Some observers of European integration often reframe crises like Brexit as opportunities for further development. Consequently, one can sympathise with Timothy Garton Ash’s nod to “noughties nostalgia” and commendation of the EU’s trade, regulatory and environmental expertise (Europe can be a superpower. It just needs to hang together, Journal, 2 March).
He focuses on a specific set of challenges, such as diplomacy, intelligence, counter-terrorism, development aid, and “readiness to use military force”. But he omits more mundane structural problems challenging Europe’s future.
First, it still hasn’t recovered from the consequences of last decade’s crisis. Leaving aside political animosity, almost a quarter (22.4%) of EU households are at risk of poverty or social exclusion. Top income inequality has intensified since the early 1980s, with tax rates and distributional social systems in retreat. And, while unemployment looks low on the surface (6.3%), in Greece, Italy or Spain it remains around 10%. This is the economic counterpart to the political programme that liberals like Garton Ash have promoted since the early 1990s. Besides extending market mechanisms to social affairs, they discouraged state intervention. Voters from Greece to Spain accepted the deal: to regain stability, sacrifices were necessary. However, after “breaking the eggs”, the omelette is quite bland.
Abroad, China shows that the state can be a powerful economic agent. European nations after the war carefully negotiated protections and alliances between industries to grow together, not against each other. Garton Ash must recognise that industrial policies and other “entrepreneurial state” mechanisms can build better foundations for a superpower. Boris Johnson and Donald Trump are already employing unilateral state interventionism for short-term political gain. They will soon be joined by the Salvinis and Orbáns of the world, while the EU becomes even more technologically dependent, unless economic grievances are addressed.
Roy Cobby
Research student in digital humanities, King’s College London
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