Posted on 06/26/2004 9:41:30 AM PDT by ScaniaBoy
On Friday, Europe's heads of state agreed on a draft of a constitution for what they conceive as a new country, Europe. But what is this new nation that is being created for us? A critic recently noted that if the EU were a country, it could never be admitted to the EU. And of course he was right.
The democratic deficit - which, so far from being solved this weekend, will be set in stone - is the more scandalous given that it is solemnified less than two months after 10 new countries have joined us, eager to belong to European democracy after decades of brutal Russian occupation.
This very weekend, as Valery Giscard d'Estaing's new country takes legal form, Hungary is celebrating its national freedom. The last Russian soldier left Hungarian soil 13 years ago, on June 19 1991: ever since, wild parties break out on that anniversary.
Our democratic, peaceful Europe is a minor miracle, well worth celebrating - as long as we, and not only the eastern Europeans, remember that it was Nato forces, US generosity and Anglo-Saxon values that for decades ensured the European prosperity, democracy and peace which now, supposedly, Giscard d'Estaing's brainchild will guard. (It is an intriguing paradox that we will live under a legal umbrella constructed by a man who would, in any country governed by Anglo-Saxon law, now be in jail.)
Let us turn to more practical questions. How can we link the administrative traditions and political heritage of, say, Britain and my native Sweden with, for example Italy and Greece? How can we marry the high trust, civic and law-governed north with the amoral familialism of the south?
This is perhaps only playful speculation, but shouldn't Europe be subdivided in a new, culturally appropriate way? Is there not a self-evident Atlantic alliance, consisting of Scandinavia (including Lutheran Estonia), northern Germany (the erstwhile Hansa and the Lutheran parts), Holland, the UK, together with Canada and the US? The Atlantic seaboard of France is welcome to join, too, as once, before the Counter-Reformation, the locals there attempted to - down to that last stand at Calais.
And could there not be a charming, if perhaps authoritarian-minded, realm of Catholic- and German-influenced middle-European countries, such as Slovenia, the Rhineland and Bavaria, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, northern Italy, and Austria?
And could not what was once Vichy France join Spain, southern Italy, Portugal and Greece in a Mare Nostrum voluntary alliance - hopefully extended into the terra sanctas of Lebanon and Israel, and even taking in Romania? Perhaps one day this alliance can slowly extend along the Maghreb?
And don't you think that a Gross-Poland, including Lithuania and Latvia, might be natural? And are not Bulgaria, Bielo-Russia and the Ukraine reluctantly but inevitably parts of a Greater Russia?
I leave it to the readers to figure out the Balkans. But here is a modest proposal: is there not one country, and an important one at that, which might be pleased to incorporate these erstwhile Ottoman realms - namely Turkey?
Mischievous. There's so much that is wrong with this, but I haven't the heart to set it straight because it is, after all, rather a modest proposal.
One phrase took my eye, however, that deserves emphasis: "democratic deficit." That is indeed the fatal flaw of the new EU. There is no democracy, no true representation, no governors who can be easily ejected if the voters disapprove of them. Instead there is a faceless socialist bureaucracy eager to suck up taxes and lay down regulations, micromanaging everyone's life regardless of their wishes, their real welfare, or economic realities.
The article was obviously written with tongue in cheek.
However, even so it contains some serious truths, as you yourself pointed out.
One thing Ms Rausing (a historian by profession) points out in her naughty way is that Europe has never been an entity, and also that old standing cultural patterns, conflicts and alliances run criss cross through the continent.
Then of course most of her proposals (entities) are opening up a new can of worms. I don't think the Serbs would wish to belong to a Turkish zone of influence, nor would Israel do well in a entity run by the old Vichy part of France, etc, etc.
ScaniaBoy
Fun article, but I think the Europeans need to worry more about become part of the muslim-migrant Caliphate than about reconstructing old regional groupings.
These are, in my opinion, the nicest parts of Europe. Well organized, neat...I'd Also throw in parts of Northern Spain, Portugal and the Azores...
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