EU at 50: Transcending national rivalries, shedding a shared Christian heritage

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, who serves as president for the EU’s rotating chair, herself from former communist East Germany, embodies such a transformation. Yet beyond the sonorous rhetoric of European unity and shared values there are a few lessons unmentioned. Those pioneers of Europe (Adenauer, de Gasperi, Monnet, Schuman) who created the political edifice of freedom and prosperity, had emerged from the ruins of WWII with a resolve and determination to create a democratic alternative to the isms — Nazism, fascism, communism — and thus a lasting peace. Moreover, the post-war American defense commitment allowed for the Europeans to pursue happiness inside a peaceful Europe, protected by the NATO Alliance. This provided the security on which Europe could rebuild and prosper despite its uneasy proximity to the Soviet Empire.

Certainly on economic issues there’s much to be gained by the Unity which has evolved from the original Common Market, to the European Economic Community, European Community, to the European Union super-state itself. Still recall the original “Club” the Europe of the Six has grown in leaps and bounds from its original trading bloc and stands at 27 member states and 487 million citizens. Members now include peoples who grew up on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, the Baltics, Czechs, Hungarians, Poles, Romanians, etc, have joined one of the world’s largest trading blocs and exclusive clubs. German Professor Josef Joffe calls the EU, an “Empire by application.”

Many argue however that the EU has diluted the sovereignty of proud nation-states from Portugal to Poland and France to Finland and tried to create what looks like an homogenized European citizen. The mega-bureaucracy in Brussels appears to the average person as a vast theme park of institutions and a blizzard of regulations all dutifully printed in more than a dozen languages! The Euro has become the coin of the realm among many members, replacing the national currencies French Franc, German Mark but not the British Pound.

A Polish politico once mused, “We have created Europe, now we must create the Europeans.” In other words the governmental and legal structural edifice of the European Union with its near religious intonations of European this and that, there still a gaping disconnect among how most European citizens actually feel about the EU governmental superstructure. Most polls show hostility or indifference with the British being the most skeptical EU citizens, and the Irish among the most positive.

Still one has only to look to at World Cup Soccer or the Olympics and to find individual national teams, being cheered on with a kaleidoscope of national flags and rousing chorus of national pride. Was there a EU Soccer team? Do the individual EU states plan to merge into a single united, and ever so European Olympic team for next year’s Summer Games. Surely you jest. Or give up the British and French permanent seats on the UN Security Council for a European Seat? Still the individual foreign policies of the members are due to morph into a single EU foreign policy.

One argument is that a truly united states of Europe will evolve much as did the United States. But even the thirteen colonies were mostly united by common culture and language (English, French, German) and having the benefit of a fresh start in a new World. Yet to assume that a Swede, a Slovene, a Slovak or a Spaniard share anything remotely common linguistically, in cultural commonality or in their national psyche is to massively err. And the EU Constitution, famously voted down by the French and Dutch, (all 576 pages of it) remains a distant political frontier.

Yes there is the common thread of Western civilization and Christianity but even here, Europe in its never ending pursuit of happiness, increasing nihilism, and with massive demographic declines has forgotten its religious roots. Pope Benedict XVI called the 50th anniversary declaration an, “apostasy” as it failed to recall Europe’s Christian heritage.

The Economist headlined “Europe’s Mid Life Crisis” and editorialized “The biggest problem is economic. European economies have perked up recently but the record is still of lamentably slow growth and high unemployment.” Euroland’s growth last year averaged 2.8 percent as compared with 3.3 percent in the United States. Among the big economies only Germany has 2.9 percent growth while France and Italy both stood at 2 percent. America’s unemployment rate remains less than half of the Euro rate too.

As much as I admire the extraordinary achievement of creating a democratic union which has made ancient rivalries, historic hatreds and aggressive nationalisms a thing of the past, there’s a new creed of materialism and relativism which sadly has become part of the EU’s shared values.