Against United Europe

Of course, to skeptical electorates in the member countries, the federalists strenuously deny that they are building a European über-nation. It is merely a tidying-up exercise, they say; European law already supersedes the laws of individual European nations in a number of fields. The new constitution simply recognizes this in one document.

This is pure casuistry. The draft E.U. constitution–1,000 pages long (imagine that debate in Philadelphia)–enshrines in law a single flag, anthem, motto, and currency for the union. Less symbolically but more significantly, it also creates a single president to replace the current arrangement whereby the presidency rotates through the member states every six months, as well as a single foreign minister to run a single foreign policy. It establishes vast areas of European law where nation-states cede ultimate legal sovereignty to E.U. courts. And it creates a “charter of fundamental rights,” which includes a long list of such basic human freedoms as the right to be represented on workers’ councils–think Bill of Rights in socialist garb. Indeed the true intent of these founding fathers was revealed by their original proposal right at the outset of their proposed constitution–to rename the E.U. the United States of Europe (USE).

Not all governments are happy with these ideas–the USE moniker did not survive, and the drafters will probably be forced to drop some of their more ambitious proposals. But these will be mere tactical retreats. This week, even Tony Blair’s British government made clear it would accept the basic principles. The constitution is expected to be approved at a summit in Rome in December and then ratified by the member states. By the end of 2005, the E.U. constitution will join the euro–Europe’s single currency, launched four years ago–as a central pillar of an emerging European state.

Americans can be forgiven for yawning at these developments on the old continent. The internal deliberations of Brussels committees can send the most engaged Europeans to sleep, let alone Americans. But even those Americans who are paid to keep track of what Europe is up to–at the State Department, in Washington’s think tanks, and in the White House–do not seem unduly animated. The new European Union that is being born is nothing for the United States to get agitated about, they say. Indeed, from President Bush on down, U.S. officials repeat the old line that European integration will bring untold benefits to the United States. Future Henry Kissingers will never again have to complain about whom to call when they want to talk to Europe.

If this complacency becomes official U.S. policy, it will be folly of the highest order. The events of the last year should have demonstrated the risks for the United States inherent in a united Europe.

The new Europe in the making is not the New Europe Donald Rumsfeld hailed in the run-up to the Iraq war–an alliance of Atlanticist nations like Britain, Spain, and the ex-Communist states of Eastern Europe. It is likely to bear a much closer resemblance to the Old Europe of Gaullist stripe, defining itself as a self-appointed counterweight to U.S. power; Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schröder are likely to be the main drivers of its political direction.

CALM DOWN, say Europe’s supporters in America. There are many reasons why the United States should not get agitated at events across the Atlantic. For starters, there is the “It will never happen, so why worry?” argument. Whatever the ambitions of the Gaullist superstaters at the heart of Europe, haven’t the events of this year revealed that the continent is simply too divided to have a meaningful European foreign policy identity?

It is certainly true that the One Europe vision has suffered a setback. To their serious divisions over Iraq, Europeans have spent much of the summer adding some entertainingly trivial ones. Last month an insanely puerile food fight erupted between Italy and Germany over a speech by Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi to the European parliament. “Mafioso” and “Nazi” insults were traded, and the tussle ended with the German chancellor canceling his plans to take a holiday in Italy. Such enmities run deep, so who can fear a united Europe?

But European political elites have demonstrated time and again that, despite enduring national differences, the European project goes on. Indeed, it is usually at moments when Europe seems to be breaking apart that the largest strides towards unity are taken, often in the face of public opposition. European strategists are animated by the bicycle theory–if you don’t keep moving forward, you fall off–and they have no intention of falling off.

In 1993, when the European exchange rate mechanism, the system that kept the E.U.’s currencies locked together, collapsed under the weight of economic realities, the idea of a single currency, for which the mechanism was a precursor, looked dead. John Major, the British prime minister, gleefully observed that the euro idea had all the relevance of a “raindance.” In just three years came the deluge, and the design for the new euro was unveiled.

There is a powerful dynamic at the heart of the E.U. that tilts the whole process strongly towards closer integration–and towards a particular sort of integration. It is a bargain between Germany, the most federalist country, and France, which supports European union on French terms, together with smaller countries such as Belgium that see an opportunity to punch way above their weight in international affairs if Europe is united.

These countries are now eagerly pressing ahead with an embryonic E.U. security policy, formed around a Franco-Belgian-German core. In neither France nor Germany is there any talk of reorienting policy post-Iraq towards Atlantic cooperation. Indeed, they take seriously Jacques Chirac’s notion of a new world in which Europe balances the United States.

Very well, say the doubters, but surely Iraq showed a new arithmetic at work–one basically favorable to the United States. Whatever the Franco-German dreams, European integration will be good for Americans because, thanks to Tony Blair’s Britain, Jose Maria Aznar’s Spain, and the entry next year of Eastern European countries, the E.U. is moving in our direction.

This is one of the most enduring and dangerous myths about Europe, one sadly fostered by successive British prime ministers, including Blair. If only Britain would put itself at the “heart of Europe,” it goes, Britain would lead it. This has never happened. Which is hardly surprising. It is no accident that the countries that have resisted most European moves towards integration have been the least influential. In Europe, as in life, if you pay, you play. The Franco-German axis, together with the deracinated, committed Europeanists who make up the bureaucracy in Brussels, will always win this game.

As for the role of the new Eastern European members, optimism about their influence is misplaced. Once inside the E.U., which has powerful economic leverage over small, relatively poor countries, the magnetic pull of Brussels overwhelms all. When in April the United States offered Poland a sector to control in Iraq, the reaction in official Europe was vicious. “One cannot entrust his purse to Europe and his security to America,” warned Romano Prodi, the president of the European Commission.

All right, say the non-worriers, but so what? Even if a new E.U. takes the Franco-German tilt, does it really matter? Everyone knows, thanks to Robert Kagan’s analysis, that Europeans are ideologically committed to weak-kneed multilateralism, that they are not really interested in exercising power. What possible effect could a United Europe have on America’s ability to execute its intentions? As one conservative puts it, “Why get upset about 10,000 Vanessa Redgraves marching through Paris?”

This “Europe as soft multilateralists” argument is only half right. The E.U.’s increasingly urgent efforts to turn itself into a single state expose a fundamental deception in the European project. The Europeans are not multilateralists at home. On the contrary, they want to turn Europe from an intergovernmental institution into a single nation–with real power. It’s true that even the French have no grand design to take on the United States in some new superpower struggle. But this misses the point. The kind of multilateralism they do believe in is the one that uses institutions to hold American power in check.

Think of the E.U. not as a Superpower but as a kind of Sniperpower, constantly picking off parts of U.S. foreign policy objectives around the world. It made life difficult enough over the Iraq war; it could make life in post-Saddam Iraq much harder for the United States. It could cause plenty of mischief in all corners of the globe. Imagine a united Europe aggressively pursuing a single line against the United States in the councils of NATO. Or throwing its sizable economic weight around in Latin America or Africa.

And one other longstanding goal of U.S. policy could also make European awkwardness more of a constraint for America. It has long been an axiom of U.S. policy that Europe should develop military capabilities of its own–genuine ones that would enable Europe to fight hot wars in difficult places and take some of the burden off the Americans. This too has always been dubious policy. If a united Europe really does develop enhanced capabilities, it is inconceivable that it will not demand a bigger say in the decision-making in new international crises.

Finally, there are those who accept all these premises, but still say, What can the United States do about it? U.S. intervention in a private debate won’t help–and will probably make matters worse. The one thing that would make Europeans more determined to press ahead with their project is the idea that the United States was trying to stop it.

BUT THIS DOES NOT MEAN Washington is powerless. It can do a number of useful things. Above all, it can stop spouting the outdated Cold War idea that an integrated Europe is in the best interests of the United States. Can anyone now seriously believe that a single E.U. foreign policy will be more helpful to the United States than a British, a Polish, and a Spanish one?

Second, it should strengthen its political and military ties with Eastern Europeans. Moving troops out of Germany to Bulgaria, Romania, and perhaps other countries is a smart move, as was offering the Poles a leading role in postwar Iraq.

Third, it should temper its enthusiasm for the development of stronger European military capabilities. Franco-German-Belgian-Luxembourg plans for a core E.U. military alliance can easily be laughed off. But in these testing times, the United States should be extra careful about a separate European identity within NATO.

Fourth, it should oppose any plans to change the membership of multilateral institutions to reflect a single “European” identity. There should be no talk of a U.N. Security Council seat for Europe, or the creation of a United States-Japan-Europe Group of Three in international economics to replace the G7.

Fifth, it should refrain from doing anything that might help push Britain into the euro. Nothing would represent a more fateful step for European integration than Britain’s joining this ill-starred project. U.S. officials sometimes argue that the U.K.’s membership in the single currency would help American businesses. There is scant evidence for this, and the impetus such a British decision would give to European superstatehood cannot be overstated.

In the end, U.S. policymakers should know that the biggest threat posed for the United States by European ambitions comes from inside Europe. Most ordinary Europeans are aghast at the sovereignty that has already been handed over to Brussels. The dynamic of European integration is not a popular one, but one driven by political elites, and there is already evidence of mounting unease among the general public. The euro, the biggest leap yet towards European statehood–and the monetary and fiscal policies required to make it work–are causing real stresses for Europeans.

There are signs of broader political unrest–of a growing mood of popular disenfranchisement, with increasing support for extreme-right parties in France, Italy, Germany, and even Britain, as voters react with irritation to the growing gap between the governing institutions and the governed. In the last three years, voters in Ireland and Denmark have rejected grandiose E.U. integration plans in referendums. Polls going into Sweden’s September 14 referendum on joining the euro suggest the Swedes could deliver another rebuke to the Euro-federalists.

But still the European creators press on, continuing to shift power away from communities, regions, and nations in favor of the emerging supernation in Brussels.

This is the ultimate irony. The Europeanists see themselves as latter-day Thomas Jeffersons and George Washingtons, creating a new state and a new continental global power. But they are closer in spirit to George III and General Cornwallis–imposing a remote, burdensome, and ultimately undemocratic authority on a reluctant people. The risks for stability in Europe are obvious. It is not too late for the United States to help stop the European superstate from becoming a reality.

Gerard Baker is associate editor of the Financial Times.