Europe's Path to Crisis: Disintegration via Monetary Union by Tom Gallagher

Author:Tom Gallagher [Gallagher, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Public Policy, Economic Conditions, Economic History, Political Science, Business & Economics, Economic Policy, General
ISBN: 9781847799364
Google: F2a5DwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 22609709
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Published: 2014-11-26T00:00:00+00:00

Interests prevail over ideals

Concentration on the financial dimension of European integration from the early 1990s onwards enabled segments of the EU’s wealthy and mobile sectors to close ranks, opening up a division with much of the rest of society. In the EU system, trade unions have been unable to fulfil the role of defenders of ordinary citizens’ economic and social interests; it is clear from the meagre presence that they have in EU consultative bodies that they have shrunk to a minor ranking (certainly compared to bodies representing agricultural or employers’ interests).

Once they were plunged into the post-2009 financial crisis, EU leaders struggled to show that they were acting on behalf of the broader concerns of European citizens rather than defending vested interests, particularly in the over-extended financial sector. Their statements failed to carry conviction. When Barroso said in October 2010, ‘I am pleased to stand before you this morning and confirm that Europe is closer to resolving its financial and economic crisis … We are showing that we can unite in the most difficult of times’, it was a statement of hollow reassurance, of which there would be plenty of others to come.149 Not surprisingly, polling data, coinciding with Barroso’s declaration, showed that a plurality of EU respondents (46 per cent) believed that each of the EU’s national governments should have primary responsibility for dealing with the economic crisis. With a few exceptions, majorities in the eurozone countries said the euro had been a bad thing for their economy, including France (60 per cent) and Germany (53 per cent), but also Spain (53 per cent) and Portugal (52 per cent).150 By mid-2012, with the crisis revealed to be systemic and not confined to a handful of imprudent eurozone members, trust in the EU had reached an all-time low according to the latest Eurobarometer survey. It stood at 31 per cent, a 3 per cent decrease since autumn 2011. At the same time, the average level of trust in national governments and parliaments had increased, reaching 28 per cent for both. Especially in countries with searing memories of authoritarian rule, the EU had benefited from being viewed as a bulwark of freedom, a counter-balance to unpredictable and sometimes high-handed national politics at home.

The institutional crisis in the eurozone exposed as feeble the far-fetched claim made by two leading academic proponents of advanced integration in 2005 that it was the existence of the EU and its supra-national agenda which had preserved the relevance of nation-states. Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens had argued that:

The EU is an arena where formal sovereignty can be exchanged for real power, national cultures can be nurtured and economic success improved. The EU is better placed to advance national interests than nations could possibly do acting alone: in commerce, immigration, law and order, the environment, defence and many other areas.151

The EU’s role as a collective sustainer of constructive nationalism appeared very threadbare as the post-2009 crisis gathered pace. The European cause found it hard to draw on

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