside the enhanced cooperation provisions and is described as a pilot, the membership of the group clearly points towards this being rolled out much more widely. In so doing, it highlights the flexibility of the system, the primacy of member states and – importantly – the constructive contribution that the UK can make.

This last point is rather telling, since that contribution is not being made very much of. Notwithstanding Thatcher’s upheaval of the news agenda this week, the Treasury website has limited itself to a press release - quoting a junior minister, rather than the Chancellor – while that has only been picked up by a couple of news outlets.

Just as David Cameron’s EU tour has fallen victim to the new schedule – notwithstanding his impending meeting with Angela Merkel - so the lack of willingness of either the government or the media to make much of a constructive advance with European partners is telling, especially when we consider that even the usual sceptic suspects have not made a fuss about it.

As has been argued repeatedly here, too often does the normative agenda overshadow the practical benefits of integration: without a step back from the former, the latter will become ever harder to achieve, which is to no-one’s benefit. If we look at the UK’s relations with the Union, there are many examples of a real benefit resulting, on both sides. Some calm reflection on this might do everyone some good.

Posted in David Cameron, EU, Europe, UK | Leave a comment
April 8, 2013 by Dr Simon Usherwood
08
Apr
2013

Margaret Thatcher and the EU: Neither a saint nor a sinner

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In one of those odd coincidences, I have been thinking about Margaret Thatcher recently.  I got an email a couple of weeks ago, about a chapter on her that I had written for an edited collection three years ago: The editors have just got around to final proofs for publication later this year, so I was asked to review my piece. With the news of Thatcher’s death today, I find myself posting some opening comments from that chapter here, since it seems an apposite time.

“In many towns across Europe, there is the tradition of parading the holy relics of the saint. As time has passed, these relics have been endowed with special powers, a manifestation of the power of the divine. Questions about the origins of the relics or the sanctity of the individual are barely discussed or are considered disrespectful. Thus it is that even if there are enough fragments of the Cross to build an ark, their status and veneration continue, through the value that the faithful give to them. I would argue that a somewhat similar process has taken place with Margaret Thatcher, in regard of her European policy: an abstraction from reality.

In the twenty years since the end of her premiership, Thatcher has loomed over British politics in a way that few other individuals have ever managed. This presence is the result of the caesura that occurred in 1979 with the Conservative victory in the General Election : the neo-liberal turn and the reconfiguration of the state’s role that marked a deep change in the pattern of British public life. Moreover, there was also the long period of her premiership, during which the Cold War ended and the political, economic, social and cultural imperatives that flowed from that began to crumble. All Prime Ministers since Thatcher have been defined by her and in opposition to her: it is no accident that all her successors have been conspicuous in inviting her back to Downing Street to make the association manifest.

However, it is precisely in the scale of her importance in British politics that Thatcher loses her substance and her own voice. It is largely impossible to discuss her personality, politics or policy objectives in the UK without entering into a Manichean debate about her intrinsic goodness or badness, a screen onto which the individual can project their own attitudes and prejudices. Margaret Thatcher is a subject on which there is precious little middle ground.

Notwithstanding this, we might return to Thatcher’s time in office and consider her actions as they appeared at the time, rather than in subsequent justifications, analyses and reinterpretations. In particular, we might seek to identity the underlying motivations behind Thatcher’s approach to European policy. Rather than the conventional representation of this being a central (indeed, the central) part of Thatcher’s political identity (mostly obviously in the importance accorded to ‘Europe’ in her leadership defeat in 1990), I would argue that it was instead a function of her pragmatic, problem-solving approach, which in turn meant that it was much more fluid and flexible than often noted.

We could also reflect on the extent to which Thatcher was responsible for the re-birth of British Euroscepticism in the early 1990s. A relatively mainstream and successful grouping of politicians and decision-makers had been able to challenge any British involvement in European integration for much of the post-1945 period, but following the 1975 referendum, it lost its momentum, its organisation and its members. Here again, the conventional wisdom is that Thatcher – most obviously with her Bruges speech of 1988 – was central in reawakening people to the perils of ‘Europe’, was then a ‘victim’ of some European treachery and was instrumental in catalysing the new wave of opposition that persists to this day. However, this would be to ignore a number of other factors that arguably played a much more important role.

Thatcher emerges from this analysis as neither a saint nor a sinner, but a politician caught up in a set of circumstances that demanded action. It cannot be denied that her view of the integration process was largely negative, but her political instincts about what was possible – as against her core beliefs about what was right – seemed to have been most at play. Moreover, despite the gnashing of teeth and rolling of eyes at the mention of her name, it also has to be remembered that Thatcher’s view of how integration should progress has largely come to be the conventional view. In so doing, it asks us to consider the utility of labelling individuals or ideas as ‘pro-‘ or ‘anti-European.’”

In the coming days and weeks we will hear a lot about Thatcher and her ‘meaning’: we might all do well to consider our own biases and interests in the construction of that meaning.

Posted in Conservatives, EU, Europe, UK | Tagged | Leave a comment
April 4, 2013 by Dr Simon Usherwood
04
Apr
2013

Affective identity and the EU

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One of my twitter correspondents – Purple Revolution - has come back to me several times ony postings about making the EU work (e.g. last week’s). PR’s argument is that since the Union lacks any affective identification (i.e. people don’t identify themselves as Europeans), it cannot work as a democracy.

Twitter is - as my students will happily tell you – is not a good place to have that sort of discussion, so I thought I’d throw down a fall points here, without the character limit.

Let’s take a different example. I live in Surrey and have done for a decade. I live here because of my work and general life circumstances. However, I do not identify myself as a Surrey-ian (Surrey-ite? Surreyer?) at all.

Despite this, I accept that there is a need for a mechanism of local government, which happens to be the exciting mix of Surrey County Council and Guildford Borough Council. I live vote in the elections for both of these, even if I couldn’t tell you the names of my representatives or of the Councils’ leaderships. I pay local taxation, respect local ordinances and generally live within the system set out for me by others. My lack of affective belonging is neither here nor there.

This is analogous to the European Union, except that the EU doesn’t levy taxes on me. And remember that Surrey’s Councils have much more impact on my life than the EU does.

Just as I didn’t choose to be part of the EU, so I didn’t choose to be part of Surrey. Or Tower Hamlets, where I was born (and for which I also have no affective belonging).  As you will guess, I don’t have any problem with that.

Much as I would like to claim ownership of this model of constitutional democracy, I can’t, since it was Juergen Habermas‘ idea. Essentially, all democratic models require some aspect of constitutionality, in the sense that they need to be bounded, with clear relationships between rulers and ruled, as well as with mechanisms for representation within – and amendment of – the system.

I can agree with PR’s idea in as much as the lack of deep affective identification does make things more difficult, but they certainly don’t make them impossible. All political units are constructions, ‘imagined communities’ in Anderson’s phrase, in that we don’t actually share very much with our compatriots. Anderson approached this in a critical way, stressing the artifice of the ‘nation’, but I take it in a softer line, of recognising that just as nations are constructed, so too can be other political units, at various levels of operation (from local to global).  People are masters of their destiny and we make the world around us: if we can recognise that, then we might be able to work towards a more functional and legitimate political system.

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March 28, 2013 by Dr Simon Usherwood
28
Mar
2013

Defending the EU

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Somewhat embarrassingly (at least as a political scientist), I’ve only just read Matt Flinder’s Defending Politics, occasioned by my award this week. 

What Flinders argues is that the current malaise around politics in general, and democracy in particular, is driven by a lack of understanding  on the part of the general public of the nature of compromise, and the need to recognise that expectation management is as important as endless supply of outputs. In one of his phrases, human rights have obscured human obligations. In brief, our common interests are not necessarily the same as our individual ones.

I have a lot of sympathy for this. Democracy fundamentally rests on engagement and participation and requires us to accept that there is a price to the achievement of our personal objectives that has to be paid in order to secure a bigger benefit of social order and organisation. Thus I might not like having to pay tax, but I recognise that it permits the state to provide me with security, welfare, health, education and a thousand other things that I could not provide for myself.

The astute among you (and even those who’ve only read the title of this entry) will see where I’m going with this.

One surprise in reading Flinders’ book was that the EU is only mentioned once, as an (important) technocratic enterprise, embodying the rise of ‘depoliticisation’, the process whereby politicians will push responsibility out to agencies, in order to avoid having to handle the politics of a given situation.  This strikes me as a misleading representation.

Perhaps the most common issue I encounter when talking about the EU is that people do not understand it: I’ve talked elsewhere of how academic colleagues are rather complicit in perpetuating a view of integration as intrinsically complicated. We can understand this partly resulting from the Union being judged by the yardstick of the state, and using the language of the state, when it’s not a state.

My usual attempt to clarify what the Union is runs something like this: The EU exists because states recognise that they face common challenges, to which they can better respond by working together and thus they create joint institutions.  I’m happy to concede that in the first instance that was a bureaucratic/technocratic exercise, but there has been a continual process of grafting on a system of democratic oversight and legitimacy.

That process is neither complete nor perfect: as Flinders tells us, democracy is never perfect. Politics is never cost-free, but we tend to focus on costs rather than benefits. Indeed, I’d go further and say that a big part of the problem is that in politics (and certainly in the EU) costs tend to be concentrated and benefits diffuse.

When I read and listen to eurosceptics, they often talk about a post-EU world, where there will still be cooperation between European states, but respecting their sovereign rights and national traditions. I find this odd, because that’s what we have now, with the Union. The entire system is based upon the voluntary joining of national action into European action, in a way that spends a lot of time trying to not explicitly exclude individual national preferences. The myth of a unifying and standardising Union is a popular one, but also a wrong one: spend any time looking at an area of EU competence and you will still see a vast amount of national variation.

My big concern about the debate on European integration is that there is not much deep reflection on what integration is and how it works. That’s not a criticism, but an observation: people do not see it as a priority for their lives, in comparison to bread and butter issues, such as jobs, health or welfare. As a result, most people passively witness the discussion between those to whom it is important.

I return then to my first point, that democracies are about engagement and participation. Likewise, I’d argue that the EU is not perfect, but that the best way to make it work better is through constructive participation and discussion. We have to recognise that there will be costs, but also accept that there are benefits, even if they seem marginal to us as individuals.  If we could do that, then perhaps we could find solutions that work better for everyone.

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