Europe's Rising Regionalism

John Newhouse

From Foreign Affairs, January/ February 1997

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Summary:  The greatest threat to the authority of European states comes not from Brussels but from within. Northern Italy, the Rhone-Alpes, proud Catalonia, and other economically and culturally vibrant regions are asserting their identity and taking advantage of European integration to develop ties across national frontiers. Regions are opening embassies abroad and negotiating their own trade agreements, while cities link themselves in state-of-the-art transportation networks and court foreign business. As central governments worldwide lose credibility, regionalism appears to be the coming dynamic, nowhere more than in Europe.

John Newhouse is a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution and consultant to the State Department. This article is drawn from his forthcoming book on Europe in the post-Cold War era, which Pantheon will publish this fall.

DEVOLUTION OF AUTHORITY

The nation-state is too big to run everyday life, and too small to manage international affairs. So say many of Europe's regional and big-city leaders, who are themselves gaining influence and authority. European cities and regional governments are acquiring bigger budgets and developing more professional bureaucracies. National cultures are being squeezed between a broader popular culture and briskly reviving regional cultures.

Europeans are finding national interests hard to see, let alone define. The role of European governments is just as ambiguous. National leaders had an easier time during the Cold War, when, thanks to NATO, they could satisfy the essential need, military security. But in this transitional time, economic security is far more pressing, and far more elusive. A second industrial revolution is causing serious social dislocations. The nation-state's inability to keep unemployment at a tolerable level while maintaining the social safety net has accelerated Europe's growing devolution of authority.

With European governments losing or ceding control of national economies, their constituencies are turning to the market for help. Two parallel and related processes have emerged. One is regionalism, the other globalization; instead of working through national capitals, European regions are linking themselves directly to the global economy.

As the role of central governments shrinks, democratic societies are being fragmented and factionalized politically, culturally, and linguistically. Mainstream political parties, especially in Europe, are losing their credibility and support. The institutions of government are under even heavier pressure. At varying speeds and to varying degrees, authority is drifting down from national capitals to provinces and cities. Regionalism, whether within or across national borders, is Europe's current and future dynamic. Its sources vary, but it is judged on many sides to be partly a protest against the authority of national capitals by people who see themselves as belonging, historically and otherwise, more to "Europe" than to a nation-state of clouded origins and dubious boundaries.

The nation-state is in most cases a relatively recent formation, and in many places the process of cobbling it together left a deposit of sour memories. With the Cold War over, people are indifferent to whether Germany acquires a seat on the U.N. Security Council or Poland is admitted to NATO. Foreign policy has to be concerned with crime, drug trafficking, and immigration. Local authorities feel that they, not national governments, are best suited to deal with such matters, even though they must compete with their capitals for adequate funding.

Officials in some provincial cities see growing regional sentiment as a reaction to burdensome regulations descending from European Union headquarters in Brussels. But many regional leaders and officials are self-professed Europeans; they talk about bypassing national capitals and dealing directly with Brussels. The deeply controversial Treaty on European Union concluded at Maastricht in December 1991 took account of the trend by creating a Committee of the Regions, although that body's mandate is still not clear.

What is clear is that in this age of global trade and capital flows, not to mention information highways ...

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