One of the “founding fathers” of the European Union, Jean Monnet, famously said, “Europe will be forged in crises, and will be the sum of the solutions adopted for those crises.” The most serious crisis occurred in 2009–10, the eurozone crisis, which put in jeopardy the common currency shared then by 12 EU countries. The euro survived, although no other EU countries have adopted it since, even if they are obligated to do so. Other major challenges have involved terrorism, immigration, the challenge of populism, and now the defense of Europe against Russian aggression without the assurance of American backing. This seems to be the greatest crisis yet.
The European Union has both boosters and critics, but, given the threats of China, Iran, and Russia, and the failed or failing countries in Africa, it is in everyone’s best interest if the EU succeeds, though that may well take significant “forging,” to quote Monnet. What it will be in ten years’ time is difficult to predict, but the EU is not going anywhere.
Though the Federalist Papers were ignored during the genesis of the European Union in the 1950s, and in its evolution since then, they are nonetheless useful as a means of analysis of the EU. Hamilton’s introduction to the Essays, in which he ponders the unique American undertaking, speaks to the EU project as well. Hamilton notes,
It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.
Hamilton may have overstated the case, given that the colonies already had well over a century of semi-autonomous self-governance as well as the advantage of the English government model. The EU, however, is arguably sui generis, something new, in a category of only one. Perhaps even more than America, it was created in “reflection and choice,” although some might argue that the “reflection” was insufficient.
Treaties, Black Pots, and Black Kettles
Even though the US was an early proponent of the EU, hoping for a bulwark against the Soviet Union, the EU is the entity that conservatives love to hate; at times, there are even hints of schadenfreude when the EU finds itself facing challenges or crises. The few progressives who pay attention to the EU are in a sour mood as well, but in their case, it is because they think the project is failing. Both George Soros and the New York Times’ Paul Krugman speak of “the tragedy of the EU” insofar as it is falling short of a United States of Europe, largely governed by a supranational government.
To be sure, there is plenty to criticize, although some critics are apocalyptic. Others maintain that the EU was irreparably flawed from the start. At the least, the EU is finding just how difficult it is to acquire a common culture. At times, though, criticisms of the EU remind one of the proverbial “pot calling the kettle black,” an observation that some admit, even if implicitly. American conservatives criticize the EU for its “democratic deficit,” although the phrase is never well defined. To be sure, every democratic country suffers from a democratic deficit, which we might say is the gap between its political ideals and its governance. On our side of the Atlantic, citizen confidence in US institutions is at a disturbingly low level. A widely circulated poll a few years back found that Congress is less popular than a colonoscopy, a root canal, lice, or telemarketers. In the last several elections, American presidents have been elected, not because of who they are, but of who they are not, namely, their predecessor. Our electoral process is suppressing talent and integrity.
If anything is to unite Europe, and satisfy the quest for a “European identity,” it may be a recovery of its Judeo-Christian heritage.
Criticized as well is the EU’s expectation that the concept of the nation-state will give way over time to a new system of governance. That expectation, though, seems to be dead in the water, to the disappointment of Europhiles: the nation-state is alive and well. In the US, a destructive ideology of “globalism,” perhaps even more radical than the quest for “ever closer union,” has as its effect the non-enforcement of the country’s southwest border, a devastating act of malfeasance that has only recently been addressed. At best, it will take years to manage. Critics charge that the EU has precipitated cultural decline, evident in religious apostasy, declining birthrates, and the social instability brought about by massive immigration. The US, however, has startled even Europe with its freefall into moral anarchy. Who would have thought it would take a British fantasy author to tell Americans that they are embracing gender madness?
The Lisbon Treaty and Sleeping Beauty
The legal basis of the EU is a series of member country treaties; the European Union was born in 1957 with the Treaty of Rome and now numbers 27 countries. Although the idea of a united Europe has been around for centuries, most admit that the impetus for the modern undertaking was to ensure that Germany did not wreak havoc on the continent a third time. In 1992, the Maastricht Treaty formally recognized the “European Union.” The treaty preamble contains the informal motto of the EU: “ever closer union.” In 2004, the EU produced a “constitution,” or a “constitutional treaty.” It failed, however, to secure the required unanimous approval of all 27 countries. Some of its features were copied into the Lisbon Treaty (2007), which expressed more, though still modest, concern for a common defense.
For years, the EU has enjoyed the luxury of talking about a common defense with nothing to show for it, except an annoyed NATO, which found such EU aspirations redundant, and thus competitive. The Lisbon Treaty, moreover, created the position of High Representative for the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Although not the first to occupy the position, Italian Frederica Mogherini assumed the office from 2014–19, though the Eastern European EU countries expressed concern, suspicious that she was too sympathetic with Russia after its invasion of the Ukraine. At an EU summit, Mogherini tried to explain, “European defense has sometimes been seen as synonymous for the creation of a European army. This, however, is not the path chosen by the EU and its member states.” She added dubiously, “What we have built is even more ambitious than a European army.”
On a more hopeful note, Kaja Kallas, former prime minister of Estonia, has just assumed the position that Mogherini occupied; she seems an apt choice for the role as her family suffered grievously from Soviet-occupied Estonia, in which several immediate family members were deported to Siberia. Kallas has expressed strong public support for Ukraine.
In December of 2017, the EU established PESCO (Permanent Structured Cooperation). Though it fell far short of a common military, its ambitions did include ancillary services: a Medical Command, a Cyber Rapid Response Team, Military Disaster Relief, and improved Maritime Surveillance. In a rather odd tweet about PESCO in 2017, and hopeful it would create an EU military force, then EU Commissioner Jean-Claude Juncker fancifully announced, “She is awake, the Sleeping Beauty of the Lisbon Treaty.”
Yet, “the mountains heaved, but brought forth a mouse.” The EU’s common military, the European Corps (Eurocorps), is an army corps whose headquarters number all of 1,000 soldiers, stationed in Strasbourg, France. At least the location is symbolic: the Maginot Line runs less than five miles from the city center. Sleeping Beauty still sleeps, and there is no prince in the offing, though there is a new seriousness, both in Brussels and in member countries, of military spending—even if it means deficit spending. Some of the countries that are derelict in meeting their obligations to NATO, and encouraged by the current president of the EU Commission, have pledged to meet NATO’s 3 percent of GDP, or even more.
The effort, however, will be uneven; for example, the leftist Spanish government, comfortable behind the Pyrenees, explains that responding to climate change will be a major part of its defensive contribution. In addition, the EU is accelerating the process of adding new members; those candidate countries are in the Western Balkans: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia (Bulgaria and Croatia are already EU members). In addition, the EU is looking seriously at Georgia, Moldova, and even Ukraine. A notable success of the EU thus far, has been to offer a safe haven to former Soviet Block countries, and several of them provide a buffer between Russia and Western Europe.
A Political or Spiritual Crisis?
Unlike Americans, who can point to philosophical antecedents from which the country drew inspiration—even if those sometimes self-contradictory antecedents stimulate debate—the EU has studiously avoided political philosophy, perhaps because of overconfidence in rational design, perhaps because of the devastation wrought by Marxism and Nazism, probably a combination of both. Kant’s hyper-rational “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch” (1795) is somewhere in the background, even if it is not recognized. In trying to explain the EU, a prominent Member of the European Parliament (MEP) once told me that it had something to do with Rousseau’s “General Will,” taken from The Social Contract (1792). He did not seem able to elaborate, although he may have been correct. More apropos might be the thought of José Ortega y Gasset, especially his Revolt of the Masses (1930), although his warning of “hyper-democracy” and his promotion of a ruling elite would have been a hard sell.
If anything is to unite Europe, and satisfy the quest for a “European identity,” it may be a recovery of its Judeo-Christian heritage. This was debated in a peculiar way in the attempt to write the EU constitutional treaty in Brussels in 2003. The question arose, and was debated for weeks, whether the preamble should include a recognition of Europe’s Judeo-Christian roots. The issue bedeviled the assembly, and when all was said and done, no mention was included in the document; some even worried that it would alienate Muslim immigrants. In 2011, the European Commission recommended to the member countries that citizens find a more “inclusive” holiday greeting than “Happy Christmas.”
Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI), however, asserts that Europe’s religious heritage is not an irrelevant relic. He addresses the question in The True Europe: Its Identity and Mission, (2024), which was sympathetically reviewed on this site by Paul Seaton. Benedict is, as Seaton titles his review, “A European in Full,” yet his warnings about the future are dire: “European rational law is in a crisis, now that it has completely relinquished its religious foundations and de facto runs the risk of turning into a rule of anarchy.” Ratzinger asserts, “There can be no future Europe that would jettison … the heritage of the Christian West.” “History,” he explains, “cannot be turned back.” In saying this, however, Benedict is not advocating a nostalgic return to a bygone era; he fully embraces the continent as it is today, and it is one, he maintains, in which “Christian faith can coexist and make room for different political positions.” Such an environment will offer “binding force,” which “safeguards a maximum of freedom.” If not, he warns, we will witness a “post-European” society.
Conclusion: Federalist #85
As a bookend to essay #1, in Federalist #85, Hamilton draws on Scottish philosopher David Hume to say that a successful constitution needs time. In the last paragraph of #85, Hamilton quotes from Hume’s “The Rise of Arts and Sciences,” in which the Scottish philosopher argues that, at a certain point, nothing can improve a government other than experience, time, and trial and error.
The zeal for attempts to amend, prior to the establishment of the Constitution, must abate in every man who is ready to accede to the truth of the following observations of a writer equally solid and ingenious: “to balance a large state or society (says he) whether monarchical or republican, on general laws, is a work of so great difficulty, that no human genius, however comprehensive, is able, by the mere dint of reason and reflection, to effect it. The judgments of many must unite in the work; experience must guide their labor; time must bring it to perfection, and the feeling of inconveniences must correct the mistakes which they INEVITABLY fall into in their first trials and experiments.”
What might a “successful EU” look like? The answer is not an easy one. If we look upon the EU as a nation-state, then a Comparative Government perspective is apt, and one could do no worse than consider the Preamble to the US Constitution and judge the EU by those criteria. If the EU, however, is analyzed from an International Relations perspective, that is, as a kind of international organization, then different criteria might apply: We would hope for an entity with a substantial global presence, in a meaningful alliance with the US and other like-minded countries, and a sturdy member of NATO. Since the EU is its own category, it may be that if it at least satisfies the best of both categories, we might then deem the EU successful.
