Commentary No. 2, Oct. 15, 1998
"What Difference Does European Union Make?"
The trajectory of European Union has been remarkably swift. The idea first became a serious one only after the Second World War. It was partly an effort to bury the century-long struggle of France and Germany, partly an effort to contain Germany in the future, partly a way of struggling against what was seen as the menace of Communism and the Soviet Union.
In the early years, say 1950-circa 1965, it was an idea that was strongly supported, indeed pushed, by the United States government. The U.S. saw several big pluses in greater European cooperation/unity. It would speed up European recovery and make Europe a more solid market for U.S. goods. It would help to overcome French (and indeed British) reluctance to see Germany play again a military role, a role the U.S. thought essential in maintaining Western strength against the Soviet Union. It was precisely for these reasons that many segments of the European left, and not only the Communist parties, were suspicious of, indeed hostile to, talk of European unity.
The situation began to change in the late 1960's and early 1970's. The basic difference was the growing economic strength of western Europe, and therefore the flickerings of a desire by Europeans to cease being automatic adjuncts of the U.S. on the world scene. There was a sense that western Europe's interests were not necessarily identical with those of the U.S. The attitude towards the U.S.S.R. was one issue. The evolution of West Germany's Ostpolitik and the insistence in the early 1980's on the building of the trans-Europe gas pipeline (from the U.S.S.R. to western Europe) were two instances of this cautious but definite loosening of the ties. Of course, as long as the Soviet Union existed, west Europeans were also afraid the U.S. might withdraw entirely from Europe, so they remained careful not to antagonize the U.S. too much, and insisted rhetorically on the closeness of the links. Nonetheless, as the Europeans showed more independence of the U.S., so the U.S. cooled on its enthusiasm for European unity. But this shift was also cautious, since the U.S. felt it had to maintain an approbatory rhetoric. As the U.S. cooled on European unity, the Soviet Union, initially very hostile for obvious reasons, began to change the tone of its discourse, until Gorbachev in the late 1980's began to talk of a single European house, a description that the U.S. did not like at all but which was received more openly by the west Europeans.
The key strains between the U.S. and western Europe were in military and world economic policy. The military strains were the most visible. If France in 1957 rejected the European Defence Community because the French were wary of rearming the Germans, twenty years later they were the prime promoters of a European army built around a French-German collaboration. The United States saw this as a distinctly bad idea, one which threatened their military dominance via NATO of Western military decisions. The Germans were caught in the crossfire, acceding to the French in principle, and slowing down implementation in practice. Even so, the U.S. felt the Germans were much too warm on the idea.
There was wider support in Europe for immediate monetary unification, support that has now produced the agreement on the euro which comes into existence on Jan. 1, 1999. The U.S. took a formally benign stance on this development, assuming as did many that the arrangements would fall through. And so it seemed for a while. Since the road to the euro was largely paved with the good intentions of neoclassical economics, there might have seemed some side benefits to U.S. policymakers. But actually, the combination of relatively good economic times for a few years and Franco-German political determination enabled all the states to meet the preconditions of Maastricht without too much pain, and lo an behold, the euro was there.
The military situation had been changed by the collapse of the Communisms in 1989-91, and the world economic situation by the so-called Asian crisis of 1997-98. The collapse of the Communisms ought logically to have led to the dismantlement of NATO, since there was no longer a military threat from the Soviet Union to counter. In fact, it led to a curious effort to consecrate NATO as the de facto world police force. Why? There are several reasons. The liberation of east/central Europe from Russian control led to immediate and enormous pressure from these countries to be allowed to join the West symbolically, via membership in NATO and in European Union, steps they felt sure would ensure their achieving west European levels of living rapidly. The U.S. endorsed such sentiments partly out of domestic political considerations and partly out of hopes that this would end the idea of an autonomous west European military force. The Germans endorsed such sentiments as part of a renewed drive to ensure Germany's role as a principal economic actor in this zone. And the French endorsed such sentiments partly out of a sense that they shouldn't be left behind in the struggle for influence.
But neither the Germans nor the French nor indeed most other west European powers wanted to go too fast or too far with any integration of east/central Europe into European Union or even NATO. This was for two reasons. The economic price was very high and could unsettle the delicate compromises that now exist within the European Union about farm subsidies and North-South transfers of income, not to speak of its impact on immigration. But there was a second more political reason, played down publicly, the impact on relations with Russia.
In the meantime came the many political disintegrations around the globe - in the Persian Gulf, in the Horn and Great Lakes regions of Africa, and especially in the Balkans. It seemed to all the great powers that something had to be done to restore stability, but what? The U.S. soured very quickly on any idea of using the U.N. as an agency of control, and fastened on NATO as its mode of legitimating action. However, immediately the difference between U.S. interests and European interests came to the fore. They were active competitors for markets and influence in these areas. And above all neither side was anxious to pay the military price. The U.S. idea has been that it supplies the air strikes and the west Europeans the ground forces. The west Europeans are obviously less enthusiastic about such a division of labor. The result has been a quasi-paralysis on effective military action. If the justification for having NATO is that it can act in such situations, the evidence thus far is largely against it. But the U.S. knows that, if they drop NATO, they open the way for a relatively rapid creation of a west European army.
Meanwhile, a similar strain is occurring concerning world economic policy. When Valéry Giscard d'Estaing invented the idea of the G-7 in the late 1970's, he saw it as a way of reasserting a major French role in the world economic arena, and probably also as a way of reducing the U.S. role. The U.S. would have none of it, and insisted on seeing the G-7 as simply another mode of implementing U.S. policy, along with the IMF and the World Bank. The combination of the so-called Asian crisis and the establishment of the euro (and the consequently much stronger west European position) has paralyzed the G-7 in ways parallel to the paralysis of NATO. Neither the Japanese nor the west European are in a mood to accept U.S. directives on the world recession in process, especially when the U.S. is not even ready to pay the bill (similar to not wanting to provide the ground troops for NATO operations).
What is clear is that there has been a long-term emergence of a relatively unified west European actor, which is actively seeking to create the political mechanisms consonant with its economic strength. And it is quite clear that the major opponent of its emergence is none other than its major ally, the United States. The pressures are all in the direction of the two sides pulling apart. The obvious consequence the Europeans are likely to draw is creating an autonomous military force and strengthening their political machinery.
This means they are unlikely to proceed with too much further integration of east/central Europe into their structures, and this for two reasons. Adding more members now would enormously complicate the process of military and political strengthening of structures. But the second reason is a larger geopolitical one. As west Europe becomes a more central player on the world scene, there is one thing that would enormously strengthen it vis-a-vis the U.S. That is the inclusion of Russia in its geopolitical orbit. And this necessarily means, in terms of arrangements western Europe would make, Russia first, east/central Europe next. The other order would be politically impossible, since the east/central Europeans would veto any arrangements with Russia. Of course, the east/central Europeans fear precisely this priority by western Europe, but the question is can they stop it? A second Rapallo is on the horizon, and for essentially the same reasons as the first. What's holding it up is internal anarchy in Russia, not really west European restraint. Were Lebed or someone like him to come to power, and reestablish a semblance of state power in Russia, the process might go forward more speedily than we suspect today.
None of this says whether the trends described here are good or bad. The question of course always is, good or bad for whom? Good for west Europe itself? The vestiges of left opposition to European unity believe not, but it is doubtful that the lower strata in western Europe are really worse off because of European unity than they would have been otherwise. Good for the United States? Obviously not. Good for the countries of the South? This is the ultimate argument of left opponents of European unity. No doubt, western Europe is no more likely to act in altruistic ways on North-South issues than the U.S. But the very existence of a multipolar North is ultimately a benefit for countries of the South, since it provides more space for them in which to maneuver and pursue their collective interests.
In a strange way, at the very moment that we are experiencing the civilizational decline of the West, and the return to
importance if not yet centrality of eastern Asia, Europe as Europe is getting a renewed cultural chance. It is not yet clear
what the Europeans will do with this cultural opportunity.
Immanuel Wallerstein
[Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to download, forward electronically or e-mail to others and to post this text on non-commercial community Internet sites, provided the essay remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. To translate this text, publish it in printed and/or other forms, including commercial Internet sites and excerpts, contact the author at iwaller@binghamton.edu; fax: 1-607-777-4315.
These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen
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