The Destiny of Europe. A Sensation of Déjà Vu

Roger Vancampenhout
Member of the UEF Group Europe

Ivan Krastev
After Europe

The University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2017

Ivan Krastev, a Bulgarian political scientist, specializing in the post-Soviet world and European issues, has the voice of a convinced European from Central Europe. He founded and runs the Center for Liberal Strategies in Sofia.

He is, among others, a permanent member of the Vienna Institute of Human Sciences. After Europe is not an optimistic book. It poses a shocking question: is the European Union, now facing several crises – financial crisis, migration crisis, crisis of its own security, re-emergence of ethnic and religious nationalisms, challenging populisms, etc. – bound to disintegrate in the manner the Habsburg Empire did?

“In recent years, the Europeans have come to understand that the Union's political model, although admirable, is unlikely to become universal, and even to be adopted by its closest neighbours.”

Of the many crises that Europe is facing, the migration crisis is the most important; more than the economic crisis or the worsening of social inequalities, it is the failure of liberalism in dealing with the migratory problem that explains why its public opinion has turned around against it: the inequality between classes has given way to inequality between peoples. The migration crisis has precipitated the decline of the human rights discourse that had until then been the dominant discourse in European politics. Is the spread of the democratic system a decisive factor of de-stabilization? But the causes of Ivan Krastev's pessimism, I would say of his black ideas, do not stop there. According to him, all the crises that Europe is facing today split up the Union in one way or another. The crisis which affects the Eurozone divides the Union along a north-south axis. Brexit illustrates the division separating Europe from its periphery. The Ukrainian crisis divides Europe into hawks and doves on the question of whether to negotiate with Russia. But it is the east-west dividing line, which emerged as a result of the refugee crisis, that threatens the survival of the Union itself: the migration crisis has clearly shown that Eastern Europe is considering the cosmopolitan values that are at the foundation of the European Union as a threat, whereas, for many Western citizens, it is precisely these cosmopolitan values that constitute the heart of the new European identity; the deep-rooted defiance of Central Europe with regard to a cosmopolitan worldview would also be a source of division between East and West. Another factor of cleavage between East and West: the author puts his finger on a reality which characterizes Eastern Europe as a result of the opening of borders and freedom of movement. At the risk of giving the impression of sometimes mixing all the problems, the author cites the example of Bulgaria: its demographic decline, resulting from the mass emigration that people on average 25 to 50 year old chose, would have dealt a severe blow to the Bulgarian economy and politics, as well as to those of other Central European countries. That said, one should not want, I believe, to have one thing and its opposite: freedom of movement, on the one hand; preservation of one's identity at any price, on the other hand. In this respect, the European trade unions have repeatedly advocated wage increases in those countries, precisely to contain emigration and brain drain. Moreover, the factors of social and societal division that we observe in the European Union are not caused by the European policies, but have everything to do with the globalization and the interpenetration of the markets, which do not spare Europe more than other regions of the world. In the conclusion of the book, entitled with some malice “Perhapsburg” - a play of words with a wink to the Habsburgs-, Ivan Krastev, inspired by Antonio Gramsci's pessimism of the intelligence and  optimism of the will, wants to see the positive aspects of the current developments:

“In reality, the various crises that the European Union has undergone have contributed, much more than any of the cohesion policies implemented by Brussels, to consolidate the feeling that Europeans are all part of the same political community. By providing answers to the crisis of the euro, the migration issue and the growing terrorist threat, Europe is pursuing its integration process more than ever (...). There is a risk, however, that some Western leaders, in their legitimate attempt to respond to the social demand for concrete results, are tempted to neglect the legitimate concerns of Eastern Europeans, and to blame the problems arising between the East and the West on the illiberal governments of this part of the continent. That would be a mistake” (a reference to the current Hungarian and Polish governments, accused by some of drifting towards “democratures”).

Post Scriptum In an interview to the Belgian newspaper Le Soir, Ivan Krastev commented reprovingly on the attitude of the “Brussels elites” vis-à-vis some democratic European countries: “In times of crisis, you have the choice between rigidity and flexibility. If you choose to impose rules, you do it being well aware you are disciplining the reality. This was Germany's choice in the financial crisis. For my part, I say that we must choose flexibility: give others some leeway. Because, paradoxically, democracy cannot work if you do not give room to bad choices. Democracy is precisely to allow self-correction. If you do not allow others to make mistakes, you will not allow them to be responsible. (...) People should be allowed to make choices that we do not like. And I think it's the hardest thing to accept by the European elites in Brussels”.

Will the elites meditate on these strong words by Ivan Krastev? Is really the alternative, the European democracy, the world of the bullies (populists, sovereignists), sometimes so close to the borders of the Union, of whom speaks the book by Enrico Letta? And let the editor of this column greet Bulgaria, who took the rotating Presidency of the European Union on 1st January. And wish the best to the Bulgarian Commissioner Marya Gabriel, become the youngest member of the Juncker Commission, who was given the Digital Economy and Society portfolio.