A fortress of human rights

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Both world wars were the extreme consummations of these hatreds which, in their attempt to annihilate each other, severely injured European countries and the rest of the world. If “Europe” previously meant only a geographical concept, after the Second World War it referred to a continent covered in ruins. Europe as a political entity only came into existence upon these ruins.

The work of European poetry

The suppression of hostilities between European countries was a necessary precondition of creation of Europe as a political entity. However, no one believed that the self-crippled countries would be able to succeed in building a Europe on their own. In order to not so much to quench the hostilities as to suppress them, NATO was established. The purpose of the pact was revealingly defined by Hastings Ismay, NATO’s first secretary (1952-1957), who previously earned his credit as Winston Churchill’s chief military assistant. According to Ismay, the goal of the military alliance was “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down”. The pact reflected the then Cold War global power balance and sanctioned the hegemonic position of the United States in the western part of the European continent.

By its very nature, NATO’s strictly military nature could not provide a comprehensive answer to the expectations of the scarred European nations as they struggled to lift their war-torn states from the rubble. The aim of the pact was essentially negative, not positive. By defending the countries of Western Europe against the communist threat and the German domination, it effectively transformed them into American colonies. The Marshall Plan, whose economic importance is much overestimated, perpetuated this political dependence and did not provide a mechanism for the emergence of Europe as an entity capable of staying on its own feet.

Since Europe did not exist, it had to invent itself. Europe’s coming into existence – a considerable feat for a non-existent entity – was successful because there was an acute political-ontological gap that desperately needed filling. The gap was spotted and successfully filled by great poets of European politics. The emergence of the European Union has brought about a complete reversal of Ismay’s adage: America ceased to play the hegemonic role in Europe, Russia returned to it, Germany have dominated it, while NATO has lost its significance.

Philosopher Theodor Adorno said that writing poetry after the Holocaust is barbaric. Yet the emergence of post-war European politics is a work of poetry. Jean Monnet – the author behind the Schuman Plan, which was the beginning of the European Coal and Steel Community established in 1951 in Paris – demonstrated that an imagination, driven by compassion, may be able to save Europe from another slaughter. He believed that “Europe never existed. In fact, it has yet to be created,” adding that “there will never be peace in Europe if states are reconstituted on the basis of national sovereignty … The countries of Europe are too small to guarantee their peoples the necessary prosperity and social progress. European countries must form a federation…”.

Being a work of poetic mind, the European Union is a figment of imagination. Therefore, it cannot be captured by traditional political theory and does not fall under the terms of the Westphalian way of thinking. The European Union works like a state. It has a parliament, an executive and a judiciary, whose judgments are binding on the member states. It has its own budget composed of contributions from its members, and a partially common foreign policy. The EU protects the rights of its citizens, it has a president (with a telephone number that Henry Kissinger asked for) and armed forces. The Union has its own currency, although not all member states use it as their own. EU citizens have a uniform passport, and the borders of the Union are protected by a common border agency. Its laws have higher status than those established by individual member states. They regulate the production of material goods, food and energy, trade, transport and education.

Yet, the EU does not act like a state. It cannot collect taxes from citizens. The countries of the EU, taken together, maintain the largest number of soldiers in the world – over two million. But the EU itself has only 18 rapid deployment groups in the form of reinforced battalions belonging to the EU Battlegroup, each in the strength of about 1,500 troops coming from among the member states, and the decision to deploy them may be vetoed by each state. Total defence spending of the 27 EU countries is around 30 per cent of the US military spending; in 2018, it amounted to 191 billion US dollars while in the United States it was 643 billion dollars. The most important thing, however, is that the EU is not a territorial entity: although the EU operates mainly within the territories of its member states, it is itself an extra-territorial managing authority. As an imaginary, ideal and, in this sense, poetic entity, the EU is an unidentified political object.

Despite its poetic roots, the EU is primarily an economic entity. It is arguable that after its unquestionable successes in building and constantly transforming itself, its primal poetic spirit has started to lose breath. It was replaced, on the one hand, by the spirit of bureaucracy and technocracy at EU summits; and, on the other hand, by a commotion of xenophobia and ethnic cleansing. In response to this deficit, the then president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, in 2013 initiated the creation of a “new story for Europe” that would continue the narrative written on its first pages: “We have to continue our narrative, to continue writing the book of the present and the future of the EU project.” However, the idea designed to re-awaken the poetic spirit with technocratic methods could hardly bring about the expected rewards: the authentic poetic spirit blows where it wills and it cannot be dictated by directives. All the more so that the role of the new European poets was played by Jürgen Habermas, Angela Merkel, Donald Tusk, Michał Kleiber and similar artists.

The agency of Europe

On the day Donald Trump was sworn in as US President in January 2016, Marine LePen stated that “the European Union is already dead, it just does not know it yet”. In the period preceding the great enlargement of the EU onto ten new countries, a high official in the US Department of State was asked about the attitude of the American administration to the integration of the EU. His response was: “Disintegration!”

These statements are just two symbolic examples of a series of threats to the sustainability of the EU, internal and external ones. Trump disappointed the hopes placed in him by the French National Front (now the National Union), though not for the lack of trying. The customs war he initiated against the EU, primarily aimed against the economies of Germany and France, did not have the effect expected by LePen. It should be emphasised, however, that LePen’s quoted statement reveals not only her political goals, but, to an even greater extent, the weakness of the anti-integration European right, including the Polish and Hungarian varieties. Her statement confirms the intuition that anti-EU movements in Europe are deeply aware of. So far at least they are too weak to overthrow the EU on their own, and for that very reason are looking for outside support.

In 2020, Donald Trump lost his bid for a second presidential term. Four years of his presidency did more damage to America than to the EU. His electoral defeat to the more moderate Joe Biden suggests that one of the threats to European integration has abated. This, however, does not mean that the future of the EU is secure. The most serious of these threats lie not in the open hostility of the US Republican Party to the European project, the anti-European activities of Vladimir Putin, nor the power of far right-wing movements in Europe. Indeed, the fact that European integration generates various forms of resistance, especially in states that already are members, and yet is an aspiration for other states outside the EU, may lead one to think that the problems marring European integration lie not so much in the heart of the project, but in its implementation. However, this conclusion would be premature. The EU often enjoys much greater support from its citizens than the national governments that represent them, and, with the exception of the UK, anti-EU groups do not have much chance to win a sufficiently strong mandate that would enable them to take their countries out of the EU.

At the same time, the bonds of European integration are not tight enough. This was especially prominent during the financial crisis in Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain and the Syrian refugee crisis. Their weakness was also made apparent by the efficacy of mendacious propaganda, disseminated by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, which influenced the UK citizens to vote in favour of leaving the European Union. The election of Joe Biden as US president is likely to weaken America’s disintegrative actions against the EU and to undermine the destructive optimism of the anti-European right. But the abatement of animosity will not amalgamate the increasingly divergent interests of the US and EU, nor will it remove the weaknesses of the European project. Therefore, the questions of whether the European Union will survive or whether it will be able to reinvent itself remain.

Chance and necessity

After 2015, many commentators, mostly Euro-enthusiasts, predicted the imminent collapse of the EU. Among them, Ivan Krastev’s book After Europe draws attention by its painful honesty. I have suggested above that there was no historical necessity that led to the founding of the EU: it is the product of a poetic spirit which has managed to intertwine – skilfully and creatively – the existing needs and interests into a novel political entity. Similarly, Krastev argues that the collapse of the EU may not be due to historical necessity, but rather due to chance, mishap or accidental circumstances. Krastev has in mind such cases as the assassination of Prince Ferdinand due to which the nations united in the structure of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, established over a half century earlier, scattered overnight tearing any former ties between them. Another example is the collapse of the Soviet Union which seemed unshakable barely a few months before its demise.

The deficits of the EU were particularly pronounced during the financial crisis that occurred more than a decade ago. It turned out that the euro itself was poorly designed. Also, the control over expenditure of the EU money was deeply flawed. These two crises, however, are technical in nature and could be resolved by technocratic methods, albeit at the cost of considerable social discontent and political disturbances. The most serious EU crisis, the moral one, was revealed as a result of armed conflict in Libya and the flow of refugees coming from the Middle East and Africa to Europe. It is this event that may lead to the collapse of the EU. The weight of this issue makes it worthwhile taking a look at how the dissolution of Libya came about.

The fall of Libya was the result of the political narcissism of Nicolas Sarkozy and Bernard-Henri Lévy, as well as the machinations of American secret services. Lévy, a French celebrity philosopher famous for human rights activism, met General Khalifa Haftar in March 2011 in Benghazi on one of his trips to Libya. In 1986-87, after an ineptly led campaign against Chad, Haftar, then colonel, fell into conflict with Muammar Qaddafi. He later started collaboration with the CIA and became leader of the rebellion against Qaddafi’s rule. The official purpose of Lévy’s visit was to make sure the Haftar-led and CIA-backed rebels were getting the help they needed. It remains a mystery why such a mission was entrusted to a leftist philosopher. This notwithstanding, Lévy convinced Sarkozy that Haftar was capable of overthrowing the aging Qaddafi and successfully seizing power. Justifying his interest in Libya, Lévy replied: “Why? I don’t know!”; “Of course, it was human rights, for a massacre to be prevented, and blah blah blah – but I also wanted them to see a Jew defending the liberators against a dictatorship, to show fraternity. I wanted the Muslims to see that a Frenchman – a westerner and a Jew – could be on their side.”

So much for noble intentions. Enter narcissism. Sarkozy, the inept president, clung to the idea of ​​overthrowing Qaddafi like a drowning man to his last straw. His candidacy in the 2012 presidential elections ran very low in the polls. In toppling Qaddafi, accused of numerous corrupt activities, Sarkozy saw an opportunity to save his political future. For this reason, he insisted the then US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, on a joint military strike against Libya, which took place despite Barack Obama’s resistance, with the US generals “leading from the back”.

Helpless

Qaddafi kept Libya in a state of despotic unity which guaranteed peace in much of Northern Africa. That peace gave the EU a much-underappreciated dividend, the value of which can only be estimated after it has been irretrievably lost. The result of noble intentions and a chain of disastrous decisions was the complete disintegration of Libya’s statehood into brutally antagonised camps, political factions and regions – a massacre of hundreds of thousands of people; destruction of the foundations of social life, and a stream of refugees who, risking the dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean Sea, seek salvation in Europe. In the face of the humanitarian catastrophe, the EU has demonstrated a deplorable helplessness and indecisiveness. Some of its politicians now silently regret that Qaddafi cannot be resurrected.

Limiting ourselves to French soil, one may say that despite strenuous efforts on the part of the anti-integration-minded Marine LePen, it is not she who presents the greatest danger to the EU, but rather Sarkozy, her narcissist compatriot; while his no less narcissistic friend, Lévy, will go down in history as the greatest useful idiot in the history of United Europe. Thus far, no directive protects the EU or its member states from the narcissism of its politicians.

Although Angela Merkel stated in 2010 that “multicultural society does not work”, in 2015 she welcomed migrants stranded in Hungary with open arms, which was interpreted as opening up Germany to the inflow of refugees. The result was not only an increase in refugees entering the EU, but the resistance of German citizens. The resistance gradually transformed into ever-more powerful anti-immigration movements, the strongest of which is the Alternative for Germany (AfD). In 2017 it gained significant electoral support. Merkel’s attitude additionally fuelled the crude anti-EU rhetoric of Jarosław Kaczyński and Victor Orbán.

An equally important ideological and political consequence of the EU’s ineptitude in dealing with the refugee problem is the conviction that authoritarian rule can at times be more efficient in dealing with such problems than the liberal policy of human rights, which, in the case of Libya, brought only anarchy and death. Such a belief significantly weakened the position of those who, seeing Bashar al-Assad as a criminal dictator, started the devastating war in Syria. The war in Syria almost completely destroyed the country and turned it into the second main source of refugees, next to Libya. As a result of such policies, hatred of the western world, and despotic tendencies in neighbouring Turkey, received an additional boost.

The loss of the Libyan dividend of peace makes it clear that the same dividend is now drawn by the EU from the authoritarian Turkey which now works as a reservoir for around four million refugees detained on their way to Europe. In exchange, the EU is paying Turkey six billion euros for their safekeeping, and it has loosened visa requirements for Turkish citizens. The issue of Turkey’s bid for membership in the EU, initiated in 1987, fell from the EU agenda mainly because of Turkey’s failure to respect human rights. It turns out that the EU which, as former EU minister for foreign affairs Javier Solana wrote, was to promote freedom, democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law in order to surround itself with “a ring of well governed countries to the East of the European Union (from the Balkans to the Caucasus) and on the borders of the Mediterranean, with whom we can enjoy close and cooperative relations”, has now become a fortress of human rights enjoyed by us, its citizens, at the expense of nations living outside its borders, while the relative peace inside this fortress is guarded by neighbouring despots whom the European Union criticises for their despotism. So far, the EU has not issued any directive against its own hypocrisy.

Will Poland overthrow the EU?

Although it is making strenuous efforts towards this goal, Poland will not succeed in overthrowing the EU. It might leave it, though, causing more harm to itself than the EU. Poland is the largest beneficiary of EU funds. Over the first 16 years of its membership, Poland received 188 billion euros and paid 61 billion euros – its net profit thus far has amounted to 127 billion euros in direct transfers. These transfers are responsible for about one per cent growth of Poland’s GDP and for the creation of about 600,000 jobs. Polish products gained access to the second largest commercial market in the world. Moreover, about three million Polish citizens live and work outside their country and, since its accession in 2004, they earn around 100 billion euros annually in various member states.

EU funds have made it possible to solve the seemingly unsolvable problems of Polish agriculture, which over the past 16 years received 61 billion euros. Thanks to EU funds, decent roads, railways and airports have been built. Despite all this, Polish authorities, especially since 2015, are extremely critical of the EU and try to demonstrate it in various ways. The most recent example was the Polish authorities’ initial threat to veto the EU budget and the Next Generation EU package of 750 billion euros (i.e. the solidarity fund which aims to combat the economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic; the package was eventually approved by Poland’s parliament).

Despite the moral, and not only pragmatic, obligations arising from EU membership, Poland obscenely parades its sovereignty towards the EU and at the same time displays an uneasy servitude towards the US. In 2003, shortly before Poland’s accession to the EU, it joined the misguided and illegal invasion of Iraq. The invasion had catastrophic consequences for the Middle East and the rest of the world: it led to the emergence of ISIS, the destruction of several countries perpetrated under the pretence of “nation-building”, provoked a wave of terrorist acts, and turned Poland into a laughing stock. By joining the “coalition of the willing” with Spain and Great Britain, Poland took part in an initiative which was tantamount to an outflanking manoeuvre which signalled to the EU that its eastern, northern and southwestern ramparts are not holding strong. The British one has just collapsed. The actions of the present Polish government may suggest that it joined the effort to remove the eastern flank of the EU – namely, itself. The government engages in these actions although it is not democratically mandated to do so: 89 per cent of Poles positively assess their EU membership, while only seven per cent are against it. Leaving the EU is clearly against Poland’s interests. When asked whose interest the Polish government intends to promote by distancing itself from the EU, none of its members dare give an honest answer.

A number of facts indicate the systematic anti-European attitude of the Polish authorities. As a zealous NATO member, Poland is arming itself to the teeth and it purchases military equipment (especially combat aircraft and helicopters) predominantly from the US, not from European producers. Poland intends to build a nuclear power plant, but does not co-operate with the European agency, EUROATOM, and has signed an agreement on costly nuclear co-operation with the US. Among the 85 aircraft flown by LOT Polish Airlines, there is not a single Airbus passenger plane produced by the European consortium Airbus.

When Polish historian Adam Michnik asked his Russian friends about Russia’s public policy, he was told that there was no such thing as policy in Russia, only the operations of security services. This might be true, but Russia was neither a precursor of this, nor does it excel in it. In this respect, the US is an unrivalled champion (its most recent exploits being in Syria, Venezuela and Bolivia). Donald Trump did not wage new wars but he supported various interest groups, not infrequently resorting to the secret services which helped him secure the support in the 2020 election campaign, dumping the costs of this trade-offs onto other countries. It is no secret that the targets of the disintegrating activities of various American security services, both in the past and present, are the countries of the EU. The US and Russia actively supported the UK leaving the EU. A more recent example comes from Poland. As Open Democracy recently revealed, the notorious campaigns to establish LGBT-free zones in Polish cities have been financed by a network of American foundations supported by funds whose origin cannot be ascertained. As a result of these activities, some Polish local governments lost not only the support of European and Norwegian funds, but also their good name. These foundations were established by Jay Sekulov, President Trump’s trusted lawyer who hired him, among others, in an attempt to overturn the legitimacy of the elections in 2020. Sekulov also established a foundation which, just a few days before the anti-abortion ruling was announced by the Polish Constitutional Tribunal, sent an “amicus curiae” letter to the Tribunal with detailed instructions as to what the ruling should contain. In this way Trump was repaying the American religious fundamentalists for their electoral support. A similar example of such repayment was the moving of the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Who will save Europe?

Speaking about Germany’s role in Europe, Angela Merkel said that “we’re damned if we don’t lead and damned if we do”. Commentators point out that the German “reluctant European hegemon”, too big for Europe and too small for the world, suffers from a “leadership avoidance complex”. In light of Germany’s role in two world wars, this is perfectly understandable. Post-war Germany tried to indicate, in various ways, that it was far from hegemonic.

The history of the European currency is a good illustration of Germany’s position in the EU. Timothy Garton Ash wrote that the common currency was not a German design to dominate Europe, but a European project to prevent Germany from dominating Europe. Contrary to the negative opinion of the Bundesbank, and against the public attachment to the Deutsche Mark, the then German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, decided to support this initiative after discussions with the American administration. Although adopting the euro was against German economic interests, Kohl insisted on it because “Germany needs friends”. Kohl argued, convincingly, that the monetary union also requires a fiscal union and, therefore, a political union, but François Mitterrand and Gulio Andreotti categorically refused as their goal was to have a means to steer the German currency, not to give Germany an instrument to control the budgets of France and Italy.

The adoption of the euro did not hurt the German economy. In fact, it made it unquestionably the strongest domestic economy in the EU. Almost half of the Europe’s exports to China come from Germany, and it is the main importer of goods manufactured in the Visegrad Group countries, thus the largest employer in this region. Germans also shirk from the role of hegemon because they are aware that when other countries demand leadership from it, they are really demanding money from them. Be that as it may, the survival of the EU depends on a strong, co-operative and, above all, patient Germany.

In the end, Europe will be united or it will not be at all. It cannot be ruled out that an unforeseen event may lead to the disintegration of the EU. But it cannot be ruled out also that an unforeseen event will cement it. Paradoxically, the COVID-19 pandemic, which is currently devastating the global economy, may prove such an event. Undoubtedly, the authoritarianism in China seems the most effective at fighting the disease, while the divided United States proved the worst at dealing with it. However, to conclude that authoritarianism is the most effective method of government would be a mistake: its Brazilian and Polish versions are rather discouraging.

Against this background, the EU idea of​​ spending 750 billion euro in support of the European economy stands out positively as an expression of unprecedented solidarity of member states as well as a manifestation of the empathy and imagination of EU leaders. Irrespective of the efficacy of the European Green Deal, and the EU ad hoc efforts to overcome the pandemic, one thing cannot be denied: the EU, this figment of our imagination, is a space which constantly reinvents itself. Perhaps one day it will also come up with a solution on how to extend a helping hand to the displaced people who are travelling to its borders.

Adam Chmielewski is a professor of social and political philosophy at the University of Wrocław. He is also the editor in chief of the journal Studia Philosophica Wratislaviensia.

Europe, European Union, Germany, Poland, populism