Europe's Map, Compass and Horizon: Where? Why? With Whom?

Dominique Moïsi and Michael Mertes

From Foreign Affairs, January/February 1995

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Summary:  In Western Europe, there has been a cowardly inability to redefine NATO's role and no stomach for free trade with eastern neighbors. But there is hope if European leaders squarely face the issues. Which nations will be admitted into "Europe" and when? France and Germany must recognize that there is no alternative to the European Union, and European leaders must convince their electorates that the long-term benefits outweigh the near-term pain.

Dominique Moïsi is Deputy Director of the Institut Français des Relations Internationales and Editor in Chief of its Journal Politique Étrangere. Michael Mertes is Director of the Policy Analysis and Speechwriting Unit, Federal Chancellery, Bonn, and is writing here in a personal capacity.

Hopes for a Europe united by democracy from west to east are fading. They are being erased by the ongoing, if not expanding, Balkan war, unusually high sustained unemployment, and a loss of faith. Five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, European nations are united only by their identity crises: they share narcissism, self?doubt, and a weariness with democracy. In former Warsaw Pact countries, with the notable exception of the Czech Republic, ex?communists have regained power, although they are more "ex" than communist. In western Europe, with the notable exception of Germany, scandals have tarnished the public's belief in democratic principles.

Since the Pyrrhic victory of the Maastricht referendum in France in 1992 (an acrimonious campaign that left the country nearly deadlocked, 51 percent for the treaty, 49 percent against, and aroused skepticism among prospective member nations), Europeans seem more afraid of what they may lose to the European Union (EU) in terms of sovereignty and identity than comforted by their prospects for more opportunities and influence in the world. West European governments seem mired in technocratic, soulless discussions of ways to build on the three pillars of the EU -- institutional reform, economic and monetary union, and common foreign and security policies. Fixated on how to "do" Europe, they have lost sight of the moral values and fundamental cultural and political objectives that constitute the "why" of it.

Europeans are painfully aware that their priorities are increasingly divergent. Around France, countries to the south are looking across the Mediterranean to the Maghreb with a growing sense of vulnerability and fear. Countries to the north, around Germany, are giving priority to the enlargement of the EU in east?central Europe. On Bosnia, Europeans have exposed their divisions (rather than sending them), their lack of political will, and their failure to perceive the moral and symbolic cost of over-cautiousness in the face of suffering of other Europeans. They have not been able to count on America to stop the fighting. Worse, the protracted war has strained and divided the Atlantic alliance. Europeans are ultimately the only ones responsible for other Europeans. The cost of nonintervention and indifference is proving higher than that of political and military interference.

A fin?de?siècle mood had set in even before 1989, but the collapse of communism added a dramatic disorientation to the uncertainty and trouble in major West European countries. Communism's funeral brought only a brief respite from the shared sense of loss over the lack of common goals, dreams of new frontiers, and unifying visions. This mood has been renewed by depressing experiences, of which Sarajevo and Biha'c are only the saddest.

West Europeans once took for granted that their economic growth would continue indefinitely. That is why they did not notice the gradual deterioration of their competitiveness and economic performance vis?à?vis ascendant non?European economies. Amid recession and mass unemployment, the fledgling post?communist democracies were suddenly perceived as tough low?wage competitors in agriculture and steel production, fields traditionally dominated by West European ...

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