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Back to Europe or Avanti into the European Union

English Pages, 11. 9. 2001

1) The formation as well as the development of the European Union in the second half of the 20th century is a special case of the contemporary globalization and integration processes. It belongs to the prevailing trends and tendencies but it contains something specific – I see it in its dominant political aspect!

No one in this room is against opening-up of societies, against elimination of all kinds of barriers and obstacles to the free, unconstrained exchange of ideas, of people, of goods and services, of money. Some of us, especially from Central and Eastern Europe, know from our personal experience what it means to live in closed, inward-looking, almost autarchic societies where any form of contact with the outside world was prohibited (or at least made very difficult). We know what it means to live in the world of barriers, obstacles, borders, prohibitions and - eventually - of permissions to be allowed to do something or to go somewhere.

Current European unification process is, however, not only or not predominantly about opening-up, but at the same time, about introducing massive regulation and protection, about imposing uniform rules, laws and policies, about weakening standard democratic processes which were evolutionary developed, about increasing bureaucratization of life, etc.

I am afraid there are not many people in Europe these days who see this process with its two sides so clearly as we do. It is, therefore, our task to express our critical views openly and self-confidently, not to hide them, not to be afraid to be associated with them – even if it does not belong to the current political fashion and to the mainstream of political correctness. The title of my speech reflects both sides of this process. We want to go “back to Europe”, to the freedom which we did not enjoy in the communist era but we have many hesitations to rush into the European Union which is the embodiment of ambitions to create something else than a free society.

In this short luncheon address I am not able to do more than to make a few comments to this topic.

2) For me (and for most of us in Central and Eastern Europe), the debate about Europe has two main dimensions – the reality of and the plans for the evolution of the European integration process on one hand and the EU dealing with candidate countries, with its potential future members on the other. Both topics are, of course, interconnected.

3) I will start with the second one, because – especially in the recent years – membership or non-membership in EU has become a very simple differentiating factor suggesting who is and who is not a “normal, standard (or standardized), mature, decent, obedient European” country. To put it this way means, however, a big problem for us. Such an approach is unfair (and for me difficult to swallow) but it has been more or less accepted. Due to it, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe have no other alternative than to make a maximum effort to become members of EU as soon as possible – regardless their views about the currently realized model of European unification and about ideology behind it.

4) This is – in a simplified way – our position and our motivation. We live, however, in the world of asymmetric motivations. As I said, non-members of EU are motivated to enter it. On the other hand, it is in the interest of member  countries to prolong today´s status quo as long as possible. It is on their side an expression of rational behaviour. Member countries already have a full access to the non-member countries. They are there and have a full possibility to realize their own comparative advantages in an easy, one-sided, and for them painless way. The benefits they get from relations with us exceed considerably the costs they have to bear.

5) This discrepancy is the main element of my description of the European reality at the beginning of the 21st century. There are several alternative scenarios as regards the future, because everyone will be searching for optimal tradeoffs. But I predict that the EU member states will not be able to keep their club closed for a long time. The consequence will be the phenomenon of an uncomplete membership.

6) Another “reality” in contemporary Europe is the uncontested dominance of the ideology of unification, the ideology of Europeanism, which is, however, only a very superficial substitute ideology, an Ersatz-ideologie. Its relative success is another modern fatal conceit. Its concentration on the form, not on the substance, is a successful way how to hide its real substance. It may be a rational strategy on the side of its exponents to conceal its etatist characteristics.

7) The most respectful ambition of Europeans, the ambition which most of us would whole-heartedly support, is to expand, enhance and guarantee freedom and democracy for all Europeans. In this respect, my question is: Will the freedom and democracy in Europe be increased by europanism which means

- by minimizing the role of one, undisputably genuine and evolutionary developed level of human organization, called “nation-state”;

- by extending the distance between individual citizens and relevant decision-making bodies in remote Brussels or Strasbourg;

- by harmonizing (or unifying) rules and policies instead of preserving competition of different rules and policies?

8) My answer to these questions is clear and straightforward:

- I wish my country remains a self-governing nation within the European Union;

- I am convinced that it will be counterproductive to create an artificial European state;

- I hope that the balance between intergovernmentalism and supranationalism will not be fundamentally shifted;

- I believe that efficiency and strength will not come from uniformity but from experimentation, diversity and competition.

9) I am frustrated that these issues have not been sufficiently debated in Europe. Silent, uninvolved majority of Europeans does not care or does not see the importance of these issues. Pro-European activistsan apparent minority – claim to be the exclusive owners of truth. They dismiss all objections to their struggle for supranationalism and ever closer union as undemocratic, nationalistic and reactionary, and denounce all those who disagree with them as potential Lukasenkos or Milosevices. We have to admit that they succeeded in establishing a quasi-religious belief to see unification as a panacea.   

10) Looking at the recent changes of institutions in Europe, we see that the development goes in the direction where the pro-European activists want to have it. The intergovernmental cooperation of independent countries has been slowly but certainly converted into the system with many features of a supranational European state and we see many attempts aiming at centralization of power in Brussels and at elimination of European nation-states.

I see many dangers in this process of the accelerated unification of Europe which was made possible by Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice treates. My approach is based on my oversensitivity inherited from the communist era. We used to live in a political and economic integration called COMECON, which was also characterized by the fact that decisions were made not at home, but abroad, by the belief that the whole is more than the sum of its parts and by the concept that some know better than the rest of us.

The currently victorious europeanism should not lead us to forgetting the EU economic and social practices (and the ideologies behind them). In my understanding the existing system is, in the long run, untenable because it is undermining European competitiveness in the globalized world.

It needs marginal, incremental, evolutionary changes (and they will be – eventually – realized), but the system cannot be changed without more radical measures. Europe (or the Euroland) has been in the past decades a victim of creeping bureaucratization, of increasing regulatory activism, of nonreceding protectionism, of soft and all-embracing paternalism and of increasing “planetary” ambition vis-à-vis “Le dèfi american” or the Asian challenge. To discuss how to do it would be a topic for another speech. 

Václav Klaus, Montpellerin Society Regional Meeting, Bratislava, 10.9.2001

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