Posted on 04/21/2011 10:46:49 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
The Hungarian government and the Finnish electorate have demonstrated a desire to break with the European consensus. One of the reasons for this crisis could well be that member states are constantly told that there is absolutely no alternative to the European project.
How weak Europe is politically! A kingdom of the kind thrown up by the history of the world – from the Roman to the American to the Chinese – was never near European shores, and for historical reasons as well. The continent of Europe was distinguished for ages by fragmentation into petty principalities. And the marks left by history have enormous powers of endurance. The happy and successful era of European integration has been far too brief for this deep-seated legacy of discord to be brought to a permanent end.
But because the founders of the new Europe wanted to neutralise this heritage with all the force they could muster, they pressed down hard on it with the millstone of the EEC (and later the EU). Indeed, and at least up to Helmut Kohl, the iron rule was that every EU member state was to be equally important, no matter how big or small. Multifaceted and egalitarian was to be the new historical image. However, as suggested already by talk of the Franco-German engine or of the Carolingian foundations of the enterprise, the new Europe was in fact, away from its centre, an imaginary entity. It is this stubborn centricity, exceedingly well represented in Brussels, that is making the EU wobble, and not just since yesterday.
One feels it everywhere, and especially along the borderlands. This first became evident a little while ago in Hungary, with its massive turn towards nationalism under Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party. The country, which is one of the newer members of the EU club, is playing the Magyar card, and its government is striking up a fanfare of national awakening steeped in Hungarian history that will not resonate at all with the rationally humming management of Europe that Brussels knows best.
Finland still has it pretty good
Hungary's new constitution, drafted and sealed by the ruling majority without referral to any constitutional procedure, is a foreign body in the European constitutional ensemble. A highly emotional preamble swelling with pride in Hungary’s history anchors the Republic – which it remains, so far! – in the 11th Century, bound to the imperial crown, Christianity, and (a large) family. Hungary demonstrates that along the edges of the EU, under the protection of the EU and within the legal confines of the EU, ideas other than those promulgated by the Brussels court can gain ground.
But trouble for Brussels is brewing even among Europe’s model students. The Netherlands proved pesky some time ago, and the Finns have just opened another chapter in this new European disorder. The Finns are not known as extremists. For decades they worked hard at an odd system of government succession in which three parties governed in an almost regular cycle, which meant disputes among the major parties were always settled amicably.
After all, the punching bag of today was the bedfellow of tomorrow. Despite Nokia’s downward turn, the PISA-wonderland of Finland still has it pretty good. Nevertheless, an apparently up-and-coming party that calls itself the True Finns or, more precisely, Ordinary Finns, which has succeeded in becoming the third-strongest party in the country with rather more rightist than leftist populist elements, will now likely be in the government. A sudden furore that can break out even in the most peaceful and civil of families?
The deplorable state of the EU It was quickly agreed that it would be the well-stretched protective shield that would handle such rebellions. For somewhere in the undergrowth of every European people slumbers a national obstinacy that sees its neighbours more as expensive boarders than allies. That may be true, but it still does not explain what is happening.
Everywhere in Europe there is, in principle, a willingness to take responsibility for, and to pay for, an enlightened EU. Europe is not hostile to the Greeks. But the Europeans do not want European progress forever presented to them as a kind of well-oiled machinery to which there is no alternative and that is so complex in its workings that only a grown-up like Brussels can run it – the little people themselves must stay outside the building.
Recently the philosopher Jürgen Habermas complained again of the “deplorable state” of the EU. While he stresses the need for a democratic renewal for Europe, he overestimates the ability of Europeans to recreate a new Europe with a purpose. In one thing, though, he is right: “European integration, which was always pushed ahead with over the heads of the people, has now reached a dead end, for it cannot carry on without being switched over from the usual administrative mode to one that involves greater participation by the people.”
Translated from the German by Anton Baer
The EU was a compromise between the European right and left. The right wanted free trade and unrestricted travel within the union and they mostly got everything they wanted. But in return they had to agree to allow the left to destroy national sovereignty and create one grand unified state. The tool expected to achieve this centralization was the common currency, the Euro. Fortunately the left’s project isn’t looking too healthy these days and will likely fail due to the lack of a common central bank.
I have relatives who fought to liberate roman built crap hole cities that remain unchanged to this day.
Perhaps when Iran assumes control of the continent things will change.
Perhaps the common currency, euro, was "stealth capitalism" demanded by European capitalists for their (the banks) participation.
The grand EUrotopian socialist experiment could not defeat the capitalist remnant, common currency. The euro just hastened the inevitable doom.
Individual socialist states with their own currency are doomed, perhaps just at a slower pace.
yitbos
I admire the Finish. Extremely smart, honest and very hardworking people. WTH would they want to bail the lazy bums in Greece, I don’t know.
yitbos
I think there is a tendency to confuse Capitalism with Statism. The Euro is not a Capitalist institution. The big banks are statist institutions and they are as much the handmaidens of the Socialists as they are of big industry. I agree that all these individual fiat currencies are ultimately doomed, but I don’t think they will be relplaced by a single fiat currency. I think eventually gold will reemerge as the world standard.
Perhaps it is the other way around.
Germany cannot print its own euros, for that matter the European Central Bank needs unanimous permission from Euro Zone members to print.
It was those private Euro Zone banks who insisted on a common currency euro (stealth capitalism) to ensure the failure of the grand socialist experiment.
yitbos
“How about those Hungaries putting Christianity in the preamble of their new constitution?”
I’ll be honest, it’s just a knee jerk populism. Russia is building churches all the place too...while arming jihadists on the other hand.
Physical bank notes are not what they are printing. Inflation is always done through the credit markets by expanding the authority of the big banks to create and lend out new checkbook money. Neither Germany nor any other EU member needs approval to do that.
It was those private Euro Zone banks who insisted on a common currency euro (stealth capitalism) to ensure the failure of the grand socialist experiment.
You seem to be suggesting the banks knew the Euro would fail and wanted that to happen. I think that's a bit of a stretch.
The banks did indeed agitate for a common currency, but they did not do so as a means of opposing Socialism. Banks always support central banking because a central bank is a cartel that shields member banks from interbank competition. Central banking is an uncompetitive, anti-capitalist, statist institution.
The Socialists supported the common currency for a totally different reason. They saw it as the first step towards creating a vast centralized state - which they could then used to implement their lunatic social policies.
No...........Harvard is, just ask them.
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