Peace, European values and the well-being of the peoples of Europe

Article 3 of the consolidated EU treaties states: The Union’s aim is to promote peace, its values and the well-being of its peoples.

How can the EU’s aim be compatible with forcing the Greek people into poverty through austerity? Surely it doesn’t promote the well-being of the people of Greece at all. Given that poverty, unemployment and general hopelessness can easily lead to civil unrest and down the line even war, it doesn’t appear to be promoting peace in the longer term either. And I naïvely thought European values were about democracy, liberty and solidarity, not about enforcing neoliberal economic torture against the democratic will of a people.

I’m a huge fan of the EU project, especially the way it was conceived and implemented in the 1980s and 1990s. Promoting peace and prosperity while fostering links between people from many countries is a wonderful idea. Without the EU’s rules about free movement, I might never have moved to Scotland (I got a job here without having to apply for a work permit), which would have deprived my daughters of being born, given that I met my beloved wife here. And if European countries had been at war rather than working together in the 1960s, my father would probably not have moved from Württemberg to Denmark, where he met my mother.

However, the way the EU is currently developing is hugely worrying. It’s increasingly becoming a technocratic project where most decisions are made according to the rulebook of the Party of Necessity (“there is no alternative”).

I’m sure most of the modern EU politicians honestly believe they’re doing the right thing, but they don’t appreciate that there is more than one way to do things, that globalised neoliberalism isn’t the only game in town. As Paul Mason put it recently:

For a technocratic, youthful generation of politicians, brought up in what playwright David Hare calls the “absence of war”, the events in Greece just do not fit the world view in which all these historic issues and grievances, and obscure Greek anniversaries were supposed to be subjects for the documentary channels, not politics.

The modern technocratic politicians are of course everywhere, not just in the EU. In many countries, they’re busy trying to abolish universal benefits, free public amenities, subsidised public transport and so on. For instance, in Denmark there are currently huge discussions about how it’s becoming impossible to live in “Udkantsdanmark” (“peripheral Denmark”) because schools have been shut, bus routes cancelled, hospitals centralised, and so on. Everything was done in the name of efficiency and quality, but the technocratic politicians completely forgot to ask themselves what Denmark will be like when almost everybody lives in either Copenhagen or in the nascent Randers-Århus-Skanderborg-Horsens-Vejle conurbation.

Of course there are exceptions in some places. The SNP has been brilliant at defending universal benefits, lowering ferry prices and doing many other useful things, but in many countries only fringe parties go against the technocratic consensus. Another example is the fight against benefit fraud and tax avoidance. Modern neoliberal technocrats seem to be outraged at the former and quite relaxed about the latter, although the state loses much more money through tax avoidance. Again, the SNP has signalled a very different approach in Scotland.

To return to Greece and the EU, I obviously don’t have a problem with voters electing technocratic governments if that’s what they want. However, currently it seems like the EU is increasingly becoming a tool for the technocratic governments to force any aberrant countries to toe the line. They’re clearly not thinking first and foremost about the consequences of their actions on peace, European values and the well-being of the peoples of Europe, but more about not rocking the boat and upsetting their friends in the multinational banks.

That said, there’s clearly also a cultural clash with regard to bankruptcies. In Denmark and Germany, declaring bankruptcy is more about getting protection from creditors and less about getting a fresh start; if you’ve grown up in a culture where any debt you take on stays with you forever, it must be hard to understand why a country should get half its debts cancelled just because it cannot realistically ever pay them back. However, Germany would do well to appreciate that the forgiveness it was shown after World War II made it the stable and peaceful country it is today, whereas the punitive measures imposed on it after World War I were an important cause of Nazism; if they truly want a peaceful and harmonious Europe, they should perhaps pass on the baton of forgiveness.

I really hope the current technocratic/neoliberal majority in the EU will be replaced by parties such as the SNP and Syriza who’re willing to rethink politics and create a Europe that works for the benefit of its citizens.