EUROPEAN LEADERSHIP, TODAY AND FIFTY YEARS AGO

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MIAMI, Mar 3 2007 (IPS) - On March 25, the European Union will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Rome Treaty, which transformed the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), officially born in 1951 out of the Schuman Declaration of 1950, by incorporating the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM). The most important contribution was the Common Market, put in place to facilitate the four freedoms of goods, services, capital, and people.

Considering the frozen state of European integration after the proposed constitution was derailed in 2005 by the French and Dutch referendums, observers have been asking for the reasons for this impasse. The answer is the lack of effective leadership. With Chirac gone, Blair packing, and Prodi struggling, Angela Merkel’s EU presidency is bearing the burden.

Things were different fifty years ago.

The foundational protagonists of the European integration process have been described as elitist, cultivated, cosmopolitan, technocratic, visionary, and arrogant: a couple of emblematic Frenchmen (Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman), the German Konrad Adenauer, the Italian Alcide de Gasperi, and the Belgian Paul-Henri Spaak. The comparatively spectacular success of the EU owes much to them. History even gives credit to the nationalist role of De Gaulle and Margaret Thatcher, as well as remembering more recent contributions of Germany’s Helmut Kohl, France’s Francois Mitterrand, and Spain’s Felipe Gonzalez. They have no heirs today.

Without the decisive leadership of the founding fathers nothing would have been possible; it should also be noted that nothing would be lasting without the institutions, those pillars of civilisation. Monnet believed the project of integration to be solidly grounded on independent entities, armed with a budget capable of meeting the expectations for success.

These men knew then that they faced a crucial choice. On the one hand, they wanted to avoid repeating the errors of the past. They rejected grandiose pseudo-federal schemes equipped with no political will that led nowhere in terms of providing economic and social stability and were incapable of stopping Europe’s endemic wars. On the other hand, they had to opt for innovation, in a bold and elitist move, they opted for a new, decisive, and practical approach.

Their decision was impelled by the firm commitment to correct the failure of the historical parties that were part of the problem instead the solution. They also distrusted the masses, which had been kidnapped by totalitarian ideologies. These dogmas, in addition to outbursts of racist hyper-nationalism, had pushed Europe to the brink of suicide, risking the near destruction of its civilisation, orphaned of institutional pillars.

Monnet and Schuman and the drafters of the Treaty of Rome felt themselves free from guilt, although they collectively accepted the European original sin of causing wars. They faced the new task of integration with credibility, already advanced in years, and did not avoid risks that might endanger their careers. They became responsible not to God or History (as in some extremist regimes), or even Nation, but to Europe, from which they removed the false Arian connotation imposed by Hitler.

Freed from unneeded political ballast, they proceeded with some degree of wisdom to play simultaneously Atlantic loyalty and Pan European specificity. Without a nod from the United States (with its Marshall Plan and its nuclear umbrella), the integration project would have floundered. What was avoided was the dark choice between being a Russian colony and an America protectorate .

Ideologically, they insisted on fusing liberal positions with socialist ideas. While it was assumed that the capitalist system would be strengthened economically, it would also be reinforced with a social pact. The need for political redemption and effective reconciliation made possible the success of the cooperation between figures on the left and right, a legacy still present today.

Thanks to this elitist approach, the founding fathers did not have to depend on opinion polls and the capricious inclinations of the masses, avoiding the effects of the re-nationalisation of the integration process, now subjected to the electoral cycles. Today, European leaders cannot afford the luxuries of their predecessors of a half a century ago. Or, at least, they do not want to face the risks. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)