A risk to avoid

All across Europe a terrible fear has arisen over the past few months: Is once-bright dream of the EU becoming a nightmare?The Eurozone crisis is economic in nature. Yet its effects go far beyond the economic sphere. All across Europe, people have lost trust in the European project. It is now often seen as undemocratic and elite-driven. Instead of bringing solidarity between the European peoples, the fraught negotiations over the Eurozone’s debt crisis have brought mistrust and discord.Jerzy Buzek, the president of the European Parliament recently warned: “MEPs keep telling me that in their constituencies, many people now see Europe as part of the problem, and not as part of the solution”.If referendums on EU membership were held across Europe today, the results could be catasrophic for the EU. Even before the crisis, integrationist treaties were rejected by the French, Dutch and Irish electorates. In Britain, a group of eurosceptic parliamentarians are seeking a referendum on leaving the EU. Opinion polls show that a majority of Britons want a plebiscite and almost half would like to leave the EU altogether.Ireland has long been one of the most staunchly pro-EU nations. Yet, since the implementation of the EU-IMF bailout last year, deep suspicions have has grown. Many in Ireland feel that they are unjustly paying back the bad investments of French and German banks: German and French banks lent some €74.5 billion to Irish banks during the boom. The Irish banks have since gone bust. Yet now, the Irish taxpayer is being asked to pay the bill for foreign investors.In France and Germany there is anger at the prospect of paying for the financial sins of profligate, less disciplined, nations. Many Greek and Portugese people meanwhile feel angry at outside pressure coming on them to cut wages and public services. Similar feelings are emerging in Italy and Spain, also under EU pressure to make cutbacks. Those states outside the eurozone increasingly feel outside the tent in a two-speed Europe.All have legitimate grievances and – now that a eurozone recession is approaching – many believe that the pattern of bitterness and recrimination will only worsen. Irish economist David McWilliams compared the eurozone crisis to an unhappy marriage: “The crisis facing the euro is one of a loveless marriage where the marriage itself has amplified differences that were evident from the start”.For different reasons, the various peoples of Europe are becoming increasingly distrustful of the EU and particularly the single currency – and each other. The result is that eurosceptic movements are on the march throughout the EU, gaining unprecedented shares of the vote in national elections.The most powerful argument the eurosceptics have is the EU’s lack of democratic legitimacy. Indeed, the EU itself has long admitted the “democratic deficit” at its heart. Many now fear that – due to the Euro crisis – the EU will betray the principle of keeping decision making as close to the citizen as possible.Some even say that the EU is being sidelined altogether by an increasingly powerful Paris-Berlin axis: Pierre Rousselin, Deputy Editor of Le Figaro, last week wrote: “Berlin and Paris have become more central to Europe than Brussels, which has now been consigned to a more administrative role”.However, even the French-German axis is not of one mind: Reports have emerged that Merkel and Sarkozy were arguing and shouting angrily during a recent meeting – ironically, just as an orchestra tuned up to play ‘Ode to Joy’ – the EU anthem.Nonetheless, far beyond the corridors of power, there exists deeper sort of European integration. Many ordinary families, such as my own, now have family and friends from many European nations. In our case, my children have Italian, Irish and British citizenships.Perhaps that is where true integration will spring from: friendships and family bonds. The type of integration that is imposed from the top down will inevitably meet resistance. The type of unity that comes from the people upward will arrive more slowly – but it will be more lasting and more democratic. The danger is that, in the heat of this crisis, an out-of-touch political elite will impose a radical centralisation of power, without adequate democratic consent. If they do this, they risk a ferocious popular reaction all across Europe – one that could shatter the EU forever. The real danger for the EU is not a lack of integration, but too much of it, too soon.