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MACLEAN'S ARCHIVE
Columns November 4, 2002 STANDING UP TO GEORGE Continental Europe is planning a superstate that could challenge U.S. power PETER C. NEWMAN UNINTENDED EFFECTS are always the most difficult to control. President George W. Bush's obsession with declaring war on Iraq has mobilized Europe's leaders, as nothing else could, to launch the process of creating a countervailing superstate that will rival the United States. In Brussels, where the new political union is being forged, there is already serious debate not only about its name, which could be the United States of Europe, or simply Europa, but how it would change the balance of world power. The idea has moved well beyond theory. Valery Giscard d'Estaing, a former president of France, now heads the European Council's constitutional convention which is attempting to turn the concept into reality. The proposed new political union, which might include more than two dozen of the nations of continental Europe, would elect its own, high-profile president and foreign minister. Empowered to speak for the only international coalition that could stand up to America's hegemony, they would meet with their Washington counterparts as equals. If this all sounds vaguely utopian, it probably is. And yet Cambridge University law professor Alan Dashwood has already drawn up a draft constitution for the new continent-spanning alliance. Dashwood reflects widespread public thinking when he concludes that "Europe should develop as a union of sovereignties." The process seems much less unlikely when you consider how far the movement for European union has already come. Starting from its early post-war beginnings as the European Coal and Steel Community, which included only six countries and merely brought together a shared market in those twin commodities, the Continent has evolved through the European Economic Community, better known as the common market, then the European Community, and now the European Union. Each step was required to make the previous one work. No one could have predicted that these countries, which invented nationalism, would have been willing to give up their historical currencies, thus surrendering control of their individual monetary and fiscal policies. Yet that has happened, and the possibility of their political union is no more far-fetched. The political will is suddenly there, and it is Bush's unilateral anti-Iraqi power play that gave what may be an unstoppable impetus to the idea. Most Europeans are not anti-American, but neither do they believe that the United States should exercise a monopoly over the world's future. That means restricting the Pentagon's military hawks and exercising more influence over the Third World through the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization, all of which tend to enforce Washington's agenda. Neither do Europeans want British Prime Minister Tony Blair appear to be speaking for them. Unease over Afghanistan has given way to profound anxiety over Iraq. Saddam Hussein has no friends in Europe, but neither has George W. Bush, outside of Blair. American objections to every multilateral initiative, from Kyoto to the establishment of an International Criminal Court, have piqued their suspicion, and is now rousing them to action. (As it is, Europe's gross domestic product rivals the $10 trillion U.S. economy, which may be huge, but accounts for less than 30 per cent of world production.) This increasingly militant mood encompasses outspoken observers like Bernard Cassen, director-general of the prestigious Paris monthly Le Monde Diplomatique, who recently called Bush "an imbecile -- a dangerous individual who has turned the United States into a rogue state." This may sound radical, but it's not far removed from mainstream opinion. After 9/11, the daily Le Monde, a sister publication, declared on its front page: "We are all Americans now." German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's re-election on the basis of his opposition to America's policy on Iraq reflects widespread feelings. Most European politicians could win mandates on similar platforms. Europeans are preoccupied with the concept of soft power. Their own bloody history teaches them that wars never produce security. The multilateral approach, ridiculed and rejected by the Bush White House, has found a home not only in Europe but in Canada. Ottawa's current position on Iraq is closer to Brussels' than Washington's. At the same time, it's too easy to forget that Europe is not a disinterested bystander. North American oil supplies would hardly be diminished by an Iraqi war. One-third of Europe's fuel supplies come from the Middle East, and one-quarter of that from Iraq. And it's Europe that plays a reluctant host to most refugees from Middle Eastern conflicts. Sadly, the Continent's anti-Bush sentiment is exacerbated by an almost unanimous resentment of his support for Israel. The cause of Palestinian independence has gathered impressive support, strengthened by what is seen as the Jewish state's perceived intransigence. The Europeans want formal settlements for all conflicts, including the Middle East, to be based on rule-based international order, suitable to the postmodern world. They believe that the United States under its present leadership is incapable of providing such a calming influence, and that they must jump into the gap. Although they have no magic answers, most Europeans are convinced that Bush's open-ended doctrine of pre-emption against suspected terrorist states, with his inner circle alone deciding who merits obliteration, is too risky -- even if some form of United Nations sanction is eventually achieved. A coherent European system of collective decision making, with the Continent speaking in one voice, is emerging as the favoured option. A profound revolution of political will and geographical change is at work, and nothing will derail it. Europe's contours are on the brink of historic transformation. Peter C. Newman's column appears monthly. [EMAIL PROTECTED] |
