The European Patient

D-Day, the great Normandy landings, took place on June 6, 1944 and marked the beginning of the end of World War II, the bloodiest war in history at the time. For many historians the war began in 1914 when the Great War broke out. Practically, it was a major European civil war that later was called World War I, and it ended in 1945 with the fall of Berlin and the atomic bombings of Japan. Europe — or the “Dark Continent,” as it was called by historian Mark Mazower — is the birthplace of two world wars. In Europe, there were sweeping changes in every respect: In the first war four empires were devastated, a world superpower was born, a revolution broke out and borders were redrawn. The horror of mass extermination was sealed indelibly onto the European psyche and changed the civilization.

During the nasty interlude, the “Dark Continent’s” ferocious, novel phenomenon — totalitarianism — sprouted over deeply humiliated, defeated people, drowning the feeble flowers of democracy. The war continued to grow fiercer until total horror — the extinction of humanity and the threat of nuclear annihilation.

The League of Nations, the precursor of the U.N., was prepared and drafted during World War I by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, with the Fourteen Points speech he made calling for peace in Europe. During the horrors of WWII, the European Union was conceived by two exiles of the fascist regime, Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto Rossi. They were the co-authors of the “Ventotene Manifesto,” which was their vision and priceless heritage from the 20th century’s longest-lasting European war — an unprecedented historic endeavor that endowed Europeans with the unparalleled golden age of capitalism (1945-1970) and an extraordinary flourishing of civil society, democracy, the rule of law, the welfare state, and sciences and arts. All of the above became feasible largely due to the European nations’ devotion to a common plan for the prevention of war, for settling of rivalries and creative coexistence.

Seventy years since D-Day, since the end of the world wars and after so many historical feats, Europe is not in the best situation. It is rather on the borderline, the beginning of decline with an unpredictable outcome. The historical continuum of inter-war Europe is being threatened by a deep rift. The respected common assumptions, and forces of convergence and cohesion are retreating; their place is being taken by centrifugal forces of deflection and fragmentation. The historical discontinuity of 1989 seems to be leaving a deep rift on the continent, which is becoming deeper. The war from 1990-1995 not only dissolved the Yugoslavian state, but also the belief that borders do not change. The Yugoslavian issue showed that big states can break up and ghost states can be established. In fact, while the first war broke out, the ambitious European federation of states simply stood by and watched, sometimes compliantly.

The loan crisis of the 1980s and the subsequent debt crisis on the periphery of the European world showed the asymmetry: first and foremost, the prevalence of markets over states, the non-existence of strong will to regulate financial institutions while facing a historic challenge — the imbalance of the top EU forces. Without the diplomatic and political force of feeble France, with the U.K. crankier and more Euro-skeptic than ever, with powerful right-wing, anti-European forces in both countries and Italy unstable and debt-ridden, economically powerful Germany is the sole leading force in the fragmented EU, governing unwillingly and clumsily, using inadequate tools such as traditional modernism and ordoliberalism, which is applied within the country. These tools used by Berlin are insufficient for the stabilization of complex, asymmetric and unstable Europe, which is exposed to the winds of economic and cultural globalization. Of course Brussels’ fundamentalist cramp is useless in neoliberal orthodoxy, which not even the U.S. is following faithfully.

Political and mental rigidity, which was exhibited while dealing with the ongoing, mounting crisis after 2008, culminated in raw intervention in internal affairs of big and small debt-laden countries, leading to the removal from power of prime ministers of countries as if it was a comic opera. A wave of extreme right-wing and left-wing Euroskepticism is also caused by events such as those that occurred at the Cannes summit in the autumn of 2011. In fact, the U.S. expression of concern in multiple ways is not irrelevant to such events, because of the ineffective overcoming of the crisis from the “European patient.”

The European instability is further worsening due to sudden geopolitical leverage in Ukraine, the sensitive eastern border of Europe. Two decades since the Dayton Peace Agreement for the Yugoslavian issue, Ukraine demonstrates the weaknesses of the EU in a different, probably more dangerous way. Now the EU is being confronted with their great Eurasian neighbor, Russia, with which it has strong mutual ties. Urging Russia toward Asia will not benefit Europe. Indeed, the Putin government is strengthening its economic relations with China and India.

Comparing with the past is rather risky, but let’s have a look at the European mosaic a century since the outbreak of World War I. The three great forces, France, Germany and the U.K., have potentially embarked on a competition, or at least a deviation. The monetary union brought deviation rather than convergence. The geopolitical context is highly unstable on the whole Mediterranean arc to the Black Sea. Russia is moving both defensively and aggressively. The U.S. is leveraging the Russo-German approach. The U.K. has a nationalistic reaction, threatening the EU with secession. France is ailing and also reacting in a nationalistic way. The south is plagued by recession and unemployment. The whole of Europe is in danger of being immersed in deflation and recession. The extreme right and racism is marching on. Never before in the 70 years since the war has Europe seemed more weak and confused.