Expanding the EU beyond Europe
Posted on November 16, 2007 - Filed Under Europe, Politics |
The UK’s Foreign Secretary David Miliband has suggested that besides eastern European countries, the EU should also seek to take in North African and Middle Eastern nations, as well as Russia. His reasoning for this is the capacity of the prospect of EU membership to improve behaviour in aspirant nations, and so the further the EU expands, the more countries will behave in a European fashion, first in order to secure entry to the bloc and afterwards as a result of their membership.
Miliband’s idea stems from the traditional British conception of what the EU ought to be: a broad and shallow union, as opposed the Franco-German conception of a narrower and deeper union. The British tend to look at the EU as a trade bloc with a predilection for meddling in the affairs of member states, whereas those who take a less Eurosceptic perspective think of the ‘European Project’ as one of the brightest developments of the last century, ensuring a Kantian perpetual peace among members who were previous bitter enemies and forging a least some form of collective European identity for nation states who can no longer command the world stage in the ways they once could.
If the EU is nothing more than a trade bloc that also has the happy side-effect promoting good, liberal democratic government, then it makes sense to expand the EU as far as possible, as Miliband suggests. But the EU is more than this. For all their differences, European countries have much more in common with each other than they do with, say, Morocco or Syria. As an atheist I’m slow to make too much of Christianity’s influence on the development of Europe over the last millennium, but it seems silly to suggest that it hasn’t been of huge importance. Similarly, events like the Reformation and the French Revolution sparked off processes and modes of thought that still shape Europe in profound ways. Secular government is taken for granted in Europe to a far greater extent than it is in North Africa and the Middle East (although I commend Atatürk’s Turkey in this regard). Further to this, there is a cultural gulf between Europe and these other regions deeper than the Mediterranean; I’m no expert on classical music, theatre, or art, but it appears to me that there is a far greater degree of overlap between, say, a typical Belgian and Swiss composer’s style than there is between a Belgian and a Jordanian’s, in as much as these things can be measured (and again I should stress that this is merely the impression I get). When Baghdad’s museums were ransacked live on TV I don’t recall seeing any looters making off with statues of naked Greek goddesses that are so often found in European museums.
Besides, it even sounds incorrect to talk of expanding the ‘European Union’ to such far-flung regions. The ‘European Union’ should be just that: a Union of European countries. I would have voted for the European Constitution in its original form with its foreign minister, European flag and European national anthem, and I’m frankly disappointed that these features were taken out of the new text. What’s wrong with displaying a little patriotic European spirit? The last century was a disaster for the European powers, but who says that this one has to be? In a world where people like George W. Bush can run America, Russia has slipped back into authoritarianism and China is fast on the rise, Europe has better things to be doing than feeling sorry for itself and its past mistakes. So what European nations once plundered the rest of the world for all they could? Europe has given the world plenty of things as well (in terms of ideas, science, literature, etc…), and it’s not like the present European leaders had anything to do with what came before them.
In sum, Europe is a great continent that all Europeans ought to be proud of, and selling out our fledgling sense of identity in order to expand good government in countries that are not European and share little in common with us makes no sense.
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I agree with you that we shouldn’t expand europe. But you’re way too pro-euorpe for me.
“all Europeans ought to be proud”.. of europe.
Why should I be patriotic to a made up thing. At least with nationalism you’ve got the dirt beneath your feet that was beneath your father’s feet and so on. And now the EU somehow wants to change that saying yes, it is yours and was your fathers but now the green mixed with the brown is tinged with blue. We own it in part. Here is your new flag.
I won’t ever stand for a european anthem.