Quo Vadis, Europe? Proceedings of the project
Quo Vadis, Europe?
Proceedings of the project
University of Economics in Bratislava Faculty of International Relations
QUO VADIS, EUROPE? Proceedings of the project
Supported by a grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA Financial Mechanism and the Norwegian Financial Mechanism. This project is also co-financed from the state budget of the Slovak Republic.
Vydavateľstvo Ekonóm 2010
QUO VADIS, EUROPE? Proceedings of the project AUTHORS: Team leaders: Tomáš Dudáš, Ingi Rúnar Edvarđsson, Kjersti Fløttum, Terje Knutsen, Ögmundur Knútsson, Ľudmila Lipková, Hakan Sicakkan, Marta Zágoršeková Junior researchers: Himanshu Ardawatia, Thorvaldur Helgi Audunsson, Susanne Bygnes, Agnese Cimdina, Espen Dahle, Ole Hallvard Dyrbekk, Mária Fertaľová, Veronika Fodorová, Bjarte Folkestad, Maria Loa Fridjonsdóttir, Rakel Friđriksdóttir, Jana Glozmeková, Martin Grančay, Kristín Helgadóttir, Petra Károlyiová, Acar Kutay, Vladimír Milčík, Peter Reťkovský, Magnús Ţór Sandholt, Stefán Torfi Sigurđsson, TorEspen Stenerud, Soňa Svoreňová, Michal Ščepán, Michaela Štefančíková, Alice Jeanette Vatnehol REVIEWERS: prof. JUDr. Stanislav Mráz, CSc. doc. PhDr. Milan Márton, CSc.
This book is a monograph containing proceedings of the project Quo vadis, Europe? supported by a grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA Financial Mechanism and the Norwegian Financial Mechanism and co-financed from the state budget of the Slovak Republic.
Layout: SING SIGN, s.r.o. www.singsign.net Published and printed by Vydavateľstvo Ekonóm 2010 ISBN 978-80-225-3031-6
Contents Foreword ................................................................................................................................ 5
I. STABILITY STABILITY: The optimist scenario .................................................................................... 8 STABILITY: The pessimist scenario ................................................................................ 18 STABILITY: The realist scenario ...................................................................................... 26
II. PROSPERITY PROSPERITY: The optimist scenario ............................................................................. 34 PROSPERITY: The pessimist scenario ........................................................................... 47 PROSPERITY: The realist scenario ................................................................................. 57
III. CULTURE CULTURE: The optimist scenario .................................................................................. 70 CULTURE: The pessimist scenario ................................................................................ 76 CULTURE: The realist scenario ...................................................................................... 85
IV. SELECTED LECTURES The Geo-Political Foundations of European Identities ................................................ 95 Selected historical foundations and socio-cultural effects of capitalism and communism in Central Europe ....................................................... 120 Bibliography ...................................................................................................................... 129
Foreword Quo vadis, Europe? Stability, prosperity, culture – scenarios for Europe in 2030 Dear readers, friends, partners, Europeans, non-Europeans, what you are holding in your hands is a unique publication that is fruit of a co-operation between three European universities from three diverse European countries. The Faculty of International Relations of the University of Economics in Bratislava, Slovakia, the University of Akureyri, Iceland and the University of Bergen, Norway came together to build three qualified teams with an ambitious goal of brainstorming about the future of our continent. Quo vadis, Europe? Where are you going, Europe? That was the main research question we tried to find answers to. What will Europe look like in 2030? Will it be a good place to live? Will it be a global super-power? Or will various factors diminish its role to a second or third class position? The project was divided into three parts – three workshops that took place in different corners of Europe. First, participants met in Bratislava in October 2009 to discuss stability as the most important factor determining future of the continent. Although it might seem that nowadays Europe is the most stable region of the world, it was not always so. Numerous wars, including World War I and World War II originated on the continent. Although today it seems that the idea of common European future has destroyed all the tensions, many crucial issues still remain: energy supply and migration policy to mention a few. Prosperity in Europe was the main topic of the workshop organized by the University of Akureyri in February 2010. Participants spent a week in a lovely region of Northern Iceland discussing issues such as sustainable energy sources, European welfare models and the future of research and development in Europe. The last workshop took place in Bergen in May 2010. Its main goal was to remind everyone that future is more that just stability and prosperity. The riches of Europe lie not only in its natural resources and financial means, but also in its history and culture. It will not be easy to preserve the cultural diversity of Europe in face of globalization; the task is difficult, but not impossible. Throughout the whole project, participants were divided into three groups: the optimists, the realists and the pessimists. The task of each group was to elaborate a scenario for an optimist, realist or pessimist future of Europe until 2030. Consequently, each workshop resulted in creation of three scenarios. 5
This publication represents a summary of the discussions that were held as a part of the QVE project. We hope it will be of use in academic field, for decision-makers or just for general reading, to get a thought of how complex the issues of European future are. Finally, we would like to thank all of our partners who made this project possible. The list includes the EEA Financial Mechanism, the Norwegian Financial Mechanism, the government of the Slovak republic, Slovak Academic Information Agency, prof. Rudolf Sivák, rector of the University of Economics, Iveta Mattovičová and always smiling Eva Sziglová from the Accounting and budgeting department, Viera Martišková and Zlatica Zvarová from Foreign relations department, Miroslav Kolesár, registrar of the Faculty of International Relations and many others whose effort contributed to the smooth execution of the project.
Martin Grančay
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I. STABILITY Bratislava, Slovakia October 19-23, 2009
QUO VADIS EUROPE? FACTORS OF STABILITY political
security
social
Development of the EU Polity
Integration and its implications on security
Demographical factors
European Common Foreign Migration and its integration and EU and Security policy impacts on society enlargement European Citizenship and Diversity
European Security Women and their and Defense Policy position in society
The Treaty of Lisbon
Energetics - safety + reliability of supply
Official Development Assistance
World War 3-4?
Articulation of a European public sphere
New round of arms race vs. disarmament National security issues
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STABILITY: The optimist scenario The following is the summary of the discussions held in Bratislava, October 19th-23rd, 2009. The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of each team member. EUROPE IN 2010 POLITICAL FACTORS Further EU enlargement (including Turkey) Deeper cooperation
SOCIAL FACTORS Better fertility rate Regulated immigration Good adaptation programs Strict anti-xenophobic laws Intercultural education New European identity
SECURITY FACTORS Greater Schengen Joint army with USA (NATO) New technologies
STABILITY
EUROPE IN 2030
1. WHAT IS EUROPE? As of yet scholars haven’t agreed upon a single generally accepted definition of Europe. Indeed, there are various definitions of Europe from different points of view. One can apply a geographical approach, a historical approach, a cultural approach, a political approach, etc. Therefore before starting to conduct a research on stability as an important factor for the future of Europe it is necessary to explain the differences between various definitions of Europe itself. The two crucial questions are: (1) Where are the borders of Europe?, and (2) Is Europe and its influence limited to these borders? Europe 1 – Western Europe One of the most informal definitions of Europe limits its scope to Western Europe only. This is based on historical and political factors – during the Iron Curtain era Europe was divided into two parts: the West and the East. While the Western part of the continent was (with a few exceptions) an area of democracy, the countries of the East were 8
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satellites of the Soviet Union. Consequently, colloquial use of the term “Europe” in USA usually included Western Europe only. Today this definition is outdated. However, it is sometimes still possible to overhear it in informal conversations; this can be attributed to insufficient geographical knowledge of the speaker. Europe 2 – European Union Very often Europe is used as a synonym of the European Union. Such a use of the term “Europe” is common in news, as well as in many informal, academic and political discussions. The speakers are generally aware that Europe as a continent is much broader than just 27 member states of the EU, but they use the terms interchangeably out of convenience. Europe 3 – Geographical approach The most accepted definitions of Europe use a geographical approach to set its boundaries. According to this approach Europe is delimited by the Ural Mountains in the East, the Bosporus and the Dardanelles in the Southeast, the Mediterranean Sea in the South, the Atlantic Ocean in the West and the Arctic Ocean in the North. This traditional definition divides Russia and Turkey between Europe and Asia, the major part of both countries being located in Asia. However, the Southeastern boundary with Asia is not universally defined. Therefore Caucasian states (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia) belong either to Europe or to Asia, depending on the approach chosen. Europe 4 – Political approach Political approach to defining Europe is very different from the geographical one. While geographically it is disputable whether countries such as Israel, Armenia, Azerbaijan or Georgia belong to Europe, out of political reasons they are often considered to be a part of it. This can be easily seen at European sports contests where the aforementioned countries participate and their sportsmen are eligible to claim titles of European champions. Another prominent example – and indeed a very political one – is the Eurovision song contest. A special place in this discussion has Turkey. It is a member of all major European sports organizations, takes part in European championships and participates at Eurovision; however, the political debate concerning its possible entry into the European Union is highly radicalized and many opponents claim Turkey does not belong to Europe politically. Europe 5 – Cultural approach A rarely used methodology classifies countries to be European or not according to their predominant religion, set of values and other cultural aspects. The problem with this approach is the vast diversity of Europe. This makes it almost impossible to find 9
a generally accepted definition of European culture. The definition based on the three pillars (Greek philosophy, Roman law and Christianity) is insufficient. First, none of these pillars originated on European continent. Second, even if we accept that the majority of modern European states is based on the three pillars, so are many other countries all over the world (USA, Canada and Australia to mention a few). Third, there are some countries in Europe whose culture is very different from the “standard European” culture. Therefore, cultural approach is very difficult to apply. Usually religion is chosen as the main distinguishing factor. This clearly disqualifies Israel and Turkey from Europe. However, it also disqualifies Bosnia and Albania – countries that have always been an integral part of Europe and no other definition excludes them. Taking into account imminent changes in population structure, fifty years from now even status of Germany and France might be questioned. Europe 6 – Area of influence The broadest definition of Europe completely abandons geographical criteria. Rather it tries to identify areas where European countries have historically maintained a high political and economic influence. In this sense, Europe includes the following regions: • • • • •
European continent itself. Russia, Turkey and Israel. All countries of the former Soviet Union, including the Caucasian countries of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan and the Middle Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kirgizia. Greenland. Morocco.
Some definitions go even further and include USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, some African countries and the whole Latin America into Europe’s area of influence. While it might be sensible to include Latin America, Cape Verde and some other former colonies into Europe’s area of influence, inclusion of countries such as USA or Australia is highly utopist. In conclusion, our team firmly believes the term “Europe” should be limited by geographical factors and should include Turkey. On the other hand, Europe’s area of influence is by no means limited by borders. Europe is and will remain a major political player. However, contrary to strategies of some other world powers, Europe’s area of influence is based on a voluntary basis. This will guarantee stability of Europe in the future.
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2. POLITICAL FACTORS OF STABILITY The factors influencing stability can be divided into three groups: (1) political factors, (2) social factors and (3) security. Integration as a factor of stability The European Union is widely acknowledged to be the most successful integration project in world. Together with the European Free Trade Agreement and the jointly formed European Economic Area they represent an example of how co-operation between former enemies on a continent historically beleaguered by wars can bring forward a long period of peace and rapid economic development. Since the integration processes in Europe began there have been no military conflicts between any of the participating countries and the GDP of the countries has multiplied. Although today it seems that EU (as the most prominent of the integration organizations on the continent) has reached its absorption capacity, the process of European integration will not cease. On the contrary, the deepening and widening of integration will continue until the majority of Europe is united. Currently all of Western, Northern and Central Europe is integrated. Although Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Liechtenstein are not formal member states of EU, by means of various multilateral agreements with EU they effectively constitute an integral part of the common market. The two remaining directions of integration widening are Eastward, Southeastward and a possible Southward direction. While currently it might seem that there is no political will for further enlargement of EU, after a brief period of consolidation the process will inevitably carry on. By 2030 the majority (if not all) Balkan countries will be EU member states. The Balkans has always been Europe´s Achilles heel and it is therefore a high priority for European diplomacy to unite the region. Eastward enlargement of EU will initially meet with a strong resistance from Russia. Given the opposition from Russia, domestic political problems and a poor state of economy we do not believe Ukraine and Moldova have a potential to become EU members by 2030. However, by 2050 – in a world dominated by China – EU and Russia will be important allies. Ukraine, Moldova and other post-Soviet countries will be an integral part of this alliance. The third remaining direction of European integration is the Southward integration. Morocco has already applied for EU membership, but was rebuffed on the grounds of not being a European country. As the definition of Europe is far from clear, Morocco might reapply at a later date and be declared eligible. The situation of Cape Verde is similar. The economy of Cape Verde has undergone a series of structural changes in recent decades which helped the country exit from group of the least developed countries. The per capita income of Cape Verde has already overtaken Ukraine and the country has 11
become one of the richest in Africa. If Morocco and Cape Verde maintain the trend and express their interest to join European integration, they might easily be accepted in the future. These two countries could represent a vital link in economic and political cooperation between Europe and Africa. A very specific problem is the question of Turkey. The country has applied for associate membership in the European Economic Community already in 1959 (!) and for full membership in 1987. The debate on the Turkish EU bid is very complex and heated. The opponents claim Turkey should never become a member of the EU and are only willing to offer associate partnership. Their main arguments include a poor state of economy, chronic violation of human rights, discrimination of women and a predominant religion incompatible with European values. On the other hand, supporters of the Turkish EU membership claim demographically, geopolitically, strategically and even economically Turkey will be an important asset for the EU. We believe Turkey certainly has to become a member of the integrated Europe. The long-term benefits its membership will bring are much higher than short-term costs associated with the membership. Geopolitically speaking, Turkey has only two ways to go: it can turn left (to Europe) or it can turn right (to the Middle East). If EU rejects the membership bid, Turkish society will radicalize and the stability of Europe will be endangered. This has to be prevented. Another dimension of the integration process is deepening of cooperation. While widening increases the number of member states, deepening increases the number of common policies. This is the crucial part of any integration process and it is the main factor behind EU’s success. We acknowledge it might not be possible to be deepening cooperation forever. Clearly, an organization made up of almost 30 countries and a continent made up of approximately 50 will from time to time necessarily find itself in the middle of clashing national interests. For example, many countries want to create a common European tax system; others are resolutely against this idea. It is therefore important to create various overlapping layers of integration in Europe. The Schengen area or the Eurozone are the most prominent examples. Another problem common to large organizations is power inequality. Small member states often feel their opinion is not taken into account. Conversely, large countries are not satisfied with their voting power which is usually smaller than their share of population or GDP. Although both of these problems exist in EU, we believe the current system of triple majority is fair and should be preserved. It is sometimes argued that in order for integration to be fully functional and stable, it is necessary to achieve a high level of synchronization of governance structures in member states. We think success of the European Union disproves this claim. The 12
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governments of the European countries have historically taken various forms. Political systems of Slovakia and Poland can hardly be compared to that of Germany or the United Kingdom. While we acknowledge diversity of governance structures leads to certain inefficiencies, we believe synchronizing them is unnecessary and impossible. The governance structures of European countries have been created to suit their specific needs and should therefore be preserved. The true risks of integration lie in how people perceive it. The European Union is often considered to be bureaucratic machinery completely separated from the needs of ordinary citizens. If this impression lasts, the stability in Europe might be endangered. To address this issue we propose the following measures: • • • • •
launch a media campaign informing about EU’s significance for citizens’ everyday lives; put more effort in adopting customer-related laws; rationalize work of the European Parliament (abolish the Brussels-Strasbourg system); move some of the institutions out of Brussels (although it might lead to a certain degree of inefficiency); reform the common agricultural policy.
Social-political issues The vast majority of European countries have based their political model on democracy. It is necessary to note that democracy itself is not stable – on the contrary, democracy is dynamic. Stability in democratic countries generally depends on prosperity: As long as the majority of citizens enjoy welfare the democratic country remains stable. Problems begin if the economy is not able to support the way of life the citizens are used to. We have seen examples of public demonstrations with social context in 2005 in France and recently in Greece. This is the primary reason why Europe should not push its welfare state model behind reasonable limits. Once the citizens get used to a certain level, they might not be willing to settle for a lower standard, even if the economy has no other way out of crisis. Therefore even though we believe Europe should be world-known for its welfare standards, these cannot reach unreasonable heights (see the example of Greece). Europe should follow a simple rule: “give your employees more leisure time and less financial bonuses.” One of the most serious threats to stability is radicalism. This phenomenon is currently on the rise in almost all regions of Europe. The primary reasons behind this development are unequal distribution of wealth, dissatisfaction with political elites and unregulated migration. Both left wing and right wing radicalism are dangerous for society. Currently, radical left wing and right wing parties have seats in parliaments throughout Europe, 13
especially in Central and Eastern parts of the continent.1 A lot of work has to be done to reverse this trend. The problem of the majority of EU newcomers is their socialist past – the countries that have been free for only twenty years have not yet been able to create a satisfactory political culture. The powers of nationalism are strongly present in their political system and they easily attract votes of discontent citizens and uneducated youth unable to find an appropriate place in the society. To solve this problem Europe needs to change its system of education, and put more effort in adaptation of immigrants. If Europe puts more emphasis on intercultural education we believe it will be a stabile radicalism-free region by 2030. Another serious social-political issue is corruption and nepotism. While very low in the Northern and Western regions of the continent, it can be empirically demonstrated that corruption and nepotism increase when one moves towards the South and East. It seems that the Mediterranean and Eastern regions of Europe have higher level of tolerance towards these phenomena. Strict measures have to be applied to halt their vigor.
3. SOCIAL FACTORS OF STABILITY Admittedly the most important problem of Europe is its ageing population. While generally accepted replacement level fertility is 2.10 children per woman the European Union achieves only 1.51, with some regions barely reaching 1.30. This has serious implications for stability, prosperity and cultural diversity of the continent, the most imminent of them being unsustainability of national pension systems. To achieve nonnegative population growth, Europe has to apply a combination of the following two measures: (1) Stimulate fertility. (2) Support immigration. Stimulating fertility should obviously be the preferred method of solving the demographic crisis. It is necessary to: • • •
support parents and young families; motivate businesses to employ young women and create favorable conditions for families with children; support internal migration.
The issue of stimulating fertility is dealt with in more detail in the “PROSPERITY: The optimist scenario” section. 1
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For example in Bulgaria, Hungary, Serbia, etc.
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If stimulating fertility proves impossible (which is a very realistic scenario) Europe has to support immigration. According to the International Organization for Migration more than 17 million immigrants live in Germany and France alone. The total immigrant population in Europe reaches 70 million.2 We believe the Blue card initiative3 is a suitable way of supporting educated immigrants and immigrants in areas with chronic workforce scarcity in Europe. However, migration policy cannot be limited to hiring foreign workforce. The governments have to launch a complex scheme of education and help immigrants adapt to the new environment. Such a scheme has to include the following: •
•
•
Free intensive language courses. Immigrants should be required to learn national language of the country of their stay within the first three to five years after arrival. Mastering the language is the most important prerequisite to be able to socialize with natives and to adapt to the new environment. Compulsory cultural orientation for immigrants. Often newcomers suffer from culture shock that might gradually develop into cultural hatred. The best way to prevent this is to establish a network of educational institutions offering classes on European culture. These classes should explain to immigrants the most important differences between their native culture and Europe and teach them how to react in intercultural misunderstandings. It is important that immigrants know they are allowed to retain their native culture4, but they are welcome to adopt as many elements from European culture as they wish to. Thus, a feeling of voluntariness has to be present. Adaptation follow-up procedures. A network of psychologists and other experts must be ready to help immigrants overcome the culture shock. Moreover, each immigrant should be assigned a social worker responsible for monitoring their adaptation progress and each European country should run a dedicated
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United Nations: Trends in Migrant Stock, 2008. The EU Blue Card is a document entitling its holder (a non-EU national) to legally work in the EU. The program is officially called “entry and residence of highly qualified workers” initiative and it is regulated by the Council Directive 2009/50/EC. “To be allowed into the EU, the applicant must produce: • work contract or binding job offer with a salary of at least 1,5 times the average gross annual salary paid in the Member State concerned (Member States may lower the salary threshold to 1,2 for certain professions where there is a particular need for third-country workers); • a valid travel document and a valid residence permit or a national long-term visa; • proof of sickness insurance; • for regulated professions, documents establishing that s/he meets the legal requirements, and for unregulated professions, the documents establishing the relevant higher professional qualifications. In addition, the applicant must not pose a threat to public policy in the view of the Member State. S/he may also be required to provide his/her address in that Member State.“ See Council Directive 2009/50/ EC. 4 This is possible as long as it respects human rights and the laws of the country of immigration. 3
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•
•
immigrant hotline. Interculturally-oriented education. Europe needs a far-reaching education reform. While it is necessary to educate immigrants to help them adapt to a new society, it is also essential to educate native citizens to help them accept newcomers from different cultures. “Intercultural Communication” and “World Religions” should become compulsory subjects for every young European. Strict anti-xenophobic laws. Racism and xenophobia must be eliminated from European society by means of intercultural education and extremely severe punishments for racially and nationalistically motivated crimes.
Without these measures immigrants might not blend in with native population and riots as those seen in Paris and other French cities in November 2005 might undermine the stability of Europe. Promoting European identity is another way to help immigrants adapt to new conditions and eliminate racial radicalism. The United States of America was successful in creating a multicultural society primarily because of the creation of a strong American identity. Europe should try to achieve the same. European identity should become citizens’ primary identity. However, it should by no means supplant national identity – it should supplement it. A strong European identity will support unity and solidarity and will break racial and national prejudice.
4. SECURITY AS A FACTOR OF STABILITY Preserving security is one of the most important tasks of every state. Only a society that is safe and secure can reach its welfare limits. Various concepts of security exist: national security, economic security, physical security, computer security etc. Our methodology divides security into two dimensions: •
State security – includes external security (against possible military attacks by third countries), internal security (against terrorism and other criminal acts) and economic security (especially energy security). • Human security – is a part of human rights in their broadest definition. It includes basic human rights, social rights, food security etc. Human security has to be an integral part of social policy of all European countries. With the rise of terrorism, national and human security has drawn the attention of researchers from all over the world. There is sufficient scientific literature on this topic and therefore we will not enter it in detail. We would like to express our belief that Europe is a secure place and it will surely be able to retain this status for decades to come. In face of the new world order and the new threats, Europe should take the following most important measures: 16
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• • • • • • • •
increase its area of influence, but on an entirely voluntary basis (as opposed to the US practice); build a joint European army that would be fully integrated with military forces of NATO; enlarge the Schengen area and concentrate on protecting the Schengen border; maintain courteous diplomatic relations with all countries in the world; create a European intelligence agency and coordinate its anti-terrorist efforts with USA; develop and apply new security screening technologies; invest in alternative energy sources and diversify sources of traditional energy; maintain its status of the world region with the greatest respect for human rights.
All in all, we believe Europe is on the best way to retain stability it has enjoyed for the last 65 years. While there are many political and social risks, the processes of integration, migration and enhanced intercultural communication will undoubtedly lead a transformation of Europe to a new responsible, multicultural and mature society.
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STABILITY: The pessimist scenario The following is the summary of the discussions held in Bratislava, October 19th-23rd, 2009. The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of each team member. EUROPE IN 2010 SOCIAL FACTORS Depopulation of rural areas Aging of population National identity Secularism
POLITICAL FACTORS
SECURITY FACTORS
Widening vs. Deepening of the EU Democracy and stability Radicalism Political culture Power inequality
Military security Energy security Food security
STABILITY
EUROPE IN 2030
1. POLITICAL FACTORS OF STABILITY Deepening of the EU refers to the integration dynamic present from the outset of the European venture. Through the customs union, the common market, and then the Euro zone, the European Communities have grown into what aspires to be an “ever closer union” among the peoples of Europe. Deepening is a process parallel to, and often viewed as a necessary step prior to, enlargement. Widening of the EU refers to the enlargement of the European Union in the accession of new member states. The deepening of the EU is missing a big element which is the cultural element, the identity and image of the nation’s member states. Oli Rehn, the European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, former Commissioner for Enlargement, said in a speech march 9th 2006 “Widening versus deepening is indeed a false dichotomy. The EU has always pursued these two objectives in parallel, and never was the one an obstacle for the other.” 18
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Although there is truth in what Mr. Rehn is saying the pessimistic view has to be that the although the legal matters in deepening the EU are parallel to the enlargement process there still is a need for more cohesion, more cooperation, common decisionmaking covering more areas. More and more policies are being taken on the EU level and there is a need for a Union with a strong commission and parliament and there is always the question of how deep should the deepening of the EU go. Nations are to diverse and they are in the need for so different legal structure that the pessimistic approach is that it will not be good to go to deep, that the legal structure will have to be very superficial for the nations need to have their own structure. Are we able to synchronize the diverse governance structure in Europe? The answer to this question is a flat NO. The nations are unwilling to share resources because there are too many different interests and there is no willingness for consensus between the different governance structures in Europe. The pessimistic view is that it only works if the consensus of all countries is in place and as it is not the case the EU will not be able to synchronize the diverse governance structures of Europe. It would be good to synchronize them but not a possibility because of the difference between the nations and legal structures in the EU. Is democratic participation and democratic legitimacy a sufficiently stabilizing factor? The voter participation in the EU is low. A stronger European parliament would be created by higher voter participation, but the low voter participation could possibly be seen as a destabilizing factor. The voter participation is very different in each member state for example in Poland 1995 the voter participation 51% and in a contrast the voter participation in Germany is 85%. What this means is that whilst Polish people do not have confident in their democracy they are not as likely to participate in EU election as the German people. All this considered the EU democracy, or rather the lack of it makes for a destabilizing factor for the nations with the high voter participation will have more influence than the ones with lower voter participation. What does the existence of different political cultures mean to the cohesion Europe? The different political cultures are a barrier to the cohesion of Europe and it is not foreseeable in the nearest future that nations in Europe will be cohesive enough. There would be a need for a common political culture for a United and deep Europe, but the change of political culture is a long term project and will take more than the next 20 years. It is also the question of who should be the role model for a common political culture. It would be hard for many nations to accept such a infiltration of power. There is the question do we really need a common political culture, do we need such a deep cohesion in Europe. The answer is no as the nations in Europe need to keep their political independency. 19
Is power inequality threatening the European solidarity? Yes there is power inequality threatening the European solidarity. The older states have more power than the newer states, the big 5 states versus the smaller state. The power inequality is closely connected to the voter participation, therefore the smaller states, given they have high voter participation can have more power than bigger states. There is therefore the need to ensure power equality, but there are maybe nations that do not want to ensure that equality. There are some that have the notion that if they are bigger they should have more power. The lack of common values and visions complicates the insurance of power equality for there is no such thing as European solidarity. 2. SOCIAL FACTORS OF STABILITY Social issues are in general considered to be the most problematic, volatile and controversial at the same time. Due to the variety of welfare regimes, divergent levels of economic performance and wealth distribution, as well as different attitude towards problems like gender inequalities, migration, etc., Europe represents highly heterogeneous area. From the pessimistic point of view, these differences are deeply incorporated in national states and unlikely to change. As the complex of the social factors is too wide, we have narrowed the discussed problem and focused on demographic trends, migration, gender issues, religious differences and finally on building of European identity. Aging of population is a natural trend of last decades in majority of developed countries. Negative demographic evolution, which is characteristic for last decades and projected in future, creates various challenges for European governments. Despite the fact that the European population is expected to rise in next decade, according to Eurostat projection it will reach its peak 520 million in 2035 and subsequently will decline.5 Furthermore, Europe is becoming „a silver continent“, as the share of population over 65 years is steadily rising.6 On the other hand, number of births is expected to decline, what will cause deep changes in population structure. These trends are the result of co-influence of few factors: (1) existing population structure: there is a strong group of baby-boomers of 1960s and 1970s in all European states, (2) declining fertility rates, (3) generally prolonging length of life as a result of improving healthcare services, general quality of life, etc. Out of these factors, only fertility could be reversed by effective government policies. Although, there was a large number of different recommendations, measures and 5
Source: Eurostat: Population and social conditions. Statistics in Focus 72/2008, p.1 It is projected that share of population over 65 years will surge from 17% in 2008 to 30% in 2060. Similarly, the number of people over 80 years will triple till 2060 (to app. 60 mil.) Source: Ibid 6
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strategies applied, these have proven to be unsuccessful. From the pessimistic point of view, fertility trends are unlikely to change, as this is a part of deeper and wider change in European/western society. In this sense, (social) stability could be understood as both, a result of fertility and a condition for improving fertility rates. Overall improvement of living standards in Europe during the last decades has not lead to rise of number of births and we do not expect any positive shift in this trend. We argue that deterioration of general conditions (e.g. rising unemployment, etc.), soaring social hazard, widespread disbelief in social role of state (especially in CEE) and changing attitude to role of women in society are the crucial factors (except of biological ones) that influence the decision to have children. Continuous elimination of active workforce is regarded as the most eroding factor of European labor markets. The lack of workforce can be tackled by (1) increase in migration (both, internal and external) or (2) employment of elderly. As we claimed the shift in fertility trends to be improbable, migration is the only factor that can be a source of population increase, however it is not sustainable in long run. On the other hand, immigration flows with time delays, therefore it does not respond to market immediately. From the experience of last years it is clear that European immigration policies have failed. Immigration is regarded as positive for sustaining the economic activities, but it creates cultural and social challenges at the same time. According to Eurostat data, immigration flows have slightly slowed down in recent years (after peak in 2003). More than half of immigrants are non-EU citizens; approximately one third of immigrants is created by EU citizens.7 If immigration is the only economic opportunity for sustaining European labor market, European governments have to respond it more effectively. From the pessimistic point of view, integration of immigrants should be the crucial point of national immigration agendas. Social exclusion of several generations of immigrants proved to be a potential source of internal conflict. Similarly, national governments and non-governmental sector have to be more wary while dealing with the rise of xenophobia among their nationals. Unfortunately, xenophobic ideas more and more penetrate into agendas of European political parties what could deteriorate basic functions of state (e.g. human rights protection) in the future. As extremely precarious we find the recent development in traditionally liberal European countries like Netherlands, where a political party with open islamophobic agenda gains stronger support. Although it seems that immigration means more threats than opportunities, it is clear that process of foreign population inflows is unstoppable. In our opinion, European governments should focus on attracting educated workforce and its effective allocation on market. There is also a group of countries with weak knowledge of immigration management (especially in CEE). Hence, it is important to share experience of traditional 7
Source: Eurostat: Population and social conditions. Statistics in focus. 98/2008, p. 3
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destinations of immigrants in Western Europe with the states that will have to face these challenges in close future. Otherwise, mismanagement of immigration will create threats to social stability and security in general. The pessimistic scenario understands gender issues as a part of decreasing population problem. We claim that current trend of gender equalization effects the fertility rates negatively. The traditional role of women is not appreciated in Western society, thus more women prefer their professional life to family one. On the other hand, the state is not able to take over the role of women. As a result, state should promote and enforce the role of women-mothers and apply more strict measures to secure the position of women-mothers on labor market and in society in general. Special attention should be paid to young women, as the general reproductive age is increasing, creating potential health risks. In general, there are different approaches towards gender issues in Europe. We believe that gender equalization has to be a natural process, deeply supported by historical changes and overall development of national society. Several measures imposed by national or supranational bodies, e.g. concerning men/women ratio in specific positions, are in our opinion undermining the competition and could be understood as discriminatory. Religion and religious differences were also taken into consideration while examining the social factors of stability. Due to immigration, traveling, education and easier information transmission, Europe is becoming more religiously diverse space. Though any diversity is positive in sense of mutual enrichment, religious beliefs and values are becoming useful tools in case of ethnic conflicts. We find the increasing islamophobia and other forms of religious or ethnic hatred as serious challenge for national governments and supranational bodies. Tendencies leading to secularization of European society are on the one hand positive, not privileging any religion; however, they tend to transfer the religious conflict to other level. Finally, when referring to European identity, the pessimistic scenario clearly claims that common European identity does not exist and it is unlikely to develop in foreseeable future. Europe consists of national states with strong, inherited national identities. Despite of continuing integration process and attempts to impose the concept of common identity directly on people, we believe that common identity could be built solely by education. However, national identity will prevail the common one.
3. SECURITY AS A FACTOR OF STABILITY Security is a very complex issue that covers all dimensions of current human existence. The field of security studies has broadened rapidly over the last 50 years and refers to necessity to go beyond traditional military perception of state-centered security issues. 22
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The international focus has been moved from the state towards an individual. The role of the state is changing from right to imply sovereign power on its whole territory to the duty to take care of well-being of its inhabitants. When discussing security issues concerning European continent, we focused on European Union and its influence in international relations. In regard to all this we have to consider co-existence of EU and NATO, both dealing with European security issues. Furthermore, it is important to consider EU’s ability to act as a military actor in international arena. Nowadays EU aims to strengthen its security by intense cooperation of member states on European level. Common Security and defense policy’s main body European Defense Agency (EDA) established in 2004 is in charge to increase European military power by rising effectiveness and cooperation of all member states in security policy. Nevertheless, security belongs to hard policies and states are not willing to move part of their sovereignty to someone else. Although all member states except Denmark are members of EDA, the states enter the agency and participate in projects on a voluntary basis. If Europe intends to be a considerable military actor in international relationship it has to improve its army status. According to EDA EU’s military expenditures per soldier were more than three times lower than the one of the USA´s in 2006. In the same year the EU’s investments into military were five times lower compared to the USA.8 The overall willingness to increase military expenditures in Europe is low and according to the world economic crisis it probably will not change. According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Western Europe is the only region in the world where the military expenditure stayed approximately on the same level over the last 10 years, while in all other regions they increased.9 New security threats like terrorism, organized crime, proliferation of weapons of massive destruction etc. require specific innovative approach. Without on-going and stable security structure it is impossible to answer the new security challenges successfully. Moreover, European security has been developed and strongly influenced by NATO. The dualism in European security structures leads to dualism of functions and causes ineffectiveness. In addition, EU lacks sources to run all its military operations fully on its own. Therefore, it is strongly linked to NATO and its military power. It could have been argued that as war among European countries is unlikely, it is not necessary to consider the issues very deeply. Nonetheless, in the age of globalization is also the old continent influenced by major world security threats and should develop 8
European – United States Defence Expenditure in 2006 [20.09.2009]. 9 PERLO-FREEMAN, S., PERDOMO, C., SKONS, E., STÄLENHEIM, P.: Military Expenditure, In: SIPRI Yearbook 2009, New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2009, s. 182
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useful mechanisms to abolish them. In order to achieve high stability, EU should successfully manage the peacekeeping process in post-conflict Balkan countries and balance the relationship with Russia and post-soviet European countries. Other very important matter of security is energy. Energy security of Europe and it´s dependency on Russian fossil fuels makes the continent sensitive towards political and economic tensions among Russian Federation and post-soviet states and decreases its power in international relations. As it is unlikely that in a horizon of the next 20 years EU would be able to diverse its energy sources to such an extent that a cut-off from Russia would not jeopardize it, we consider it being a possible destabilizing factor of Europe in the future. Nowadays security threats are very complex and none of the European countries can fight against them alone. However, to give up part of state sovereignty in such sensitive policy is hardly transferable into practice. On the other hand without effective management of European military sources, Europe would not be able to increase its military power and consequently it could not strengthen its security by strong position among world powers. Moving from the security of the organization/state, which is mainly about military strength and position in international arena, we should consider the human security dimension in Europe. Human security is about securitization of individuals rather than states. Herewith the environmental, social and economic issues are of very high importance. Social factors of stability have been discussed more in detail in previous part. As far as security aspects of economic development are concerned, Europe should grow in a sustainable way. It is necessary to distinguish between economic growth and economic development. The issues are interlinked with environment and how Europe is going to cope with its degradation. Unfortunately to fix it on European level only is not enough. Environmental damage is in progress and EU is not strong enough as the results from Copenhagen environmental summit show, to transfer environmental friendlier policies into practice. As Europe is part of the common ecosystem it would have to deal with climate change and all other kinds of environmental damage, what would destabilize it by taking financial sources and jeopardize individuals by natural catastrophes and in a long term it represents a burden for health care system. Nonetheless, nowadays the security issues receive high attention and are hard not to cross the border between rational securitization and paranoia. In conclusion by 2030 the state of security in Europe would worsen regarding both security of the state as well as security of humans. EU is highly dependent on USA in security issues and in order to address terrorism, they will probably develop even stronger cooperation. Consequently, NATO will take priority. Balkan tensions would 24
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probably not lead to another conflict; however keeping the region peaceful would be a high burden for EU. Migration flows would have been harder to control but needed. Environmental damage and social tensions resulting from immigration would lead to higher subjective insecurity perception of European citizens. EU’s security measured by its military power in international relation would be weakened by high dependency on Euro-Atlantic cooperation and on the other hand limited by being highly dependent on Russian federation in energy security issues. ____________________________________________________________________ Notes: 1. We refer to EU as to actor in international relation representing major part of European population and having a high level of influence also on non-member European countries. 2. When discussing the Treaty of Lisbon has not been ratified yet.
4. IS EXTENDED EUROPE POSSIBLE? To sum up the pessimistic scenario of European stability, we will reflect on discussion about extension of Europe. The optimistic scenario describes the different definitions of Europe from geographical, historical, cultural or political point of view. We believe that these definitions are generally applicable; however, we find the problem of extended Europe as more complex and delicate. The extension of Europe is usually understood as two-track process being realized in both directions – horizontally and vertically. In our opinion, the extension is accomplished through enforcing the cooperation between national states in different dimensions. Taking to consideration current conditions and existing complex of relations in European area, the pessimists claim that the idea of extended Europe is not realistic in the foreseeable future at any level. As crucial factors we define: Lack of political trust Lack of common goals Lack of common identity
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STABILITY: The realist scenario The following is the summary of the discussions held in Bratislava, October 19th-23rd, 2009. The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of each team member. EUROPE IN 2010 SOCIAL FACTORS Depopulation of rural areas Aging of population National identity Secularism
POLITICAL FACTORS
SECURITY FACTORS
Widening vs. Deepening of the EU Democracy and stability Radicalism Political culture Power inequality
Military security Energy security Food security
STABILITY
EUROPE IN 2030
1. AN EXTENDED EUROPE? The concept of Europe can be perceived on various levels and in different dimensions. While the discussions about the various levels and dimensions, such as from the political, economic, geographic and other perspectives do have their academic value, it is plausible to consider Europe in practical terms as a concept centered around the European union and the cooperation of non-member states with the EU. Despite the fact, that some countries are not or not yet a member of the European Union, they still engage in tight cooperation with it in different ways. Therefore we could draw a line from this concept to a model of an extended Europe based either on possible direct involvement as EU membership in a long term or strong cooperation ties with the EU in shorter terms.
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However, we do not try to imply that all European countries have to become an EU member state. We merely present the idea that even for non-member states a tight cooperation with the EU is a strategic aspect in both economic and political terms. As for the EU, the current European Union enlargement project is in our opinion impossible to absorb all remaining European countries in the current situation – therefore a possible solution is a stronger affiliation or cooperation agreements between the EU and border countries on a different level than EU membership. Within the given mechanisms for prosperity and stability there are tools to ensure the economic and political goals without actually taking new members, e.g. through the „eastern partnership“ mechanism or EFTA – granting market access without having new countries in the political system. Besides, after the recent enlargements in 2004 and 2007 we perceive an „enlargement fatigue” that has to be dealt with beforehand. The realistic group theses for the concept of an extended Europe can therefore be summarised as follows: (1) Some sort of integration will continue to 2030 – most likely not as full EU members for all remaining countries but as partners of the EU (2) By offering membership or access to economic mechanisms it is possible to stabilize neighbouring countries (3) The Copenhagen criteria can serve as a first step to stability (although democracy does not necessarily imply stability and prosperity) 2. POLITICAL FACTORS OF STABILITY Considering the current processes within the extended Europe project as regards the tightening of cooperation bonds, we apply a two-level approach. The approach basically consists of differentiating between vertical and horizontal integration processes that are characterized by the level of commitment and the scope of commitment. Simplified, the issue is about the seemingly conflicting tendencies of “deepening” and the “widening” of the European Union. The realistic perspective is that for a further widening of the scope of commitment, it is necessary to also achieve a certain “reasonable” depth for the deepening processes of the commitment levels. Nevertheless, there are still certain policy areas that will prove difficult to harmonise and deepen in the process. For example in the case of social standards, the European Union will most likely not deepen too much because of the great differences within the states and the different models applied. On the other hand, there is also some reluctance from citizens of EU member states with respect to the deepening processes. We believe the fact that EU citizens will not accept a higher level of influence on their nation states power from the side of the European 27
Union to be a reality, that will change only slowly over time and that it is unrealistic to expect by the timeframe of 20 years a significant shift towards an all absorbing supranational entity. That leads us to the issue of multi-level governance structures. The overarching processes between national and supranational bodies characterized by the European Union will in our opinion need to be more synchronized in order to be functional under the pressure of a further deepening. However, we do not expect a significant change by 2030. An important factor of stability that the European Union project is interconnected with from its beginning is democracy. The issue is nonetheless more complex and democratic participation alone is not necessarily a stabilizing factor. While we agree upon the fact, that prosperity can lead to and secure a high level of democracy; democracy is not stable but dynamic and does not necessarily lead to prosperity and stability. The underlying aspect lies in the ability to differentiate between the political system and the government. The concept of prosperity that the EU evolved around has been a strong motivation factor for countries to join the EU in the past and the fact that Europe, a place of both major world conflicts, has since been able to avoid the conflict pressures through cooperation, is a valid historical argument. However, under the current situation EU democratic participation will not influence the stability of Europe. Another factor with a possible significant effect on the stability of Europe is radicalism. Radicalism can be a real threat for overall stability of Europe, especially in the form of political extremism. However, we believe that radicalism can be dealt with and effectively contained. This is mainly due to one important aspect characterising the modern radical movements of today. Radical movements or groups are more and more refraining from the use of extremist ways and methods and are trying to achieve their goals through legitimate ways, for example by forming political parties in compliance with the political electoral system. Furthermore, extremist actions are less utilized as they create a mixed perception and can lead in effect to an adverse reaction of the general public. As such, radical movements are slowly moving into the mainstream where they will be dampened or absorbed. Nevertheless, political radicalism manifested by radical right/left-wing parties can be seen as a general threat, especially in the context of unequal distribution of wealth, social problems, ethnic conflicts and different ideological systems such as religions. We believe however, that these tendencies will play only a marginal role by 2030. Factors such as democracy and radicalism can however be seen through the prism of political cultures. While political ideologies can vary, political culture is generally a set of values applied in the process of governance that is relatively stable. Although it can be viewed as an ex post phenomenon that is carried out by the political elites, it is in fact a 28
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general acceptance towards national politics and political legitimacy by citizens. From this point of view, we don’t expect that different political cultures could pose a treat for the stability of Europe. Additionally, a greater cohesion in the field of political cultures should not be a goal of Europe and would even prove difficult to achieve. Pluralistic system could lead to more cosmopolitan than national political culture, but in a long term beyond 2030. The existence of different political cultures will not have an impact on stability of Europe. The different issues that can lead to the aforementioned considerations are intergroup conflicts, especially if they escalate in extreme forms. These may results from different social environment relations, whether it is ethnic border relations or migration issues and economic relations among the members. In general, we don’t think Europe has a sufficient arrangement for conflict resolution in all areas, but on the other hand, it is part of various other mechanisms that are able and capable in solving the problems at hand. Where Europe has an elaborate mechanism highly effective in handling and solving the possible occurring problems and conflict resolutions is the area of economic conflicts. That however might be subject to change as the general economic development and world economy issues such as the global crisis pose a threat and might need further cooperation on the level of conflict resolution. While discussing political factors of stability, it is also necessary to mention the aspect of power inequality. While some opinions see this topic as a possible factor for political stability especially in the context of power distribution within the European Union, we don’t view this issue to be a real threat towards stability of Europe as a whole. Power inequality will always exist and it could pose a challenge to solidarity, but will not cause a major conflict in the EU. Basically every change of the European Union system brought by the revision of European treaties has brought a shift towards more balanced power distribution, mainly in the area of representation of the citizens of EU and also in the area of the position of small states within the institutional framework of the EU. From that point of view, we do not see power inequality as a real threat as there are continuous efforts to solve the possible issues. And while there will always be some “objective” inequality, the resulting consequences will not pose a threat to the stability of Europe by 2030.
3. SOCIAL FACTORS OF STABILITY The social factors of stability apply in a more indirect way. Furthermore, the resulting issues are harder to deal with as they cannot be effectively influenced in a short term but have to be handled over longer time periods. Additionally, social experiments are difficult to predict or even control effectively as they are influenced by a mixed set of determinants not necessarily in a direct relation. 29
In this context, we see two main trends that we believe to be problematic and highly related to the stability issue. The first one is the ongoing depopulation of rural areas. As economies are advancing, urban areas are getting more populated not only due to the shift of GDP structure and composition. Nonetheless, the shift towards a more service oriented economy and high profile specialisation in industry is also causing a geographical distribution of the economy structure. Rural areas become more agriculture oriented as the services and industry concentrated more in cities and urban agglomerations. Consecutively, rural areas offer less employment opportunities which can be solved in most cases only through migration into cities. The resulting depopulation can lead to several social problems in the rural areas but also problems in overpopulated urban areas. The European Union deals specifically with this issue through the common agriculture policy, where the farmers are supported due to various aims such as food security, food accessibility and external independence even though they represent only a small share of the population. In this way, also rural areas are possible to get some support but this concept does not solve the depopulation issue effectively. Existing tools and policies to support regional development specifically targeted at rural areas could help in solving this problems but realistically, this won’t change significantly by 2030. In fact, we believe the depopulation of rural areas to continue in the next 20 years and see it as a threatening factor to stability. Another trend is the aging of population. This is a problem for most developed countries and is problematic to solve without social implications. Less people are needed to sustain the population in terms of needs, on the other hand, the population structure shifting towards the unproductive group of senior citizens causes demand on the social system. In the context of stability, both of these issues are possible to be solved through migration which is partially already in process. The demographic development can lead to social inequality and has to be dealt with to prevent social unrest. Additionally, extending the age for retirement poses challenges for the labour market to find a niche for this workforce who on the other hand can lead to stress on the labour market for different workforce groups, such as part time workers or young people without work experience. But migration can open a wholly different set of issues for stability. This is especially relevant for the position of migrants in the immigration countries with issues such as discrimination or job segregation. In this respect we also see a kind of ethnic division of jobs, which is not necessarily a issue only for immigrants. The labour market is getting “ethnicized” by visibly dividing low rated jobs done by specific population groups, whether it is immigrants from third countries or work migrants inside the European Union, or ethnic groups in member countries that are already citizens of said countries more than one generation. The general division, although problematic in terms of direct intent, can be seen as a form of indirect discrimination and could be a problem for stability in the long term. 30
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While these issues are relevant challenges and highly possible problems, we also see an opportunity that these issues can open. Europe has to adapt to this situation and in this respect can develop innovative welfare policies. While generally unpopular, they can be accepted in a long term as a necessity to solve the presented problems. Another social factor of stability can be the national and civic identity. While we perceive ongoing efforts to “implant” the idea of European citizenship into the citizens of European nation states in the EU, the outcomes are somewhat questionable. We are aware of the fact, that the concept of European citizenship never aspired to replace the national identity but was aimed to supplement it. Nevertheless, in our opinion it has yet not taken roots in the minds of the citizens as an organic part of their identity. It serves only as an external identifier, as a supra-national perception level for non-Europeans. National and civic identity is and will stay important in the future, but it will not have an impact on overall stability. Among other factors of stability, sometimes also the issue of religious diversity is mentioned. It is possible for this factor to have an impact on stability, especially in the context of religious fundamentalism or extremism. However, Europe was so far able to handle the religious diversity without major implications on stability. Furthermore, we see the trend of higher secularisation, which can lead to higher stability as religious movements will have less political effect. There will most probably be more religious diversity in Europe and it may even spawn several social issues and possible minor conflicts, but will not substantially influence the stability of Europe.
4. SECURITY AS FACTOR OF STABILITY Historically, Europe has faced several armed conflicts and both world wars on its territory. Even in the modern era, Europe was not free from conflict escalations such as the Balkan conflict in the 90s. Additionally, modern methods of warfare and invisible threats such as terrorism pose a new kind of challenge for security on the European continent. From this point of view, we identify several types of security that we discuss further. Military security is the traditional kind of state security that has been in the centre of attention for the longest time among the other types. Unlike the individual states, that secure the military security by creating their own armed forces, the European Union has no army to deal with military threats on a collective and collaborative basis. However, we don’t see this fact a problematic factor for stability since the EU is part of other mechanism that are sufficient enough, most notably the NATO, that is the most important current tool for keeping military security and handling military threats and conflict situations and the Western European Union, that has played its historical role 31
in development of an European culture on security and defense. Since the move towards a political union expressed by the failed constitutional treaty has been halted, we see it unlikely that the EU would proceed to form a permanent collective army. Among the relatively new types of security are energy security and food security that are not new concepts in them, but play a separate role in the overall security due to the changing nature of conflicts and the changing international political and economic environment. Energy security is a vital part of stability since it influences the whole economic life in a state and the prospects for development. In the context of the European Union we see this issue as a big problem and a high threat for the stability of Europe. In the current situation of the European energy mix, despite the diversification efforts, Europe is highly dependent on external energy sources and most probably will become even more as the demand will rise. Due to the diminishing supply of fossil fuels and environmental issues, we expect renewable energies to be used slightly more but they will not be able to cover all demand in 2030. If the diversification measures and strategies for a balanced energy mix are not pursued more vigorously, this will be a serious problem for energy security by 2030 and accordingly a high threat for stability. Food security is also a vital part of overall security but in this case, we don’t expect food security to be a higher threat for stability than it is now as it is continuously evolving and the measures of control and organisation will evolve accordingly, e.g. through the Common agriculture policy. There will almost certainly be effective instruments to guarantee sufficient amounts of food for an acceptable price for the citizens of Europe. Given no radical changes, food security will not pose substantial threat to the European stability.
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II. PROSPERITY Akureyri, Iceland February 8-12, 2010
QUO VADIS EUROPE? FACTORS OF PROSPERITY economic
environmental
R&D
Sustainable development
Green energy vs. traditional sources
Bologna process
EEC and its role in future
Sustainable development
Lisbon Strategy
World economy trends
Transportation and its impacts on the environment
Knowledge economy
Internalisation of externalities
Transportation systems and liberalization International trade and investment
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PROSPERITY: The optimist scenario The following is the summary of the discussions held in Akureyri, February 8th-12th, 2010. The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of each team member. EUROPE IN 2010 WELFARE
ENERGY SUPPLY
KNOWLEDGE
Zero population growth Separate welfare systems Pension system reform Strong social rights Better labor markets
2nd generation biofuels Nuclear energy Solar energy Wind energy
Diverse education systems Public-private partnerships Lower bureaucracy Higher internal migration Better R&D support
KNOWLEDGE-BASED SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY Common welfare > national welfare Liberalism in real markets
“Made in Europe” = guarantee of quality Strong regulation of financial markets
EUROPE IN 2030
1. GENERAL FUTURE OF EUROPEAN ECONOMY The economic future of Europe is not as bleak as many scientists portray it to be. Before we start considering its prospects, we think it is necessary to bring to the attention of the readers the main difference between European and North American model, as defined by Blanchard:10 “Europe has used some of the increase in productivity to increase leisure rather than income, while the U.S. has done the opposite.” In our opinion this is the way a modern economy should work. Therefore, we can consider economic development to be positive even if income remains the same, provided that leisure of citizens increases. We have identified numerous measures Europe can take to ensure positive development of its economies. The following paragraphs sum up our discussions on how to ensure prosperity in Europe in the near future. 10
Blanchard, O. (2004): The economic future of Europe. In Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 3-26.
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First, there is the question of strengths and weaknesses of the continent. The motto of the European Union “united in diversity” includes both of them. Diversity might be deemed as weakness as it induces ineffective use of scarce resources. On the other hand, co-operation of diverse economies enables exchange of know-how and best practices, leading thus to increased effectiveness. There is no need for complete convergence of cultures or economic systems in Europe. Each country should specialize in what it knows the best, while adopting best practices from fellow countries. This is where we see the future position of Europe – Europe should not portray itself as producer of a particular product or home to a particular industry. Instead, each country should keep their national differences and base the economic developments on them. The one thing Europe should have in common is quality. The brand “made in Europe” must become well-known and must be associated with the highest quality, to the same extent as “made in Switzerland” or “made in Germany” are today. With growing middle classes in Latin America, Asia and potentially in Africa, this clearly constitutes an opportunity for the European economies. An efficient Europe-wide system of quality control is therefore needed. It is necessary to state that quality does not imply standardization! The European Union has a long history of adopting bizarre regulations, such as setting the rules for shapes and sizes of bananas, tomatoes etc. This approach is beneficial neither to the customer nor to the producer. Fortunately, these regulations have been revoked by now. What is needed is a stronger and more complex system of quality controls of all products which Europe exports. High hygienic, phytosanitary and technological standards are already in place in the EU. If customers’ rights legislation is strengthened and enforced in all parts of Europe, “made in Europe” will soon become a prime brand Chinese or American producers will not be able to compete with. As mentioned before, as European countries have different resource endowments and comparative advantages, their scopes of production should remain different. Obviously, the main comparative advantages of Europe as a region can be found in the fields of tertiary education, research and development, hi-tech services and sports.11 These are the sectors that should receive the most attention and financial support. In addition, we believe it would be helpful to select some products that each European country could market worldwide and become identified with them. For example, everyone knows Swiss watches, Belgian chocolate, French wines and cheese or German cars. But what do people on other continents generally identify with Slovakia, Estonia or Georgia? An intensive marketing campaign will be necessary to increase general knowledge about Europe and its products. The key is branding of products.
11
For example European football leagues are followed all over the world and bring billions of euros worth of revenue. The same is valid for formula 1, etc.
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Another important question is what Europe should do to avoid a repetition of financial and economic crises such as the current one. A clear recipe would be stronger financial regulation. Some instruments and practices that had been used previously on financial markets need to be forbidden, other ones need to be closely supervised. Europe should follow a policy of elimination of tax havens and companies with doubtful financing. Also, monitoring of rating agencies should be increased. Strong regulation of financial markets has to be accompanied by higher degree of liberalism in real economy. We acknowledge some sectors might be subject to stricter regulation than others. Generally, these ought to be the sectors with potential strategic impacts on welfare of Europe as a whole and of its regions – energy supply, transportation and aviation to mention a few. The decision about concrete regulatory measures should be left open to the national governments. However, we believe regulations should always be kept at their lowest acceptable level. If regulations create additional paperwork and if they start directing non-essential matters, Europe will be “back to the bananas”. Also, the discussion about public and private ownership of strategic companies is useless as long as the basic functions of each economy are maintained by proper regulations. Both types of ownership have their pros and cons and it is not our ambition to compare and to judge them. The economic future of Europe is endangered by attempts to increase national welfare on the expense of general European welfare. This practice has to be gotten rid of and banned entirely. One of the most striking examples is the adoption of transitional periods by the old members of the European Union against the 2004 and 2007 newcomers. Today, almost 7 years after the eight Central European countries joined the Union, several transitional periods still exist. Germany and Austria limit free movement of workforce although it has been proved by experience of other countries (such as United Kingdom or Ireland) that economic reasoning behind it is doubtful. This practice undermines the spirit of economic co-operation and follows the policy of “beggar your neighbor.” In addition to all the factors we have already mentioned we think there are three important areas that will determine economic future of Europe: (1) sustainability of welfare systems, (2) renewable energy use, and (3) building of the knowledge economy. These will be discussed in the following sections.
2. WELFARE SYSTEM The ongoing demographic changes in Europe constitute a significant threat for the future welfare of the continent. The population is ageing and the fertility rate is below replacement level. Several of the national pension systems are unsustainable. The demographical problem can be divided into two basic questions: How can we achieve 36
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non-negative population growth? How can we achieve sustainability of European welfare system(s)? How can we achieve non-negative population growth? For a civilization not to die out it is necessary to achieve a neutral population growth. This means the number of births plus net migration should be greater than the number of deaths. While generally accepted replacement level fertility is 2.1 children per woman the European Union achieves only 1.51. According to Eurostat and CIA the worst situation can be seen in some Central and Eastern European countries (e.g. Lithuania, Czech Republic and Belarus) where total fertility rate barely reaches 1.30. Currently the only part of Europe that surpasses the 2.1 children/woman level is Greenland. Overall, fertility rates of Western and Northern Europe are higher than fertility rates of Southern and Eastern Europe. There are two ways to achieve non-negative population growth in Europe. The preferred way is to stimulate fertility. However, if resident population is not willing to reproduce at the required speed, governments have to support immigration. A logical method of increasing fertility is to support parents and young families. A woman is more likely to have a child when she is guaranteed not to lose her job while she is on maternity leave. We believe this is one of the crucial tasks each government has to face. A strict (possibly Europe-wide) legislation will be needed to ensure no employer can lay off an employee due to child-related reasons. Also, we acknowledge the term “maternity leave” is outdated and should be replaced by “parental leave.” Although traditionally mothers are responsible for the upbringing of children, the fathers should be entitled (maybe even required) by law to a paid parental leave. This model is already functional in some Nordic countries. Any labor market measures will have to be accompanied by generous child benefits. Taking into account the replacement level fertility of 2.1 we suggest setting child benefit systems in such a manner that would stimulate families to bring up 2 or 3 children. Child benefits for the second and third child should be considerably higher than child benefits for the first child. In addition, tax allowances for the second and third child should be stimulating. To prevent misuse of the system, benefits available for more than three children have to be minimal. Therefore, the social policy of European governments has to follow these simple equations: (1) Opportunity costs of having 1-3 children are smaller than opportunity costs of having no children. (2) Opportunity costs of having 4 or more children are greater than opportunity costs of having 1-3 children, but smaller than having no children. 37
Apart from motivating parents to have more than one child it is necessary to motivate businesses to employ young women and create favorable conditions for families with children. This can be done by means of offering tax advantages for hiring employees with small children, adjusting social insurance payments, etc. If achieving a replacement level fertility of 2.1 proves impossible, the only viable solution is supporting immigration. Due to all the risks involved, the immigration always has to be government-controlled. While it might seemingly be a good idea to define preferable source regions, any discrimination of immigrants on the grounds of race or nationality would be contra-productive. What the governments should focus on is preference of young individuals and families with tertiary education and a clean criminal record. The more diverse the origin of immigrants, the more likely they are to acclimatize successfully, adopt local customs and become an integral part of the European society. From a long term perspective the best solution might be to stabilize the European population at a sustainable level, either by means of fertility rate control or immigration control. This approach would require a thorough demographic, economic and environmental research to determine what level can be deemed to be sustainable. Moreover, it bears risks of being misused by radical political movements. Therefore we cannot recommend it and have to disapprove of it. How can we achieve sustainability of European welfare system(s)? Europe does not have a common welfare system. Instead, a variety of different models exist across the continent – the Nordic model, the Continental model, the Mediterranean model, the Central/East European model and the Anglo-Saxon model. Different models are applied in countries with diverse history, culture and different roles of family. Therefore these models differ widely in many aspects. Recognizing the diversity of Europe it is not desirable to create a common European welfare model. Indeed, such an attempt would be doomed to failure. The primary reasons for this are cultural and economic differences between countries. Moreover, a common welfare model would require a common tax policy. The discussion between supporters of flat tax and those of progressive taxation seems to be never-ending. Even though we believe flat tax is more appropriate, we acknowledge the European Union (let alone Europe as a region) is not prepared for tax harmonization and it is hard to foresee a political will for its adoption in the next 20-30 years. What Europe needs, is a common set of goals that should be followed by all European countries, regardless of the chosen methods. The focus of national welfare systems should be developed around the following points:
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Unify social rights. Europe is a global leader in adopting human rights declarations. In the field of social rights the European Social Charter was adopted in 1961 and revised in 1996 by the Council of Europe. Social rights are also included in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union which is an integral part of the Treaty of Lisbon. We believe Europe should go further and set minimum definitions of European welfare that every country would be obliged to observe. These could include rules for minimum wage, parental leaves and child benefits. Motivate people to work until higher age. The main problem of European welfare models is the ageing population. While in the past four participating workers used to work for each pensioner, the number has plummeted ever since. This situation is unsustainable. One of the measures governments have begun to take is increasing the pension age. Considering medical developments of the last decades that enable citizens to stay fit until a high age, this is a step in the right direction. However, businesses have to be stimulated to hire elderly workers. In general, young workers are much more effective and willing to work overtime than older employees; it is therefore completely understandable on barely economic grounds why an entrepreneur should prefer a young employee to his older counterpart. This is where government should step in and offer tax benefits to businesses employing certain proportion of elderly workers. Although slower, they dispose of considerable know-how which they can transfer to young generations. Offer support to people with disabilities. Disabled people are often extremely motivated to work. If they find a job suitable for them, their efficiency is usually among the highest. For example, a person with paralyzed legs can effectively be employed as a closed circuit TV operator. The positives of supporting people with disabilities are twofold: first, their work contributes to national welfare. Moreover, a job helps them socialize and achieve a feeling of self-fulfillment. Mobilize other marginalized groups. Other groups that are often marginalized at labor markets are young women, national and ethnic minorities. A Europe-wide policy of their inclusion into the labor market has to be laid down. Support internal migration. One of the main differences between the U.S. and European labor markets is the extent of internal migration. Supporting internal migration could help mitigate the tensions within some national pension systems. This issue will be dealt with more extensively in the fourth section of this scenario. Adopt a reform of national pension systems. Even if all of the above mentioned measures were successfully implemented, a complex reform of the national pension systems would still be needed. The pension systems of the European continent will not be able to withstand the challenges related to zero population growth. It is therefore obvious that 39
the pay-as-you-go system applied in many European countries has to be complemented by a system of personal retirement accounts. Whether these accounts should be run by public or private entities is open to discussion.
3. RENEWABLE ENERGY An aspect which will play a crucial role in the economic future of Europe is the energy supply. Few people doubt that the era of cheap oil is over. Consequently, Europe has to become less reliant on fossil fuels and start investing more heavily in renewable energy. Biomass and biofuels The beginning of the 21st century has seen a rising popularity of biomass and biofuels. Annually, billions of Euros flow into biofuels-related research. Since 2008 some leading airlines have been experimenting with using Jatropha- and algae-based biofuels as an alternative source of fuels. Progress can also be seen in automotive industry. In our opinion Europe should focus on the second and third generation biofuels. This is not to say that the first generation biofuels have to be abandoned entirely. Owing to generous provisions of the Common Agricultural Policy agricultural production of the EU chronically achieves surplus. This surplus should preferably be used for humanitarian aid and for biofuels production.12 However, we would like to emphasize that only superfluous food crops should be used for the production of bio-fuels. Planting food crops with a singular goal of their use in energy supply is unacceptable. The second generation biofuels increase energy production by using biomass consisting of stems, leaves, husks and other plant parts that cannot be used for food production. As there is no competition with food production we consider it much more sustainable than the first generation of biofuels. In Europe we can see a big potential for using biomass for energy production. Huge amounts of biomass can be collected daily by establishing a proper recycling system, such as the one working in Germany or Austria. Other European countries have to follow their example and make recycling one of the priorities. Other than biomass the second generation biofuels can be produced from some nonfood energy crops such as Jatropha. We propose cultivating these crops on land that had previously been used for producing food surplus (as a result of the CAP). In addition to first and second generation biofuels, more effort has to be invested in R&D of algae as a potential sustainable energy source. 12
In no case should the surplus be used as an instrument of the official development aid. Agricultural imports into poor countries significantly distort their agricultural markets.
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Another important issue regarding biofuels is genetic modification of crops and bacteria to increase their energy content. We do not oppose this practice as long as strict regulations are in place and there is no risk that the genetically modified material could leak into the free nature. Nuclear energy Many scientists and even more ordinary people consider nuclear energy a clean energy. Nevertheless, the debates on its pros and cons are usually very polarized and accompanied by demonstrations. From the scientific point of view it has to be agreed that nuclear energy is a clean energy source as it produces no greenhouse gases. The two crucial problems of nuclear energy are nuclear accidents and disposal of nuclear waste. The risks of serious nuclear accidents can be minimized by setting high technological and operation standards. However, it cannot be eliminated completely. Taking into account the enormous consequences a nuclear accident implies, one might require a complete ban on nuclear power plants. On the other hand, Western made nuclear power plants have been working for more than 40 years now and there has not been a single accident classified above INES level 5.13 Moreover, continuous advance of technologies used make serious accidents less likely than ever before and nuclear energy is becoming safer. An issue that has to be resolved yet is nuclear waste disposal. From a long term perspective storage of nuclear waste on our planet is dangerous and unsustainable. As there is currently no way to transport it to outer space, nuclear waste has to be treated with utmost care and should always be stored in safe repositories far away from civilization. As long as these conditions are fulfilled, the future of Europe lies in nuclear energy. Solar, wind and hydro energy Generally, solar, wind and hydro energy are considered to be the most sustainable and renewable energy sources. Geothermal energy might be added to the list, but due to its specifics it can be profitably used only in a few places in the world. Solar energy clearly constitutes the most effective supplemental source of energy in areas with regular periods of sunlight. Towards the middle of the current century it might become a primary source of energy for European households and even for small and medium businesses. Until then, more investment in development of solar technologies is needed to overcome the main problems – high initial costs, low efficiency and limited possibilities of energy storage. 13
Chernobyl accident was classified as INES 7, being the highest possible level.
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Limited possibilities of energy storage hinder Europe-wide expansion of wind energy as well. So far it has been used only sporadically, the biggest exceptions being Denmark, Spain and Portugal. The three countries mentioned produce more than 10 per cent of their daily energy consumption from wind power and the percentage keeps increasing. The experience of these countries is predominantly positive and therefore it is expected that wind energy increases its penetration in other suitable countries as well. Critics of wind power claim that wind turbines kill disproportional numbers of birds and bats, and emit unacceptable level of noise. While it has been proved that the wind turbines do not kill more wildlife than for example fossil power plants, health effects of noise and vibrations are questionable. We believe there are regions in Europe where more wind power capacity should be installed, preferably regions with low population density. After complex examinations of its effects on human health have been carried out, wind power might become an important energy source for Europe. Seemingly very sustainable and environmentally friendly energy source is hydro energy. However, building dams and water reservoirs disturbs ecological balance and should therefore be limited to a minimum.
4. KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY The Lisbon Strategy, adopted by the European Union in 2010 and refocused by the Kok report in 2005 is one of the most ambitious documents in the field of research and development worldwide. Converting Europe to become “the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion, and respect for the environment by 2010” is a correct goal. However, it remained largely unfulfilled due to lack of operative instruments and political will. A new Lisbon strategy for Europe is needed. There is no question about supporting knowledge economy, innovations and research and development. These have to be integral parts of every strategy to come! The problems can be stated as follows: • • •
What changes to make in the systems of education in Europe? Is standardization a way to go? Where to find funding for public involvement in R&D? How to support involvement of private entities in R&D?
Education systems in Europe are diverse. In some countries (e.g. Slovakia and Czech Republic) university education is for free, while in others (e.g. United Kingdom) tuition and other fees have to be paid. The differences can be seen in almost every area of college life, from teacher/student ratios and classroom equipment, to teaching methods 42
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used. We believe that the diversity of education systems is beneficial to the students and the academic community as a whole and should be preserved. However, a certain degree of convergence is deemed to be necessary. The quality of country’s research and development is determined on secondary education level. There is always a certain percentage of high school students who perform better than their fellows, be it in general or in a specific subject only. Regarding this, we have identified two basic approaches to secondary education: the system can (1) support the outperformers by enabling them to build custom-made curricula designed to develop and strengthen their skills. This can be achieved either on the individual level (personal curriculum), the institutional level (specialized classes for best students of the school) or on the system-wide level (special schools for especially talented students). Another option is (2) to decelerate the advance of outperformers by having to wait for the last student in class. This can be likened to the principle of train building, where the speed of a train is determined by the slowest cart in the formation. Clearly, to support R&D one has to prefer the first method mentioned. Critics of this approach warn from lower socializing ability of outperforming students. Nevertheless, socializing programs can be introduced to minimize this kind of drawbacks. A question of utmost importance is the public funding of R&D. So far, the main financial burden lies on national government budgets. However, due to different financial abilities of European countries and due to their peculiar sets of priorities, the amount of funding differs greatly. Northern European countries are the leaders in this aspect, whereas Central and Eastern European countries lag behind. In our opinion it is the European Union who should play a major part in R&D funding. The average annual budget of the EU for the current period (2007-2013) totals more than EUR 120 billion. Major part of this finance is allocated to agriculture. It is not our aim to contribute to the discussion on the importance of the Common Agricultural Policy and its effectiveness; though it is obvious the billions of Euros it consumes annually could be more effectively used in other sectors. We believe a euro invested in R&D leaves a more significant footprint on Europe’s future than a euro invested in the CAP. This is not supposed to mean the CAP should be dismantled – we acknowledge its positive impacts on food security, food production and external position of the EU. The CAP should be re-evaluated and downsized, the savings being invested in R&D. If the EU is to become the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world, it has to decrease the investments in the least dynamic and competitive notreally-knowledge-based sectors. Another possibility on how to finance R&D from public budgets is to introduce an EU-wide (or potentially Europe-wide) value-added tax surcharge of 0.1 to 0.5 per cent. 43
Although requiring a broad discussion, this measure might be an effective accelerator of innovations in Europe. Apart from finding public funds to finance R&D, a major goal of the EU should be to support involvement of private entities in R&D funding. A successful policy of fomenting businesses that invest in R&D has been the main force behind USA’s current position as the global innovator. To help Europe reach this goal we suggest adopting following measures: Encourage public-private partnership: Systems of public-private partnership in R&D have been implemented successfully in many countries around the world, including some countries in the EU. Of utmost importance for the competitiveness of an economy is co-operation between tertiary education institutions and businesses. This has to be improved especially in the EU-newcomers and in other countries of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. Applied research has to be coordinated with businesses. The coordination should include funding, recruitment of the best students and adoption of new technologies into production. Private entities should also be supported to fund basic research which is of no immediate importance for production. Offer tax reductions: One of the standard ways of supporting R&D is offering tax concessions to eligible businesses. The amount of money private entities invest in universities and science centers should be deductible from their taxable base. Another possibility is to introduce a system that has been working in Slovakia for some years now – a co-called 2-per-cent rule. Every eligible tax payer (be it a multi-national company or a single worker) can donate 2 per cent of their income tax to a foundation of their choice. If adopted universally this system could bring billions of Euros into the European charitable and R&D foundations. Streamline and standardize bureaucracy procedures: Opening a business in a foreign country is a very complex task. The requirements vary and so does the administration intensity. According to “Doing Business 2010” (www.doingbusiness.org) United Kingdom is the best place in Europe to start a business – it requires only 6 procedures and takes 13 days. In Greece it requires 15 procedures and takes 19 days. Huge differences can also be seen in dealing with construction permits, rules for registering property and employing workers, getting credit, paying taxes, etc. To increase competitiveness, these rules need to be standardized throughout Europe. We do not propose harmonizing tax policies and other measures that could endanger national sovereignty of European countries; what we suggest is a standardization of rules for launching businesses. Europe-wide rules and common European forms would streamline the bureaucracy. Other common rules should be adopted for venture capital, patents and innovations in general.
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Simplify the EU research bureaucracy: The EU has been investing heavily into intraEuropean movement of students and researchers. Good examples of this are programs such as Erasmus and Leonardo da Vinci which have been successful in increasing student mobility and perhaps also in spreading ideas of common European future. We believe the scope of these programs should be enlarged and the bureaucracy diminished. This is of a crucial importance for multimillion Euro programs such as European Social Fund or European Economic Area Grants. The administrative burden of these projects is unacceptable and is in such vein clearly contra-productive. It is not rare to see researchers browsing through hundreds of pages of administrative paperwork instead of focusing on research itself. Therefore many researchers from small institutions with limited resources are effectively eliminated from these kinds of projects. Encourage movement of labor within Europe: The main difference between the European and U.S. labor markets is the ease of labor movement. While the majority of the factors behind this fact are objective (differences in cultures and languages), other restrictions have been artificially imposed by governments. First, although the EU defines itself as an area of free movement of labor, this is not the case with new Member States. Austria and Germany insist on applying labor movement restrictions until 2011, that is, 7 years after the EU Eastward enlargement. This clearly hinders stabilization of the European labor market. Second, a functioning system of pan-European recognition of qualifications is needed. Third, the immigration bureaucracy needs to be simplified. All these issues need to be taken care of as soon as possible. We suggest beginning with reciprocal recognition of qualifications and establishment of national “contact points” where immigrants could file all their paperwork necessary for their stay. Standardize the rules for incoming FDI: Many European countries (especially from Central and Eastern Europe) support incoming foreign direct investors by means of tax concessions and other incentives. We believe it is a task for each national government to set the rules for FDI incentives to suit their specific needs. The rules have to be clear and publicly available. We propose limiting offering of the incentives to those companies that bring the highest added value and innovations to the economy. A company that comes to a European country to operate R&D centers and produce hi-tech goods should be offered much higher incentives than a company whose business plan consists entirely in producing (or assembling) regular consumer goods. We believe that the above mentioned measures, if adopted after appropriate public discussion and with general consensus, will increase the competitiveness of Europe on global scale. There is a question of whether Central and Eastern European countries can be successful in building knowledge economies. The answer is easy: yes, they can. The only difficulty 45
lies in the need to change the socialist way of thinking that is still present at various levels of government and business. An example of such pathological thinking can be illustrated on the following example from the field of tertiary education: in Western and Northern Europe it is unacceptable to write a Master thesis by copying ideas of other authors and neglecting correct citations and references. In many Central and Eastern European countries students who plagiarize are not condemned by their fellows; such behavior supports plagiarism. A complex change of certain aspects of thinking and political culture is therefore needed. Finally, one has to be aware of an economic rule called “the advantage of the newcomers”. Countries which have entered hi-tech markets later than others can benefit from available know-how and skip some stages of development that might have taken years in the latter countries. An ideal example of this is the African telecommunications sector: While Europe and North America spent a century developing and using landlines, Africa has skipped this stage almost entirely and has been directly developing mobile communication. All in all, we believe that the future of Europe as a “knowledge-based continent” is bright. In a long term, taking into account various factors such as population growth and the emergence of new economic superpowers it is probably not possible to be the “most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world.” However, Europe has all that it takes to become a knowledge-based economy capable of sustainable economic growth. Sustainability of the growth will make the difference – we cannot see the word “sustainable” being used to describe economies of emerging superpowers for decades to come.
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PROSPERITY: The pessimist scenario The following is the summary of the discussions held in Akureyri, February 8th-12th, 2010. The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of each team member.
EUROPE IN 2010 WELFARE
ENERGY SUPPLY
KNOWLEDGE
Negative population growth Separate welfare systems Problematic pension system reform
Rising dependency on foreign resources Weak role of nonrenewable resources
Diverse education systems Failure of Lisbon strategy Weak R&D spending Lack of political commitment
A KNOWLEDGE-BASED SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY??? Growing innovation deficit between the EU and its main rivals
Growing dependency on foreign energy resources
EUROPE IN 2030
1. GENERAL FUTURE OF EUROPEAN ECONOMY Today, Europe belongs to the main motors of the world economy with the European Union playing a key role. There is no doubt that the decades of European integration brought a lot of success in the area of economic development in Europe and made the EU a vital player in the global economic arena. However, the current global economic crisis shows that the EU is vulnerable to global economic fluctuations and the Greek debt crisis showed deep cracks in the structure of the Eurozone. The pessimist group thinks that the continuing debt crisis in the Eurozone has a lethal potential for the future and can even lead to its dissolution. The only way to stop future debt crises is to develop a stronger system of fiscal rules and checks on the EU level. Unfortunately, this notion will be met by a strong resistance from the member states 47
as the fiscal policy is the last field of economic policies created independently on the national level. But ultimately, if the EU and the Euro are to survive in the future further transfer of policies to the EU level is a necessity. The pessimist group is not convinced that this transfer will happen in the foreseeable future and this development will undermine the future economic development in Europe. Furthermore, the current global economic crisis shows us that the EU is not prepared to face such a deep global crisis. Most of the anti-crisis policies were decided on the national level and the cooperation on the EU level was problematic due to the different national interests of the individual member states. Only the direct threat to the euro was able to start a common response on the level of the Eurozone and even this response was slow and indecisive. Economic cycles will continue to play an important role in the global economy in the future, so the EU will face similar (maybe even more severe) economic crises in the future. In order to be able to face them, the EU has to improve the coordination of its economic policies. The events of the current months show us that such a development will be very complicated maybe even unlikely. The pessimist group feels that even in 2030 the national states will play a strong role in the economic policies and the EU level will be still weaker than it is desirable. On the other hand, even the pessimist group does not feel that the current global crisis will mean a return to protectionist policies. The current anti globalization sentiments are only temporary, as most political leaders and countries realize the advantages of free trade and they are aware that any protectionist policies could severely disrupt the global economy. Moreover, the integration process in Europe produced many positive results in the last decades and it resulted in an EU tied together with complex economic ties. The pessimist group thinks that the nation states will not regain their status in the field of economic policies in the future – they will continue to lose more and more policy areas towards the EU centre. This is not necessarily a negative trend; the comeback of strong nation states could mean the end of the European economic integration process. But as we said, only a long-lasting severe global economic downturn could reverse the decades of integration. The role of the nation states is threatened not only by the EU but also by transnational corporations that are gaining more and more economic power every year. In the view of the pessimist team this trend will continues in the future decades with the transnational corporations gaining more influence on the economic policies on the national level. This development will mean that the nation states will get under double pressure from the EU and from the transnational corporations and will fight a desperate fight in order to retain their influence in the field of economic policies. Having mentioned the general economic factors, the pessimist group thinks that there are three important areas that will determine economic future of Europe: (1) sustainability 48
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of welfare systems, (2) renewable energy use and (3) building of the knowledge economy. These will be discussed in the following chapters.
2. WELFARE SYSTEM Western Europe is well known for its welfare system that was developed over the decades following the WWII. The original six member states of the EU had similar welfare regimes, but the enlargement process of the union brought new and different welfare systems into the EU. The current 27 member states offer several different approaches to the question of welfare, so it will be difficult to build a common European welfare system in the next decades. There are at least three major welfare regimes in the EU nowadays – the social-democratic welfare regime (ex. Sweden, Denmark), the liberal Anglo-Saxon welfare regime (ex. United Kingdom) and the conservative corporatist welfare regime (ex. Germany or France). Moreover, the Mediterranean countries have also a distinctive approach, not to mention the new member states from Central and Eastern Europe which try to build their welfare policies copying and adapting the Western European policies. The pessimist group thinks that division between the welfare regimes within the EU is too wide, so it will be not possible to build a common European welfare system until 2030. The question is – does Europe need to have one unified welfare system? The pessimist group feels that that the answer to this question is NO. Competing welfare systems reflect the different history, economic and social situation of the different EU countries. Therefore the development of a common welfare system would be a forced process and its benefits for the nation states are questionable. On the other hand, the global economic and social system is a dynamic environment with rapid changes. Europe is facing a lot of new challenges in the social area and the European welfare model is only one of the several prominent welfare models in the global economy (ex. USA, Japan, China, India and Brazil). The pace of changes will be quicker in the near future and the EU must be prepared to face the new challenges. Unfortunately, the pessimist group fears that the EU is currently not prepared to face these challenges due the political nature of the modern welfare systems. Politics plays nowadays a prominent role in welfare policies and the people are not prepared to give up the generous standards set by the past generations. As political leaders face resistance from their voters, they are not prepared to make difficult choices and decisions (ex. the higher retirement age); so many European states continue to lose time adapting to the new social reality. The field of welfare policies is nowadays still dominated by nation states, as the cooperation on the EU level is weak and it is likely to remain weak in the coming years 49
and decades. The political leaders in the nation states also very often use this area to gain political advantages in the election process, so they often choose populist welfare policies over rational ones. Regretfully, many political leaders think in four year election cycles and they neglect the difficult and unpopular decisions in the field of welfare policies. The pessimist group thinks that the most important social challenge for Europe is the changing demographic structure that will severely influence the welfare systems throughout the continent. The declining number of childbirths and the rising average life expectancy in Europe results in rapid population ageing and this trend is likely to continue in the coming decades. Several analyses show the fact that the median age in Europe will increase from 37,7 years old in 2003 to 52,3 years old by 205014 and by the same year the ratio of Europe’s working age to senior age population will decrease by 50%, two workers instead of four for every retiree15. There will also be more elderly people as one-third of Europe’s population will be at least 60 years old by 2050. The ageing population will not only change the societies in Europe but will put also a severe pressure on the already stressed public finances. Longer average life expectancy means higher pressure on the pension systems and also higher consumption of health care services that are traditionally financed from the public finances in Europe. Spending in the EU on pensions, health care and long-term care will rise - estimated to be 27.5 percent of GDP by 2035 and 29.5 percent of GDP by 2060. Currently, there is no coordination on the EU level in the welfare reforms, some countries try to implement reforms while others try to adjourn the unpleasant decisions. The average retirement is a good example of this situation – while the average retirement age is nearing 67 years in Germany, the French government has to face a huge public outrage about the reforms trying to increase the retirement age to 60 years. The view of the pessimist group is that the EU is not prepared to take common actions and strategies in this area and the situation will not be better in the year 2030. Pension systems and health care are traditionally viewed as policy areas of nation states and there will be hardly serious changes in this area in the near and medium future. The pressure on public finances is not the only problem caused by ageing population in Europe. According to the 2002 UN World Population Prospects, the European continent is the only region in the world whose population is set to decrease in the years to come, with a growth rate of -0.28 per cent. This development also means a shrinking workforce that may significantly hinder the potential economic growth in Europe. As it is unlikely that the demographic trends in Europe will change significantly in the coming years, most European countries will face a decline of working population and the only solution 14
For example see Giuseppe Carone and Declan Costello: Can Europe Afford to Grow Old? Finance and Development September 2006, Volume 43, Number 3 15 Europe’s Aging Population Faces Social Problems Similar to Japan’s. Goldsea Asian American Daily. Retrieved 2007-12-15.
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for this problem will be the increased rate of migration into these countries. Most EU member states already accept tens or even hundreds of thousands of migrants but in the future the EU countries will need to integrate millions of migrants into their societies. An inflow of migrants into the EU could solve the problems arising on the labor market, but millions of new immigrants coming from different cultures will open up a new set of problems. A look at the current situation shows that the integration of migrants I problematic in many EU countries with second and third generation migrants feeling not fully integrated into the society. As a large part of migrants is arriving from Muslim cultures16, anti-Muslim sentiments are rising in several EU countries (ex. Belgium Holland, France etc.). If the influx of migrants from Muslim cultures will continue to rise in the future, rising anti-Muslim sentiments could lead to cultural tensions and conflicts similar to the burning outskirts of Paris in 2005. Extremist political parties will try to use the rising Muslim minority to stir civil unrest in order in order to gain political capital. Moreover, the new EU member states from Central Europe face similar demographic problems as the “old” EU member states, but they are not prepared for the inflow of tens or hundreds of thousands of migrants into their economies and societies. Currently, these states are not interesting for immigrants, but if they want to retain a high economic growth, they will need labor from abroad. The pessimist group thinks that these countries are not prepared for this challenge and will not be able to open up their societies without problems and conflicts in the horizon of 2030. The changing nature of labor market is also a great threat to the European welfare states. In the past, the labor markets were dominated by long term contracts, but the emergence of the global economy changed this situation. The patterns of employment are changing, as short-term contracts, part-time positions and personal leasing are undermining the prospects of lifelong employment. This means an increased pressure on the welfare systems as it is more likely that the employees will change jobs faster or can be laid off without resistance. That is why it will be important to improve the quality of the social safety nets and to increase the cooperation and coordination in this area in the EU. Overall, the societies of the EU countries will undergo tremendous changes in the next decades – not only economic but also cultural and social ones. The changes will also affect the role of the basic building stone of the society – the family. The European countries need to address these changes in the future – but the most important question is: Does the EU need a common welfare system to address the challenges or is the current system of different welfare regimes able to cope with the challenges more effectively? 16
According to the German Central Institute Islam Archive, the total number of Muslims in Europe in 2007 was about 53 million, including 16 million in the European Union.
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The pessimist group thinks that an artificial unification of welfare systems will bring more problems than solutions, so the EU in 2030 is likely to have a similar system of welfare regimes as it has today.
3. RENEWABLE ENERGY A steady and secure energy supply is one of the pillars of any modern economy and society. The EU is one of the largest consumers of energy, but the supply of energy resources is rather limited in the EU countries. According to the data of the United States Energy Information Administration the global energy production is based on non-renewable energy sources – mainly oil, natural gas and coal. Currently, oil and natural gas are the most important fossil fuels and the EU is heavily dependent on the import of both of these resources. Future projections show that even in 2030 oil and natural gas will be the most important resources, so the dependence and energy security is one of the key issues of the economic development of the EU. If no action is taken, it predicted, the EU’s energy dependency will climb from 50% in 2000 to 70% in 2030. The look at the main resources is also alarming as: • by 2030, 90% of EU oil consumption will have to be covered by imports, • by 2030, over 60% of EU gas imports are expected to come from Russia with overall external dependency expected to reach 80%, • by 2030, 66% of EU needs is expected to be covered by imports17. The European political elites are aware of this situation and the EU is working on a switch from non-renewable energy sources to renewable ones. The goal is not only to decrease the dependence on foreign energy sources but to cut CO2 emissions as well. The heads of governments decided on a set of demanding and targets with a date of 2020 which include: • A reduction in EU greenhouse gas emissions of at least 20% below 1990 levels • 20% of EU energy consumption to come from renewable resources • A 20% reduction in primary energy use compared with projected levels, to be achieved by improving energy efficiency18. The goal of the EU is to become a key player in the environmental policy area and to become a leading producer of energy from renewable resource. In the view of the pessimist group the goals and targets of the EU are too ambitious and the union will not be able to fulfill them. The EU is known for setting ambitious goals that could not be fulfilled and the pessimist group fears that the 20 % use of renewable resources by 2020 is one of these. 17 18
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Available at: The Commission Green Paper on security of energy supply Available at:
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Currently, the EU countries produce 8.5 % of their energy from renewable resources. That means that the EU member states have to more than double their commitments in the field of renewable energy production what could be too ambitious for some member countries – for example for the new member states from central and eastern Europe. Most forecasts and predictions in the area of energy use and production state that in the next two decades there will be no major breakthroughs in the field of renewable energy resources that means that the countries. The pessimist group thinks that the EU countries will not be able fulfill their commitments in this area and renewable energy sources will continue to play only a limited role in the energy production in 2030. The pessimist group also thinks that the commitments to decrease greenhouse gas emissions by 20 % by 2020 can seriously hinder economic growth in Europe. Political leaders in Europe do not fully realize the economic effects of such commitments, as decreasing emissions mean decreasing industrial output. On the other hand, the positive effects of such commitments for the global climate are rather questionable – the most respected global climate models show that a 20 % decline in greenhouse emissions by 2020 will mean only a 0,05 Celsius decrease in the global temperatures over the next 90 years19. The pessimist group sees Europe in year 2030 as a continent increasingly dependent on foreign energy resources from the Middle East and Russia. The renewable energy sector will see some growth but it will not be able replace the non-renewable resources in larger extent. As the widely respected (albeit controversial) expert on climate changes Bjørn Lomborg wrote recently – “Unfortunately, it seems as if Europe has decided that if it can’t lead the world in prosperity, it should try to lead the world in decline. By stubbornly pursuing an approach that has failed spectacularly in the past, Europe seems likely to consign itself to an ever-dwindling economic position in the world, with fewer jobs and less prosperity. Even the most optimistic-minded would struggle to find a silver lining in that outlook”. This is a statement that reflects the position of the pessimist group on the current EU energy and climate strategy quite well. We fear that Europe in 2030 will be a Europe in decline. 4. KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY The global economy is in constant change. Old industries and technologies are declining and new progressive ones are born every year. The most powerful current trend is the shift from industry to services – from coal and steel to information and knowledge. The term knowledge economy20 was popularized by the great management thinker 19
Europe’s Determination to Decline - 20 Or knowledge-based economy
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Peter Drucker in the late 60s and is gaining more and more popularity among business and political leaders throughout the whole world. A knowledge based economy is an economy based on the utilization of the human capital – the human knowledge21. This shift towards a knowledge economy is the strongest in the developed countries, especially in the traditional triad – the USA, Japan and the European Union. These economies have the most corporations with strong research and development, they possess the best universities in the world and this draws the best minds of the world there. The result of this process is a technological and scientific supremacy which is very hard to fight for the developing countries. However, the emergence of the global economy is changing the picture as new players are emerging in the field of knowledge creation and utilization. Countries such as China, Taiwan, South Korea or India produce more and more new technologies and tech companies that challenge the leaders coming from the “old” triad. The Korean global tech company Samsung is a good example as during the last two decades it emerged as a global leader in several fields – from LCD panels to memory chips. The rapidly changing environment poses a great challenge to Europe and the EU has to produce coordinated efforts in the field of knowledge economy and society if it wants to maintain its key status in the global economy. The available statistical data shows that the EU was constantly losing ground to the USA in the field of education, research and development and countries like China and India were posing a higher and higher threat to the European corporation22. The leaders of the EU were clearly aware of the deteriorating position of the union and in the year 200 they produced a document that became later known as the Lisbon strategy. The European Council defined the main goal of the strategy as “to become the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010 capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion and respect for the environment”23. The main goal of the strategy was supported by several key quantitative goals – such as the goal of reaching 3% of GDP spent on R&D on EU level by 2010. Unfortunately it was clearly visible that the Lisbon strategy was overly ambitious and that not all member states were equally committed to the goals of the strategy. As the European Commission formulates – “the original strategy gradually developed into 21
It is a economy directly based on the production, distribution and use of knowledge and information (OECD, 1996) 22 The knowledge economy can be measured by indicators such as R&D intensity (R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP), government budget appropriations or outlays on R&D, R&D personnel, human resources in science and technology , patents or the share of high-technology industries in the economy 23 Available at: < http://www.europarl.europa.eu/summits/lis1_en.htm>
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an overly complex structure with multiple goals and actions and an unclear division of responsibilities and tasks, particularly between the EU and national levels”24. That is why a workgroup under the leadership of Wim Kok was established in 2004 to evaluate the progress towards the goals. The result of the evaluation process was “that European Union and its Members States have clearly themselves contributed to slow progress by failing to act on much of the Lisbon strategy with sufficient urgency. This disappointing delivery is due to an overloaded agenda, poor coordination and conflicting priorities. Still, a key issue has been the lack of determined political action”25. Although the European Commission views the Lisbon strategy as a partial success (despite the fact that the majority of the EU member states did not fulfill the two main criteria – R&D spending and employment), the pessimist group thinks that this strategy was a clear failure. The EU could not improve its position in the field of research and development in the global economy and the innovation gap between the EU and the USA closes only very slowly26. Only two EU member states (Sweden and Finland) fulfilled the 3 % goal in the area of R&D spending while the EU average remained almost on the same level. Despite the limited success of the Lisbon strategy the European Commission prepared a bold new strategy named Europe 2020. This new strategy is even more ambitious than the Lisbon strategy with a goal of 75 % employment rate (70 % in the Lisbon strategy) and the classic 3 % target in R&D spending. The pessimist group thinks that the EU will fail again in the fulfillment of the Europe 2020 strategy. The political commitment of the various member states will not be sufficient and only the Nordic countries will successfully fulfill the main criteria. Unfortunately, we feel that the main competitors in the global economy such as China, India, the USA or Brazil will be much more successful in the creation of a knowledge based industries in the following decades. If the EU does not improve its coordinated policies in this area, it will be relegated to the second-tier of the global economy. The policy development of the last years gives us only limited hope for a quick and radical improvement in Europe and that means that Europe will certainly not belong to the innovation and knowledge leaders in the year 2030. The European countries became too complacent while China and other rising stars in the global economy are hungry for economic success and development. As the current president of the European Commission states in the preface of the Europe 2020 strategy “The crisis is a wake-up call, the moment where we recognize that “business as usual” would consign us to a gradual decline, to the second 24
Available at: EUROPEAN COMMISSION - Lisbon Strategy evaluation document Available at: Facing the Challenge: The Lisbon strategy for growth and employment (The Kok report, 2004) 26 The innovation gap with the US keeps narrowing 25
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rank of the new global order. This is Europe’s moment of truth. It is the time to be bold and ambitious”. The pessimist group thinks that the wake-up call is too late and too weak and the EU will not able to hold its prominent position in the area of innovation and knowledge based economy.
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PROSPERITY: The realist scenario The following is the summary of the discussions held in Akureyri, February 8th-12th, 2010. The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of each team member. EUROPE IN 2010 WELFARE
ENERGY SUPPLY
KNOWLEDGE
Balanced Population growth; State-Market Approach
Innovations in products and efficiency in biofuels; Wind, Solar, Wave, Geothermal; Market
Diversified strategy; Public-Private Partnering; Innovation implementation; Education; Mobility
KNOWLEDGE-BASED SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY Workforce – quantity and quality; StateMarket approach; Diversified approach
Talent development through education; Innovation and implementation
EUROPE IN 2030
1. GENERAL FUTURE OF EUROPEAN ECONOMY During this decade and the decades to come, Europe has major challenges ahead as more countries unify into European Union and as Europe tries to come out of the recent economic crisis. Realistically, it may require rethinking some of the policies and mindset in terms of socio-economic aspects and politics that worked in the past (a different world scenario) but may need to be revisited and possibly modified to deal with the new world situation wherein some fast growing developing countries compete for resources, retain their manpower, take major shares in global trade etc. This is to be done if Europe is to maintain and raise prosperity level in Europe. Important steps, in the form of several programs, have been and are being taken in this direction at the European level. Such programs aim at increasing research and development for innovation and building new technologies, fostering working 57
relationship between various research groups across Europe, encouraging public-private (even small and medium sized enterprises – SMEs) partnerships, capacity building, market penetration and knowledge sharing etc. Europe’s strength lies in the ability to install such programs, having a solid research infrastructure and quality infrastructure in general. To add to that, the welfare states in some countries ensure that people can take risks, experiment with their ideas and the state can attract foreign talent but on the flip side welfare state can make people lazy and put heavy pressure on the state treasury. It must be, however, be noted that installing large programs as a top-down approach can also lead to increase in time consuming bureaucracy. Prosperity of Europe, apart from indirect factors like stability, security etc., largely stands on the three pillars of the welfare system, energy and knowledge economy. For knowledge economy and energy what is crucial is to have talent, time, money and resources while for welfare state money, political will and socio-economic situation are very crucial apart from other factors. Realistically speaking, for Europe, although the apparatus for encouraging energy (renewable) development, growth of knowledge economy is in place, but it will require much more than that for maintenance and growth of European prosperity. It would be harder to maintain welfare systems if there is not enough money generated from, for example, knowledge economy in the long term – unless the states have large reserves of money generating minerals or some such thing. We believe that prosperity sustenance and growth is very possible but the European apparatus needs to be more dynamic, be both a formulator and facilitator as per needs and less bureaucratic. Further, policy fluctuations need to be minimized. It may go well beyond 2030 when the common goals of welfare system, renewable energy and knowledge economy may be fully realized in realistic terms. Different sectors of welfare system, renewable energy and knowledge economy are discussed in detail in the following sections in realistic terms.
2. WELFARE SYSTEM To portray what a realistic scenario might imply for future aspects of Europe’s welfare system and its different models in terms of prosperity, one cannot ignore the influence of the dynamic changes at various international and state levels in the process of globalization. It is possible to expect, that the political and economic globalization pressures would lead to a convergence of different social systems trying to advocate a common denominator and that the differences among various types of the social state will diminish with the development of a minimal social state. However, there are two forces in the process that affect the outcome. On one hand, the inertia of existing social systems will reproduce the same foundations they were originally built upon and that are strongly encoded in their structure. On the other hand, the economic pressures 58
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of globalization combined with the current demographic development ask for social budget cuts and a scale down of direct taxes and might lead to higher social inequity. While the first issue emphasizes a high level of state support, the second one poses a challenge for social demands of population, limits itself to minimal support and considers the family commitments of the social system clients as their private affairs. If the states should embark on this course, it would lead to large scale social and cultural impacts. It would accentuate the already visible interpersonal and intergroup solidarity crisis and would lead to a lockout of the middle class from the social insurance and the social state benefits that might make the social issues more acute in their newly acquired form. We can draw an example from the US welfare system, which is based due to the historical development of the country and the traditional belief in a small government on individual achievement and meritocracy. Opposed to this model is the Nordic system based on high taxation with a very strong social benefits architecture. The main challenges for the social state are however not caused by a decline in social expenditures as it might seem. In many European states social expenditures are on the rise, even though the rise as a share on GDP is slowing down. The challenges are caused by the fact that the demand for social benefits is growing due to the rise of unemployment, demographic change and healthcare development. The outcome is a decline in average social payments compared to net wages. An important development is the substantial shift in income stratification. In the past, states used reallocation of social benefits as a dampening process in internal discrepancies within the polarization of wealth and poverty. The middle class accounted some 20 years ago for more than 60% of the population and a steady consumption was the basis for economic growth and prosperity. The ongoing income polarization and the sharp advancement of high income population transformed the middle class into a lower income class and shifted the mechanisms of consumption. Therefore, it is relevant to start with what the realist group emphasizes as the main functions of a welfare state. In the first place, welfare systems should decrease social disparities by helping people move out into the middle class. The social support should establish a basis for helping people under unexpected developments in their lives. At the same time, welfare systems should also provide incentives for demographic growth e.g. through child support and free education. The idea is build upon the concept of human capital that is to be seen as an asset for the entire society, not just for an individual that it is primarily targeted on. The current situation however faces many different issues that can be simplified as the underlying problem of rising costs of welfare support. The main determinant is the 59
aging of population and the demographic shift towards a higher share of unproductive population combined with smaller fertility rates. Through advancements in science and constant innovation, less and less people are needed to sustain the population. This leads also to a shift in welfare support needs that is moving from children to old people. The underlying problem of costs is manifested by the fact that the costs for old people’s healthcare are higher than the cost of education for children that are not born. Market based solutions are not necessarily a long term solution as well. It is quite realistic to expect that people will be reluctant to support welfare systems if the costs get too high. They might convert to a mixture of state and liberal welfare model based on commercial market oriented solutions. However, if the population structure will continue to grow unfavourable, the market system will fail as well. If people won’t be able to afford marked based healthcare support it can lead to a lower life expectancy. That would remove the normative pressure from the state. For some European countries, the issue of changing welfare models is a difficult topic. Central and Eastern Europe has undergone substantial changes in welfare system models due to the political changes 20 years ago. However, the mentality of the older generation is shaped by the framework of the past model and they will seek the reproduction of such foundations. With the demographic change, this is a political dilemma that cannot be solved solely in economic terms. On the other hand, we cannot neglect the cultural aspects of welfare systems. One might ask the question, whether we are similar enough for one system to work? That can be easily demonstrated by the culture of working in Norway and Slovakia and the readiness to pay higher taxes. The political culture of Norway is based around trust into state welfare services whereas in Slovakia, there is much distrust in the state apparatus as a whole and the population is not prepared to pay a higher share of taxes as it is not persuaded this will lead to a higher level of quality. Also, there is the issue of the foundations of the Mediterranean / conservative model which relies heavily on family structures and family relations as a resource of welfare support. On the other hand, the Scandinavian model relies on state welfare child support and career support for women with children that is more effective in general. It concentrates on having enough children to supplement the workforce in the future and at the same time offers possibilities of work thus increasing the state budged with additional tax income. Countries using the conservative model should try to adopt more features of the liberal market model. In terms of convergence of the different models as well as in terms of volumes, there already seems to be some modifying processes underway. Our realistic view is that this 60
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will lead most likely to a new model, a state-market approach based on the principles of the two.
3. RENEWABLE ENERGY Energy supply is crucial for prosperity and well being of any society, region or country. It is well known that energy, historically, has played a strong role in geo-politics, economy and overall stability in international situations. Over the last several decades, European energy consumption (electricity, fuel for transport, etc) has been increasing. This has been to feed the energy hungry industries, high standard of living and growing number of vehicles. It must also be noted that energy needs are only going to increase with growing demand in different sectors. Further, Europe has to compete with, apart from the developed world, the fast growing and increasingly energy hungry developing nations like China, India, Brazil for procurement of energy in different forms. Most of the current European energy needs are largely satisfied using conventional fuels – the fossil fuels. Burning of fossil fuels releases green-house-gases (GHGs) which when accumulated in the atmosphere leads to the greenhouse effect. Continuous accumulation of such green house gases have been found to be responsible for rise in global temperatures (with predictions of further rises if such trend continues) and that is a major concern because it can have several serious consequences. Thus, increasing demand of energy and decreasing supply of conventional energy resources (fossil fuels), along with the environmental issues, implies that Europe needs to look for alternative energy solutions which are renewable and carbon neutral (or near carbon neutral). Europe needs to have sustainable energy solutions for long term and needs to come out of the current carbon lock-in in the energy sector. Europe has set ambitious goals to deal with the future energy needs in an environmentally friendly way. However, although the ambitious goals and programs to achieve them are bringing an atmosphere of optimism but realistically, we believe, they are overly ambitious and may not be achievable to the fullest in the next decade or two. This can be revealed in the following discussion on different alternative energy solutions which Europe has: 1.
Bioenergy / Biofuels: First generation biofuels (produced from feedstocks of crops as oils) initially were touted as a big option initially but the “side effects” of their large-scale production and use started to appear in different regions of the world since the last few years. These side-effects manifested in the form of agricultural, social, and economic implications. Effects on food supplies need for fertilizers etc. indicates that the first generation biofuels may not be as relevant in terms of 61
carbon-neutrality and economics as initially thought to be. Further, fuel efficiency has been another question mark.
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2.
Second generation biofuels are produced from the waste biomass, special energy crops, and include cellosic biofuels, biohydrogen, fischer-tropsch diesel etc. using advanced fuel production technologies and laboratory processes. These do not compete with food resources as such and appear to be a better solution as compared to first generation biofuels in terms of carbon release and efficiency. However, much more time consuming research needs to be done for these to be produced efficiently as energy efficient fuels and it will take some time for these to be available at commercial scales.
3.
One of the latest emergences in biofuels field is the prospect of producing viable biodiesel from algae industrially but the costs of producing it are still much higher as compared to conventional diesel. Further, there are still technicalities to be dealt with for producing algae biomass at industrial scale apart from less efficient open ponds and raceway systems. Needless to say, much money and time still needs to be invested to devise efficient systems and processes for large-scale and economic production of biodiesel from algae.
4.
Solar Energy: A large part of Europe has temperate environment and in northern regions solar radiation is insignificant in winter in terms of being able to produce solar energy sustainably. However, southern European countries are well endowed with sunlight and solar energy initiatives are well underway even to commercial levels. However, economies of scale are yet to increase so as to bring the price of solar electricity down and thus become comparable to price of conventionally produced electricity. Solar energy will take some time to become a larger electricity source as research, innovative support schemes (now in Spain private citizens can have solar panels on roofs of their houses and can supply excess electricity to the main electricity grid) and market penetration increases.
5.
Wind Energy: Some countries, like Holland etc. have been at the forefront of harnessing wind energy for electricity purposes for several years. However, social acceptance of having windmills in different regions is still need to be dealt with. Further, large scale projects to install offshore wind energy capacity are being worked out, for example, in Norway. However, it will take some years before such offshore systems can produce electricity efficiently as much engineering and logistical technicalities need to be dealt with.
6.
Wave Energy, Geothermal Energy: Wave energy, though tried and tested, is still in its infancy. It is promising but much more needs to be worked on in terms of
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efficient and cost-effective wave energy power systems. Geothermal energy is primarily in Iceland where it is being harnessed for the electricity consumption in the nation. However, less population in Iceland means that demand is not that high and thus excess electricity goes waste as there are no systems through which this electricity can be transferred to the mainland Europe. 7.
Hydro Energy: This is one of the most developed energy resources in Europe and will possibly provide for electricity needs sustainably in the years to come but still there is scope for harnessing hydro-power in the new member states. However, ecological concerns with regards to building large reservoirs need to be addressed and societal concerns need to be take care of.
8.
Nuclear Energy: Nuclear energy produces electricity efficiently and has been used in France and eastern European countries for many decades. However, it needs to be strictly regulated and safety regulations need to be updated due to radiation and security concern. Further, generating nuclear energy also leads to generation of radioactive waste and as of now there is no particular solution to deal with such waste apart from dumping such waste in well-protected and dumps with radiationstopping enclosures. Overall, it is hard to comment on nuclear energy due to its potential dangers.
So as we see, that as such there are several alternatives that Europe has, in terms of working out renewable energy resources which lean towards carbon-neutrality. However, it will take some time to realise those options in an effective and efficient way politically, economically and socially. Currently, innovation and efficiency are the key issues when we discuss renewable and green energy technologies. Much research needs to be done in terms of finding new and efficient process and technologies. Further, innovative methods need to be developed for better market penetration and societal acceptance. Regulations need to be in place but without too much beauraucracy. New technologies have to compete with existing technologies in terms of price and efficiency. The same is true for new renewable and green energy solutions. We liken their situation to that of “organic foods” which are healthier and better for environment but at the same time are much costlier than the regular food options. Thus, most customers do not buy organic food. This leads to less market penetration which leads to lesser revenue and thus potentially lesser investments back in producing the products! Thus, economies of scale do not get a chance to expand. Further, learning curves for new technologies are not known. They can only be predicted but this also brings a lot of uncertainty in terms of investments in new technologies. In the times of these economic 63
crises (it could take many years for the economic situation to become conducive again), such uncertianities can have larger impacts on new technologies in terms of taking off and sustain. Most renewable energies have been subsidised by different governments so as to promote their market penetration. This has been done with a belief that after some years these technologies will take off and sustain on their own. However, despite several years of subsidies in different sectors, the new technologies still depend on subsidies and tax rebates so as to compete in the market with conventionally produced transport fuel and electricity. This puts pressure on government treasure and leads to policy fluctuations in terms of providing tax reliefs and subsidies (which may come from other sources such as short-term planning versus long-term planning). In a nutshell, the socio-economic and political environment being developed in Europe for transition to developing and using renewable and green energies is ambitious but being over optimistic about it for the short duration may only lead to disappointment. We believe that although the programs laid out are well and they are mostly in-line with the public mood in terms of climate change but, from a realist point of view, it will take several years for new renewable and green energy technologies to become strong and well accepted market commodities which sustain more based on market forces rather than based on government support.
4. KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY What is Knowledge economy can be simply defined as an economy in which knowledge and information, and businesses based on them, are very important. It means that besides labour and capital (and land), knowledge and information play by production also very important role. For Europe this fact is crucial for keeping its competitiveness, not just among the traditional rivals like the USA or Japan, but mainly because of new emerging economies, like states of BRIC etc., which have much cheaper labour force and getting stronger also in their capital power. Actually, last years the share of global R&D accounted for by the non-OECD members has notably increased. For this reason the EU has decided to adopt the action and development plan for a time horizon 2000 to 2010 called Lisbon Strategy, which should by that time (2010) make the EU “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion”. It didn’t happen and the Lisbon Strategy is rather labeled as a failure. However, our Realistic group, while trying to examine things from all different points of view, sees also some positive effects of Lisbon strategy. We believe that a positive feature is that the strategy points to a certain direction and that it brings attention to areas that 64
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might otherwise not have been on the political agenda. Furthermore some countries took it more seriously and they’ve made some progress in this field. Nevertheless, nonbinding character of the Agenda made it to fail on a large scale. We believe that the EU should forge a new strategy, otherwise the region could experience drop in its competitiveness. However, there should be a diversified strategy for different subjects and different mechanisms used accordingly (referring to high-cost and low-cost countries) – EU fails to take into account that there are different starting positions. This wide variety among the EU members is not just the matter of their size but is also conditioned by historical factors and by the decisions their governments have made in the field of R&D policies. The difference lies also in the expenditures on R&D as the share of Gross Domestic Product. For many states is this value less than 1% of their GDP. Traditionally, the leaders in this field are Nordic countries, e.g. Sweden, or Norway from the non-EU members. Public and Private R&D Funding This leads us actually to the question of financing the R&D, which is one of the most important issues here. We believe that there is a strong need for Europe, if to be more competitive in the area of knowledge-based economy, to have willingness to spend money on R&D. We distinguish two ways how to achieve it, namely public and private expenditures. For public expenditures we think that the EU should press more member countries to invest bigger fraction of their GDP to the sector of R&D. Especially for countries where this figure is quite small. However, we put higher importance to the investments from the European budget, as we see this as a tool for balancing the diversity in the region and making the R&D to be spread evenly. The question of money is always crucial. The possible solution for how to get more money for R&D sector might be the relocating part of the funds currently used on Common agricultural policy there. Taking into consideration food security of Europe and also other issues, we still believe that there should not be invested so much money into agriculture as it is today. A fraction of that money should be used in a sector which could provide much higher additional value, namely research and development. Besides that, R&D expenditures may have a positive side effect on European job creation in the European manufacturing and service sectors. As for private expenditures, we definitely see the large companies not to be neglected by Europe because they play very important role in raising the R&D intensity. On the one hand, there is a natural incentive for companies to invest in R&D, in the shape of positive correlation between R&D investment intensity and company performance measures. However, to secure higher rate of investments, there should be some external stimulation. For example, various tax deductions, making sure that companies carrying out the R&D may ask for tax relief through some kind of R&D tax credits schemes so 65
they will be able to deduct qualifying expenditure on R&D activities when calculating their profit for tax purposes. Other kind of help could be providing of a grant for research and development, etc. Nevertheless, there are many ways how to make investments in R&D sectors for companies more attractive and the EU should not overlook these possibilities. The need for accelerating R&D investments is emphasized also by The European automobile manufacturers, which are the largest private investors in Europe, in order to secure industry’s competitiveness. It’s worth mentioning here, that our working group believes the impact of R&D funding / expenditures have a non-linear relationship to innovation outcomes. We also believe that more attention should be paid to implementation of the innovations. It is fact that many innovations are firstly, often secretly, used in military sector and then later goes to civil sector. Here we can also find a challenge to face for Europe as transfer from military to civil sector often takes many years. For comparison, in USA is this transfer much swifter (nevertheless still takes few years). Therefore especially implementation of technological innovation in a practical real economy is needed. Education However, in order to build a knowledge based economy and to increase productivity through technological progress, to secure long-term economic growth, Europe needs more highly skilled workers. For this reason, focus on education is necessary. It is true that some European universities are ranked among the world’s best universities, e.g. Oxford University or Cambridge University, but in general, European universities still miss something and face many challenges. Again, there is a problem of funding, so universities cannot fully realize their plans and ambitions; curricula are not always up-to-date; and in many cases is the number of graduates not sufficient. At this we can look as on an overall number, or divided into specific fields. The fact is that in last years there is a trend in many countries that majority of young people prefer to study social sciences rather than natural sciences. Then, of course, there might be lacking of highly educated people in natural sciences. The substantial part of making the education highly qualitative lies on academics. Attractive working conditions are therefore very important. Unfortunately current situation is not so good. Carrier opportunities with appropriate job security, effective representative in academic governance and academic freedom need to be improved. Besides that adequate salaries play crucial role here. In these days which are affected by economic and financial crisis, in many countries across Europe research conditions are deteriorating and salaries for academics are being frozen or even cut down. Moreover, in many cases academics are working overtime without appropriate remuneration. 66
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These conditions should be changed otherwise so-called brain-drain effect can occur and academics will try to find better job somewhere else. And as they are usually very skilful people, it’s not such a big problem for them to move for a job to different country. The brain-drain effect is especially unpleasant with researchers, as they have potential to create high added value by their work. For country which is brain-drained it means then losing something where it had invested time, effort and money. That’s why we believe above mentioned working conditions for academics should be improved. On the other hand, attractive working conditions can cause opposite effect, so-called braingain, when highly qualified workforce and researchers are coming to particular country because they find working conditions there much better. Another factor which can contribute for preparing better and more qualified workforce, as well as increasing the quality of academic staff, is mobility in education. Mobility in education helps sharing and understanding of cultural and linguistic diversity, broadens educational opportunities and enriches the experience of student and academic staff. There already are many projects supporting mobility in education within Europe and also connecting Europe with the rest of the world, however, Europe should continue promoting this issue among students and academic staff and create even more possibilities for them. By our work we’ve focused also on Europe more in detail, namely if the EU countries with low level of R&D improve their situation in the future, especially mid-term horizon of 20 years. It is realistic to expect, that in the year 2030 countries with low levels of R&D have improved their situation significantly. However, the EU should help the “newcomers” to reach an improved position – for example through joint projects. In summary, we believe that Europe has a potential to make a significant progress in next 20 years in its striving to make Europe an economy based on knowledge. However, a lot is to be done. We’ve mentioned some issues we believe could help fulfilling this goal. On the other hand, we see also many challenges, e.g. effects of financial and economic crisis which have made European budget and budget of many companies even tighter and thus reduced investments in R&D. Also we cannot neglect new emerging economies which are not affected by the crisis so much and still improving their position in R&D, thus narrowing the gap between them and Europe. We believe Europe will remain one of the key world players in the area of processing and creating knowledge but its relative position may decrease due to new economic powers.
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III. CULTURE Bergen, Norway May 6-10, 2010
QUO VADIS EUROPE? CULTURAL FACTORS Nationalism
Integration
Identity
Multiculturalism
Cultural homogenity vs. heterogenity
National vs. European identity
Cultural relativism
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CULTURE: The optimist scenario The following is the summary of the discussions held in Bergen, May 6th-10th, 2010. The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of each team member. EUROPE IN 2010 BUSINESS
IDENTITY
TRADE UNIONS
Cultural differences “Best practice” principle + Trans-national corporations = Convergence of business cultures to a certain level
Promote European identity Enlarge Schengen/euro zone Alter education curricula to include more history classes Launch Europe-wide cultural projects Promote stricter consumer protection and social laws
Independent from political parties Protectors of social and labor rights Liberal, not conservative Facilitators of change
NATIONAL CULTURES AND EUROPEAN IDENTITY
EUROPE IN 2030
1. EUROPEAN CULTURE OR EUROPEAN CULTURES? The term “European culture” is a cliché. Although its use is extremely frequent, European culture itself does not exist. Rather, Europe consists of a variety of cultures. Some of these are similar; some differ widely. What we call European culture is actually a set of the most common cultural characteristics that can be found in the majority of national cultures on the continent. From a historical perspective European culture is considered to be based on three pillars: • • • 70
Roman law; Greek philosophy; Christianity.
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Obviously, in today’s globalized world these characteristics are not sufficient. There are multiple countries in Europe that are not Christian (e.g. Albania or Macedonia). Similarly, there are many countries in the world that fulfill all the above mentioned criteria and yet no-one ranks them as European. Therefore, additional influencing factors that formed European national cultures have to be introduced, such as humanism, renaissance, democracy/socialism and impact of the Ottoman Empire. All that being said, we believe European culture as such does not exist and it is not even necessary to create one. The riches of Europe lie in its diversity. While since World War II. the continent has undergone extensive processes of economic integration, there are no signs of national cultures of participating countries converging. This evidences strong roots of European diversity. As European culture is unwanted and impossible to create, politicians should aim at strengthening European identity. Each human has a complex set of identities: a person is a son, a husband, a teacher, a Slovak, a European etc. Some of these identities are strong, the other ones are less so. The continental (or civilization) identity is currently very weak in Europe. Empirical evidence from the case of USA suggests that strengthening European identity would have significant positive effects on economic and social development of the continent. To achieve a stronger European identity we propose the following measures: • • • • • • • • •
deepen and widen the European Union to include the majority of geographical Europe; reform the EU institutions in a way that brings more trust from citizens (more efficiency and more decentralization); enlarge the Schengen area and the euro zone; create a function of a real president of the EU27; alter primary and secondary education curricula to include more European history classes and stress human rights, democracy and intercultural education; promote stricter consumer protection and social laws (air passenger rights etc.); create European national parks and tag the most important archaeological, historical and cultural places with a “European cultural heritage” label; launch Europe-wide projects similar to the Eurovision song contest (European idol, Europe’s got talent etc.); launch a Europe-wide information campaign promoting European identity.
27
Unlike the one created by the Treaty of Lisbon which entered into force in December 2009 – the President of the European Council is more of a puppet head than actual political authority.
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A big challenge in creating a strong European identity might be the traditional civilization divide as identified by Samuel Huntington28 in combination with the ideological divide brought about by four decades of the Cold War. It is important to note that both main ideologies (capitalism and socialism) were born on the European continent and are an integral part of the European cultural heritage. The East-West divide is still visible and while it seems that Central European countries are gradually becoming members of the Western Europe, the countries of the East retain their political status quo. This can only be changed by means of economic integration. Thus, strong European identity is predetermined by successes of European economic integration. To conclude, we believe creation of a strong European identity is a manageable task. However, it will take at least two generations to achieve the goal. The most crucial step will be to concentrate on future rather than on the past29 and to raise interculturallyeducated youth. It is important to know the history of one’s nation – but it is even more important to secure the future of one’s civilization.
2. BUSINESS CULTURES IN EUROPE The research on cultural dimensions by the Dutch sociologist Geert Hofstede is wellknown to scientists across all fields. Using employees of IBM in countries all over the world as his statistical group he has studied five cultural dimensions and their impact on business. The dimensions are:30 • • • • •
PDI IDV MAS UAI LTO
Power distance index; Individualism; Masculinity; Uncertainty avoidance index; Long-term orientation.
While we acknowledge Hofstede’s methodology has a range of serious limitations31, it succeeds in showing how diverse the cultures of Europe are (table 1). A simple comparison of Hofstede’s cultural difference indices for Slovakia and Norway shows 28
See Huntington, S.: Clash of Civilizations, 1998. There are two basic approaches to building identity: (1) a past-oriented and (2) a future- oriented approach. The first approach focuses on history as an identity-building factor. The second approach emphasizes the importance of co-operation and future welfare. European integration is an example of the second approach. 30 For more information see www.geert-hofstede.com and www.geerthofstede.nl. Hofstede’s latest publication Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind (2010) already includes a sixth dimension called “Indulgence versus restraint” 31 The most common cited problems of Hofstede’s methodology are unrepresentative statistical group, use of an attitude-based survey and subjective criteria. 29
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great variations. Among other differences, Slovakia is a much more masculine and power-distance oriented society. This can be easily evidenced by completely different hierarchical structures of Slovak and Norwegian companies. Table 1: Hofstede’s cultural dimensions for selected European countries
Source: www.geert-hofstede.com It is not our goal to participate in the ongoing discussion about suitability of Hofstede’s work for analyzing cultures. Any analysis of the above data might be attacked on the grounds of relying too much on questionable statistics. However, we can indisputably take Hofstede as scientific evidence of a great diversity of European business cultures. Cultural differences can cause a variety of problems. This is nowhere as visible as in the field of international business. If cultural differences are not taken into account, it leads to failed negotiations and loss of customers. Therefore, a legitimate question for the future of Europe appears: Should national governments try to regulate national business cultures with the aim to stimulate their convergence? The answer is a clear NO. While we acknowledge cultural differences pose a serious business risk, they frequently also lead to higher efficiency. Clash of business cultures is a clash of methods. If one of the methods proves to be more effective than other ones, it will be adopted by more market participants. This is a classical example of the “best practice” principle. Obviously, not all the methods are functional in each culture. The spread of the best practices will therefore be limited by culture-related factors. In the previous part of the paper we argued that national cultures in Europe do not seem to be undergoing a process of convergence. The situation with business cultures is different. Best practices that cross cultural borders and transnational corporations 73
are two major sources of convergence. However, as long as national cultures remain different, the convergence of business cultures will have significant limitations. The following rule applies: Speed of the GLOBALIZATION > Speed of CONVERGENCE OF BUSINESS CULTURES > Speed of CONVERGENCE OF NATIONAL CULTURES A distinguishing feature of many European business cultures is the strong role of trade unions. In principle, trade unions can be considered very conservative institutions. Their main agenda usually is opposing change and retaining the status quo. We see this as a major threat to Europe’s future. The situation in Greece (as of May 2010) is a clear example of how dangerous the policy of opposing change can be. Not even a threat of imminent state bankruptcy is enough to persuade trade unions that change is needed. Despite the criticism we still believe trade unions are a vital part of the European economic structure. What is needed is a profound reform of their status and way of doing business. European trade unions of the 21st century should fulfill the following characteristics: • • • •
be independent, not affiliate or open supporter of any political party; be the protector of social and labor rights; be liberal rather than conservative; be facilitator of change (as the major factor of economic success).
It might seem that protecting labor rights and facilitating change contradict each other. It is not necessary so. The problem is that labor unions as we know them today are not able to keep pace with the processes of globalization and acceleration of product life cycle. The labor unions of future will have to recognize changes before they occur and ensure the best possible conditions for its members in the changing environment.
3. EUROPE IN THE FUTURE – EUROPEAN OR NATIONAL? CONCLUSION A perfect example of how national identity prevails over European identity is the United Kingdom. Due to their insular location the British consider themselves English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish … but not so much European. One of the most famous examples of the case is an old joke about a strong tempest in the English Channel that led a British newspaper to publish a headline “Storm in Channel – Continent Isolated”.
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The role of national cultures remains – in spite of successful economic and partial political integration – very strong in Europe. Each European nation has a long history of its own and is proud of its traditions and cultural heritage. Considering this and taking into account other factors we have already mentioned, it is almost impossible to imagine creation of a common European culture.32 What has to be created is a common European identity. It is necessary to note that in the future the European Union will include practically all the countries of the European continent. Therefore European identity and the EU identity will become synonyms. All in all, the future of Europe and of its culture(s) is bright. Even though migration, globalization and other phenomena might seem to be casting shadow over it, adoption of appropriate measures will ensure its long-term survival. We have identified these measures during our workshops in Bratislava, Akureyri and Bergen. The most significant of them include: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
put more effort in adopting customer-related laws; unify social rights (set minimum standards); adopt a reform of national pension systems; stimulate fertility; support immigration and adaptation of immigrants; adopt strict anti-xenophobic laws; alter education curricula to include more European history classes and intercultural communication; invest in alternative energy sources and diversify sources of traditional energy; support knowledge economy; streamline and standardize bureaucracy procedures; develop and apply new security screening technologies; enlarge the Schengen area and the euro zone; rationalize work of the European Parliament (abolish the Brussels-Strasbourg system); reform the common agricultural policy; launch a media campaign informing about EU’s significance for citizens’ everyday lives.
Europe is the cradle of the Western civilization and of all Western cultures. Let us hope it will never follow the path of Babylonians, Incas, Aztecs and other great civilizations and will continue to play a major social, economic, cultural and political role in the world for many centuries to come! 32
Creation of a common European culture would necessarily involve abandoning many national traditions and substituting them for modern habits. Although it cannot be said that national traditions are better than modern habits, their disappearance would constitute a significant loss to European cultural heritage.
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CULTURE: The pessimist scenario The following is the summary of the discussions held in Bergen, th th May 6 -10 , 2010. The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of each team member. EUROPE IN 2010 EUROPEAN INTEGRATION Common aims as the basis of current and further integration Deepening Widening
IDENTITY European identity as a cluster of national identities Patriotism
E PLURIBUS UNUM OR WHAT DOES EUROPE MEAN? Europe of values? European economic integration project?
EUROPEAN EUROPE??? Deepening of “European cultural homogeneity” as a kind of frame identity and strengthening of identification with what you get feel as “home”
EUROPE IN 2030
The European integration project has lead into the establishment of the European Union as an organisation sui generis. The original aim of this process was to avoid the escalation of next armed conflict in Europe. As the European integration was developing the political elites agreed upon other matters too. Benefit of economic integration (so for member countries of an international organisation, as for an international economic organisation as an entity) determines the depth and extension of political integration. The basis for this assumption is the development of European integration. The attempts to integrate the non-economic field have failed. Therefore we claim that the contemplation of any kind of political integration form has its roots in convenience and success of economic integration. Advanced stage of political integration is possible only if a degree of prosperity resulting from economic integration encourages political elites to reach an agreement on political integration. Holding on this presumption the 76
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legitimacy of integration and appurtenance towards higher supranational feature (EU) might be ensured. Thus we come to the concept of identity, respectively European identity as a category which could probably form the basis of political integration on the continent.
1. IDENTITY, INTEGRATION AND EUROPEANISATION The issue of presence of European identity and “common” European culture became the boiling point in the discourse between euro-optimists and euro-pessimists. As pessimists we claim “E pluribus unum” or “In varietate concordia” refers to the endogenous diversity arising from different historical experience of each as EU-member state, as non-member European state or group of states as well. Former political, socio-economical and cultural development reflects today´s socio-cultural reality. The only common set of European values is the general by treaties “set of good” including respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, rule of law and respect for human rights including the right of minorities. The Treaty of European Union sets in Chapter 1 the following idea down: “These values are common to the Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and gender equality are promoted.”33 The simplest way how to identify yourself is to settle who you are not– so called negative identification. Underlying of common European features means at the same time putting the stress on that aspects, which make European nations different. “While national identity was shaped as an identity legitimising the institutional arrangement of society, the identity of minorities, ethnicities or other groups is strengthened as an identity of resistance, or protest against exclusion and assimilation.”34 Therefore slackening or stop of European integration connected to postponement of institutional reform of the EU (refusal of the European Constitution) might be stimulated by external factor, i.e. impossibility of identification with constantly broadening territory and by internal factor, i.e. increasing cultural diversity within national states, which are confronted with the phenomenon of multiculturalism. The idea “nations are not given, but they are created by states and nationalists” stay in contrast with above mentioned.35 If we have applied this thought to the European integration project, it would mean that any definition of European identity driven “from above” might during the process of its further development through the consolidation of European education system lead to its “birth”. By this point it is possible to argue with the presumption that “identification with (national) state has taken for quite a time and was encouraged by such feature as 33
consolidated versions of The Treaty on European Union and Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Title I, Article 2. [cit. 2010-03-20]. Available at: 34 Očko, P.: Evropská identita v informační společnosti. In: Acta oeconomica Pragensia,Vol. 12, No 2, p. 50 35 Gellner, E.: Nationalism, p. 12
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shared religion or ethnicity. Nothing like that is related to the process of Europeanisation. The cultural content of Europeanisation is empty.”36 The definition or “establishment” of European identity got on the acuteness after the Lisbon Treaty was refused. In relation to the emerging dimension of international relations and effect of globalisation it is of negligible need to deep social pluralism as well. Up to the present the European integration process was characterized by concentration on the issues related to deepening of already harmonised area, widening or spill-over process and enlargement of the European Union. Economic disproportions and different priorities of foreign policies of individual member states or surrounding countries carried from the past bring into light split of European development scenarios’ interpretation. Among factors which determine further progress of European integration process we rank following conditions: • achievement of political compromise arising from common (economic, political and socio-cultural) interests of aforementioned states; • specification and implementation of theoretical concept regarding role of supranational entity in international relations • degree of europeism spread into the civil society and political structures as well; • degree of vertical, horizontal or qualitative or quantitative integration; • focus on “multi-speed” Europe. Integration process is going ahead in many different areas. Identity and future of in diversity united territory is and probably for couple of years will still remain an exception. The realisation and deepening of common European interests is built on identity as a cultural category. The issue of European identity is intimately connected with public support of European integration project and with public and from abovementioned derived willingness to deepen cooperation of European states. Culture represents a scope for maintaining and intensification of conformity in Europe. On the other side it stands for an otherness´ source, which in case of fallacious interpretation or insufficient understanding might lead to a clash affecting domestic policy. Sequentially these circumstances might negatively involve the integration of European states, or to slow it down. If something like European culture had existed, it would has had its borders. With the process of enlargement the character of present relatively cultural homogenous entity might be supplemented with “multifarious” community, whose borders will be continuously shifted and might loose its function of rough focalization of “European western” culture. These “borders” will refer solely to integrated (not 36
Borneam, J., - Fowler, N.: Europenization. Annual Review of Antropologhy, In: DANČÁK, B. a kol.: Evropeizace. Nové téma politologického výzkumu. p.15
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culturally homogenous) space in terms of implementation of common policies. Taking into account the acceleration of movement of people, its previous and ongoing waves as well, further progress of science and technology, demographic changes and its impact on individual states´ interests, the need to satisfy subjective cognitive demands of individuals - the cultural de-homogenisation of integrated area - will continue also in case of severance of enlargement. Europeanism and geographical definition of Europe itself has become a subject of antagonistic interpretations. In this context Graham Avery and Fraser Cameron pointed out: “perhaps with some kind of forethought the Union has never made an effort neither in treaties nor other documents to formally define the geographical boundaries of the Union.” The attempts to distinguish Europe by religion or culture have failed and also due to this fact and realised enlargement of its membership towards eastern countries, the EU is facing increasing diversity.37 Effective recourse from this situation can be taken only on the basis of cultural dimension´ nexus. Working on the assumption that realisation and deepening of common European interests are determined by a complex of European cultural identities we consider the issue of European identity as closely linked to public support of European integration project, willingness of civil society and political elites to promote further integration within the EU (in the realm of membership expansion and widening of integration). The issue of integration in Europe or arrangement of member and partner countries remains an important topic of theoretical concepts of international relations. After the Cold War the paradigm of dialogue (not conflict) is applied in the system of international relation. With the aim to strengthen the legitimacy of European integration the EU has heretofore acted in accordance with the European legal system – community has no right to initiate any acts of harmonisation of laws or regulations of its member states. Its activities are reduced on launching of programs and so called “awakened initiatives”. 38 In the field of culture the member states are extremely intent on maintaining their sovereignty. As evidence we can mention the fact that meanwhile adopting a motion is connected with co-decision procedure of Council, in case of issues related to culture it is needed to come to unanimity by a decision-taking process. An outstanding role by speaking about European culture represents its modification under the pressure of such a phenomenon as migration is. Migration becomes due to the economic interests and low population growth in the EU a must. In connection 37
Baráňová-Čiderová, D.: Rozšírenie EÚ na východ. Prínosy a riziká rozšírenia Európskej únie o krajiny strednej a východnej Európy pre EÚ. 2007. p.19 38 To this kind of initiative belong European Year of Intercultural dialogue (2008) and European Heritage Label (2010) which are aimed on the support of national and cultural diversity and do stress the common cultural heritage connected with European integration, ideals and history.
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with “import” of other cultures in the area of integrated Europe the issue of integration of “foreigners” is considered as a challenge for European states, as for integrated entity as a whole too. The opposite phenomenon is the integration of people “belonging” (as pessimists we still regret the evidence of common European culture) to European culture in the non-european environment. An interesting question emerging from above mentioned contemplation is the analysis of the causes and motives of cardinal changes of “European” values into “non-European”. But dealing with above mentioned is not the primary aim of this project and therefore we are not going into details. The European Union is interested in binding non-member countries through formation of high-standard relations with them. But from the pragmatic point of view it is not possible to prevent the creation of some kind of sections by dealing with them and thus it is not possible to prevent the emergence of dividing lines on the map of Europe. Formation of peculiar relations with each state over the world is not only untransparent and leads to bureaucratic chaos but also it is non-efficient as well. Apart from these negative aspects, the aim of special treatment towards particular “group” of countries seems to be a driving force of motivation for committed third parties (many times repeated example of Eastern Europe and its effort to become a member of the EU). The EU promulgates its aim to push its relations with “Europe´s neighbors to formation of European neighborhood. Thus the original approach of “concentric circles” is going to be transmuted into “Olympic circles” in terms of mutual cooperation. The roots of necessity to cooperate with neighboring countries are touching the issue of self-identification of European citizens, which is related to deepening of cooperation through the European identity and citizenship, as well as to quantitative dimension directly via enlargement process – membership of countries characterized by some cultural diversity and indirectly via members of other communities living in the space of integrated Europe. The evidence of some kind of cultural unity, intellectual and moral habits have become an incentive for political and economic reunification of Europe and the foundation of a “European identity”. However in the course of European history many unforgettable conflicting situations occurred that did not point out the European cohesion. Many critics appeal on these landmarks of the European identity´ concepts. They argue that Europe has not always been united entity and if so, then just in certain historical links and bindings. “Only poor geographer who does not take into account time as a variable value could put Europe into permanent borders. Outline of Europe has been altered over time. And only a poor historian who forgets the basic principles of his/her field of science could match Europe with uniform and static context whether regional, legal, economic, ethical or cultural. Europe has always been assigned by many diverse, often inconsistent substances. Importance, evidence and effects of these contents vary in 80
Cu lture time and space.” 39 Some authors whose ideas are somewhere between the axis of eurooptimism and euro-pessimism claim that “completion of common sense of Europe and Europeans came into being on the end of 18th century and did not apparently lead to the formation of political unification. In that time Europe only gradually aimed for unification of separated political structures, while the most substantial model for that was the model of national states, which connect a particular ethnic or linguistic community with a faithful territory. The terms foundation or development of nations might not always go hand in hand with integration process in terms of the EU and therefore we must pay attention to the way how to operate them.” 40 We consider the relation of subjective feeling of security in the context of degree and willingness of individuals to identify themselves with a certain entity as a significant factor of self-identification. In this sense the term entity refers to supranational organisation, as well as a state, or region within a state, or particular social group and its attitude to other social groups. If the subjective feeling of security would have an impact on the depth of identification of individual with the whole (entity) then the issue of European identity would not be so much urgent and it would not put such a strain from “above” on it as it is nowadays. Tension as a result of reduced feeling of security belongs to those factors, which have a negative impact on identification. The concept of Europeanism is not a new one; a feeling of solidarity is rooted in Europe for some time. In spite of that each European state is characterised by special features. According to critics of European identity the project of European integration bloomed only as long as it was focused on economic aspects and until it has not began to try to “produce” a single European identity. Europe was tired of many tragic events (which represents a proof of cultural diversity and cultural conflict) and so the individual states have set the goal to prevent another catastrophic scenario – and later on just this premise has become an incentive for developing a European identity. Identity means identification with something, to adopt some attributes for own and natural. The political leaders and society endorse the idea to build an area of stability and prosperity. The concept of European identity reflects the values originated in European history, values which are generally considered as universal. These values might be modified during the historical development; the cultural paradigm is not immutable over time. “A cultural change might occur quickly in the upper layers of the onion diagram labeled as practice. Practices are a visible part of culture. New practices might be acquired during the pulse of life.” 41 The human solidarity had changed 39
Pomian, K: Evropa a její národy. Ve znamení jednoty a ruznosti. In: DANČÁK, B.: Evropeizace: pojem a jeho konceptualizace. In : Dančák, B. a kol.: Evropeizace. Nové téma politologického výzkumu. p.15 40 Dančák, B.: Evropeizace: pojem a jeho konceptualizace. In: Dančák, B. a kol.: Evropeizace. Nové téma politologického výzkumu. p.15 41 Hofstede, G. – HofstedeE, G.J.: Kultury a organizace : Software lidské mysli : Spolupráce medzi kulturami a její duležitost pro přežití. p. 21
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from the solidarity towards noble families through favor associated with a municipal authority or nation. Since the realistic concept of state power bumped into foundation of supranational entities and international associations became global actors, the aim of redefinition (or in pessimistic terms birth of) European identity is to respond to this change. The answer is not the substitution of present national identities built by modernity with a new European one, but such a change in the very perception of its concept that would express national identity as a part of complex of partial identities. With the impact of global processes and velocity of information exchange and technical progress individuals became “the citizens of virtual world” and are coming into contact with factors active beyond the borders of national states on daily basis. This course affects formation of their personality. Therefore a universal European identity, if it comes to its creation, should reflect its ethic-political and ethic-cultural aspects of being European. Among universal roots of common European values we consider the individual emancipation and expansion of spirituality arising from antiquity to the Enlightenment. Integration should be based on the suppression of “quarrelsomeness of particular interests and debarment of loose of peculiarity, maintenance of diversity within a unity, development of national identity within supranational identity, while the driving role of state should be applied in accordance with liberal principles and only if it was absolutely necessary. The national identity should be mutually respected.”42 Required mutual respect of national identities comes from the uniqueness of its kind and from the need to maintain “diversity within unity”. National state is moving from its static anthropologic attributes that means the shift from racial and linguistic features to human values. In a state, there should be a place also for those who do not feel and think in accordance to state on the nation based policy and to the majority. There is a need of cohabitation of individual with “enemies”. The fulfillment of such ideas as unity, plurality and social equilibrium in terms of international and inter-states relations, as well as relations between nations and states within a community became a challenge for policy-makers and institutions. The organisation form is rearranged, the hierarchical system (characterised by terms as control and inferiority) is substituted by networking system (cooperation and coordination). Is it ever possible to find such an alternative able to cross over a national state, or find such a type of supranational body which would not permit any destruction of fundamental European values and principles? Thanks to the state monopoly of power, possibility to use violent measures or military preparedness, the homogenisation of population living in certain territory allows pacification of disputes so within the state territory (f.e. of national state) as outside its borders. The fact that it is not possible to reach a national homogeneity using the power has been many times sadly confirmed. There will always be individuals, who because of 42
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Vanek, J.: Předpoklady pro sjednocení Evropy podle jedné filosofické diagnózy, p. 43
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the fact that identity is not unchangeable, will not agree or will not identify themselves with certain symbols, signs or attributes of an “older” nation. National homogenisation is not eligible at all and we consider its realisation as a possible cause of degradation of cultural plurality and freedom. “De-territorialisation of identity (going through territorial bindings of identity towards ethno-cultural affiliation) induces “identity-homelessness” for many people. Some of us consider this evolution as a threat. But it is still possible to understand it as a chance for individual emancipation.”43 Is it ever possible to build a pure national identity? Dual identity seems to be a more specific term as supranational identity (associated with identity composed by subsets of sub-identities) is. The term dual identity attempts to merge ethic-political (citizen of democratic society) with ethic-cultural (cultural context) fragments. Thus an individual gets to the point where two not antagonistic dimensions of identity are merging. That leads to synergy of ethno-cultural-political identity respected by dual identity of members of other communities. The European Union represents an exceptional community. The EU is sort of “sui generis” organisation. Its development got started by intensification of cooperation in the frame of economic sectors. Mutual cooperation has deepened economic, social and cultural interactions. Information society and four freedoms, first of all freedom of movement within integrated space, have due to increasing of reciprocal relations of different culture members stimulated the acceleration of cultural change. In the declaration adopted during the Summit in Copenhagen in 1973 by nine EU member states there is a reference to European identity: “European identity will be developed as a function of dynamic construction of Europe.”44 Interactions of members of different cultural communities lead to the connection of universalistic thoughts rising from the Enlightenment or Christian principles spread out of Europe. These endogenous differences are confronted with the exogenous ones. On one side there are followers of multiculturalism and on the other there are its critics. Critics´ endeavour is focused on launching of rigorous immigration measures and measures concerned to the possibility of settlement, opportunity to get a job, accessibility of work and all that effort is aimed on the “prevention” of domestic population. Considering the influence of internationalisation and deepening of interaction between “domestic” and “foreign”, the phenomenon of multiculturalism (and possibility of dual identity) seems to be the only alternative in case we take into account the doubt of power of a sovereign state. Current development heads towards social pluralism, but 43
Barša, P.: Národní stát a etnický konflikt,; In: Očko, P.: Evropská identita v informační společnosti. p.58 Document on Declaration on European identity. European navigator, december 1973. [2008-08-10]. Available at: ) 44
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it is still on its starting point. The boundary lines of multiculturalism correspond to threshold of civic-political reality of “original” inhabitants. The closing of the frontiers against population coming from less developed countries would associate the situation before 1989. The difference would lie only in the shift of dividing lines towards eastern countries and a new line “protecting” Europe from the south would be added. A negative perception of other cultures coming from not satisfying economic development of a country is also a proof of human stereotyping. The otherness might produce a kind of fear and antipathy against “new” cultures among domestic people. But all these aspects might be undergone by gradual rapprochement and mutual tolerance. As the redefinition of a community of old-residents towards a multicultural community does not mean refusal of one’s history, so the development of dual identity concept does not. In reality the concept of dual identity might deepen the (in-actual) national concept; dual identity does not necessary need to substitute it. By its application the situation when antagonistic interests of cultural plurality meet might be avoided. One of the natural interests of single member states, as nongovernmental actors on the national, supranational, regional or local niveau is the development of such a supranational entity that would assumes one of the ruling positions in international relations and would be able to note the aims set by the EU and would lead to stability and prosperity in Europe. To reach an agreement on extension and depth of integration (and so on the European borders too) on one side and possibly on the form and extend of participation of each country on “multi-speed” Europe on the other side, is not a simple decision. The result might be brought closer to a situation, when an insufficient political appeal in favour of supranational body will not reflect the interests of the EU as an entity, rather the particular interests of those member states or coalition of states that would achieve a great success during the negotiation of the EU-future.
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CULTURE: The realist scenario The following is the summary of the discussions held in Bergen, th th May 6 -10 , 2010. The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of each team member.
EUROPE IN 2010 CONVERGENCE
ADJUSTMENT
DIVERGENCE
Approximation of national cultures across Europe due to the effects of globalization, changing business environments and integration tendencies.
The result of the process of convergence and divergence, whereas the individual cultures within Europe converge to the extent necessary for their successful cooperation, but still retain their individual specifics.
Inability of deeper cultural strata to be rapidly changed, as well as the threat of losing one’s cultural identity producing resistance.
UNITED IN DIVERSITY
EUROPE IN 2030
1. FUTURE OF EUROPE’S IDENTITIES Given the complex nature of culture as such, it should be no surprise that the definition and prediction of development of Europe’s identities requires a wider discussion. First of all, it is necessary to explain the term “Europe”, as its definitions vary widely even within the continent itself. There are several basic meanings of the word Europe depending on the countries it encompasses. 1. Europe sensu stricto, which limits Europe by its geographical borders and excludes all countries with a substantial part of their territory situated on 85
another continent. This definition considers Europe to include the European subcontinent delimited by the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, The Caucasus Mountains, and the Black Sea. This understanding of Europe excludes Cyprus and Turkey, both of which lie geographically in Asia. A subset of this definition, Europe sensu strictissimo, disputes the status of Iceland, which lies both on the European and American tectonic plates, as well as that of Russia, the majority of whose territory lies in Asia. 2. Europe sensu medio is a combination of the traditional cultural and geographic view. It addition to the above, it accepts the inclusion of Cyprus and Turkey into Europe on cultural and historical grounds. 3. Europe sensu lato considers all the countries with at least a marginal territorial presence in Europe to be European. This encompasses Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia (the latter on the basis of its regional affiliation to the former two as a part of the Caucasus Region, since no part of its territory actually lies within the geographic Europe). The extreme definition, Europe sensu latissimo, includes Kazakhstan as a small part of its territory lies within the geographical boundaries of the European continent. As far as various global and international organizations are concerned, the following can be said about their understanding of Europe: 1. The United Nations45 and the US46 use the Europe sensu stricto definition 2. The Council of Europe tends towards the sensu lato definition.47 3. The European Union seems to prefer the sensu medio notion of Europe. This fact, however, is only implied, since no official EU documents mention the definition of Europe as understood by the organization itself. Since EU membership criteria include a clause requiring an applying country to be “European”, it can be argued that the accession of Cyprus and the commencement of preaccession negotiations of Turkey constitutes a de-facto confirmation of their “Europeanism” as seen by the EU. On the other hand, the current EU policy towards both the Caucasus countries and Kazakhstan seems to indicate that the EU does not count on their eventual accession and that they are considered a part of Asia.
45
UNDATA: Composition of macro geographical (continental) regions, geographical sub-regions, and selected economic and other groupings. [Online database] 2010. [Accessed on July 14, 2010] Available at: 46 CIA: The World Factbook. [Online database] 2010. [Accessed on July 14, 2010] ISSN: 1553-8133. Available at: 47 COE: Council of Europe in Brief. [Online] 2010. [Accessed on July 14, 2010]. Available at:
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However, in addition to the above political and geographical definitions of Europe, one must also consider the issue of Europe’s cultural homogeneity, i.e. if one can actually consider Europe to form a part of a single civilization. According to Samuel P. Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations, Europe is torn between two major cultural units48: • the Western Civilization (also including the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) • the Orthodox Civilization (including Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Bulgaria, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, Macedonia, Greece, and Cyprus) This division clearly shows that even countries considered European by all the political and geographic definitions (such as Ukraine or Serbia) are sufficiently culturally different from the Western European cultures so as to merit inclusion in a separate cultural block. Figure 1: Definitions of Europe
Source: Reťkovský, P. 48
Huntington, S. P. (1998): The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. pp. 207.
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The above cultural substratum is, however, influenced by several other factors. These include an increased migration into parts of Western Europe from countries outside of the European cultural scope (regions with a different religious tradition), as well as migration within Europe, which normally flows in the East-West direction, facilitated by the common EU labor market. We therefore see various possible outcomes of the mixing of cultures on the European level: 1. A slow homogenization of Europe from the cultural point of view, where differences between individual countries recede and a sort of an “average culture” emerges, connecting all the parts of the European continent. This scenario is considered unlikely due to the limited number of persons, who actually participate in intra-European migration (due to language constraints, unwillingness to change one’s social environment and other causes), resulting in a total absorption of the immigrant culture into the original substratum. 2. Maintenance of two cultural blocks / civilizations within Europe, which should become more homogeneous internally. This scenario, however, suffers from the same drawback of insufficient intra-block migration to allow for a full homogenization of the individual cultures, as well as from an impossibility of sufficient isolation of the two blocks to avoid random cultural exchange between them (especially since several of the traditional Orthodox countries now form part of the European integration system). 3. Yet another scenario maintains that individual countries within Europe will diverge culturally from each other, influenced by the large numbers of their extra-European immigrants and rising nationalist tendencies. This includes the Turkish immigrants in Germany, sub-Saharan African immigrants in France, Netherlands or Italy, North-African immigrants in Spain, or persons of SouthAsian descent residing in the Great Britain. This seems plausible at the first glance, and the media coverage of immigration issues in the affected countries also contributes to the general feeling within Europe that the European culture is being “abducted” or changed by the inflow of culturally alien immigrants. However, given the increasing strictness of EU immigration rules as well as rising resentment of the original populations towards making new concessions to immigrants (as evidenced by the recent French prohibition of the traditional Islamic clothing in public), it seems more likely that the substratum culture will to a large extent defend itself from new cultural influences – perhaps at a cost of medium-scale local conflicts. 4. According to the discussions, which took place throughout the project’s workshops and panels, it seems most likely that, although there might be a slight approximation of the individual European cultures, the perceived cultural differences will endure and will remain present in the enlarged Europe. This 88
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is supported by a simple empirical fact: there are marked and obvious cultural differences between various regions within the same countries (e.g. east vs. west of Slovakia, north vs. south of Italy ...). In spite of centuries of internal migration, identical language and a relative closeness of all the regional cultures, they have not disappeared and continue to contribute the cultural richness of the European continent. If the individual European cultures are considered unlikely to converge, how should one then perceive the European identity? What does it actually mean to be European? In our opinion, every citizen of Europe possesses more than just one cultural paradigm, and is the carrier of multiple cultures simultaneously. At this point it needs to be stressed that we define culture in the broadest sense of the word, i.e. as a set of behavioral patterns, which differentiates the members of a group of individuals from other such groups. This entire concept can be better illustrated on an example: Within every family, it is apparent that each of the family members would react in a different way to similar stimuli – it can be claimed that each person has his/her own “individual culture” which differentiates him/her from the rest of the family. Zooming out, as one begins to consider culture on a municipal level, the differences within the individual family members become minute and unimportant, and one becomes able to perceive the cultural diversity of various families (humor patterns, traditional recipes, shared history). Moving further up, the differences within the cultures of individual towns (in some cases even sub-municipal units) become apparent, including changing accent, specific vocabulary, different religious affiliation, etc. If one looks at cultures from a national point of view, the differences between towns within individual regions again seem to disappear, and it is the regions themselves, which start to appear internally culturally homogeneous, yet different from all other regions within the same country. These differences include deeper cultural layers, such as traditions, food, humor, etc. Analogically, in one perceives cultures on the European level, all the regional differences within countries smoothen out and cultural heterogeneity between countries is clearly seen. Therefore, if one wants to see Europe as a culturally homogeneous area, where the common cultural traits outweigh the differences one has to move one level further up – and consider Europe on the global scale. This, we believe, is the answer to European identity. On a global scale, one can see and appreciate an entirely new level of differences between civilizations, which are absent on the national or continental scale: these range from religion, judicial and political systems, climatic and environmental conditions, history and traditions, to language family affiliation and script types. At this level, the differences between individual European countries in fact do become unimportant and one is able to perceive Europe as a culturally homogeneous block with outstanding common traits (such as the three 89
pillars of Europeanism introduced in the previous chapter: Roman law, Greek philosophy and Christian religion). In other words, to feel truly European, one must actually step out of Europe and look at it from the outside. Within Europe, one will always perceive the national cultural differences in much the same way as within a given country one will always see the differences between the country’s regions, etc.
2. EAST-WEST CULTURAL DIVIDE IN EUROPE The East-West cultural divide in Europe can be defined along various lines: 1. From a historical perspective, this imaginary boundary ran through the Balkan Peninsula and upwards to the Gulf of Finland, effectively separating the Romeinfluenced West from the Byzantine-influenced East. This division manifested itself culturally in the predominant religion (Roman Catholic vs. Orthodox) and script (Latin alphabet vs. Cyrillic). 2. Another definition of the East-West boundary arose after World War II, when Europe became separated by the Iron Curtain between the western capitalist world and the eastern socialist countries. Politically, this division was removed Figure 2: Map of European West-East continuum
Source: Reťkovský, P. 90
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40 years later, but culturally some of its aspects have remained present in the current European context. 3. Last but not least, a new delimitation of the East vs. the West is being currently created in Europe in the form of the future boundaries of the European Union. This understanding of the European “West” is perhaps the most inclusive one, as it encompasses several countries, which formerly belonged to the socialist camp, as well as various countries belonging to the Eastern Orthodox tradition. To be more precise, one could argue that the remnants of the “European East” now only comprise the former members of the Soviet Union (with the notable exception of the Baltic Countries). Given the fact that these three divisions do not completely overlap, it can be shown that rather than a sharp boundary between the West and the East, there is a cultural continuum starting with countries such as Slovakia, Poland or Croatia, which have experienced a socialist past, but which otherwise belong to the western cultural sphere. Other states, such as Serbia, Bulgaria or Macedonia were included in the 20th century socialist camp, and in addition to this share the Orthodox Byzantine tradition. It could be argued that the block with the highest degree of “eastness” includes countries such as Russia, Ukraine or Belarus, where, in addition to the socialist past and Orthodox heritage, the political affiliation lies with Moscow rather with the Brussels and it is likely that they will never form part of the European integration system. Greece is a rather specific country in this respect, as it has never been a member of the socialist block, but it has a very strong Orthodox tradition. It has also been a member (although arguably a rather problematic one) of the European Union since 1980’s, yet it can still be considered to lie on the eastern side of the West-East boundary. As far as the future development of the West-East division in Europe is concerned, we believe that the cultural traditions forming this continuum will remain in place. However, the business cultures and values of the eastern countries might undergo approximation to the western ones. The reason for this change lies in several facts: 1. The East-European business culture was for the greater part heavily influenced by the 40 years of the socialist political system. Given the lack of possibilities for self-actuation and the egalitarian nature of the society, the incentives were very weak for individuals to foster their entrepreneurial spirit. Furthermore the system tended to demotivate the individuals’ interest in the common areas of the society, since this was the domain of the state, and in turn motivate the members of the community to concentrate on the improvement of their private sphere, which was at the time rather limited. 91
2. The East-European cultures tend to prefer the high-context form of communication, meaning that a lot of the meaning is implied, rather than explicitly stated. This results in a shift in the way how individual cultures and their members approach their rights and obligations. Traditionally, the “eastern way” was to stress one’s obligation at the expense of one’s rights, since it was implied and in a way “polite” that one’s rights should be served automatically, without one having to invoke them. The above two factors, however, make the eastern culture vulnerable to exploitation by the non-members (in this case, by the members of the West-European cultures), which tend to be more explicit and success driven, stressing one’s rights at the expense of one’s obligations, as it is understood that one has to fight for one’s rights, thus delimiting them against the rights of the remaining members of the society and keeping the entire system in balance. A rather extreme example of this can be seen in the culture of the United States, where individual rights and reliance on oneself has been the norm for centuries, and has been, due to its efficiency, spreading in the globalized world. 49 Given the current state of globalization, the mixing of these two cultures is, of course inevitable. In such cases, it is the western culture, which prevails, because it relies on precisely defined and explicit individual rights rather than on a relatively vague implicit obligations one should perform towards the remaining members of the society, and the motivation of an individual to enforce his or her rights is much greater than his/her motivation to protect the rights of another member of the group. In addition to this, the entrepreneurial drive and efficiency of the western culture is (or rather, was) much stronger than the eastern entrepreneurship weakened by years of socialism. Given the fact that these two cultural systems are to some extent incompatible, there are only three possible solutions restoring the balance of the system: 1. Isolation of the two cultural blocks – this was the case before the fall of the socialist system and in the scope of the unifying Europe, its realization would be not only undesired, but also impractical and impossible. 2. An open cultural conflict, which would signify the violation of the European principles and would be, again, impossible in the view of the European integration process. 49
This was in turn based on the Puritan predestination ethics of the Pilgrim Forefathers and founders of the United States: it was believed that one’s eternal salvation or damnation was predestined at the moment of a person’s birth and that success in life was a sign of the former, whereas misfortune signified a less favorable outcome in the afterlife. Competition among society members was strong, because ensuring one’s salvation (i.e. success) often signified another person’s damnation (i.e. bankruptcy). This can be contrasted with the traditional Catholic / Orthodox paradigm (often strongly present in the Eastern European countries), promising eternal salvation to selfless individuals, who sacrifice themselves for the good of their peers, thus creating an obligations-based rather than a rights-based system.
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3. The adjustment of one (or both) of the cultural blocks to such extent, that the cultural conflict is removed and both cultural paradigms become compatible. In fact, the third scenario is the one, which has prevailed in the region of Central Europe following the fall of the socialist system in 1989. It was the eastern culture, which has started to take over several characteristics of its western counterpart. 1. A change in the business culture and an increase in general entrepreneurship of the population occurred soon after 1990 to counter the heightened pressure the domestic market was facing from the western side of the former Iron Curtain. 2. A shift in the values and communication patterns has also become apparent, when the original obligations-based system is currently being superseded by the western rights-based system. This is especially obvious in case of the youngest generation of Central European residents, who were born shortly before or during the change of the political system, and whose value systems closely resemble the western ones. 3. The previous lack of interest in matters, which do not directly concern the individual members of the society, has also been subject to change. Within the past 20 years, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe have become more environmentally aware, the civil society and non-governmental organizations have become more active and the societies are learning how to take care of the entire range of issues indirectly influencing their lives even in the absence of a strong state.
3. CONCLUSION To conclude, it seems plausible that the cultural future of Europe will be a bright one. Given the integrating tendencies on the continent, it seems that individual groups of countries are learning to cooperate and to somehow smoothen out their “cultural edges” to enable a successful collaboration and compatibility between their individual cultural systems. This, of course, does not mean that Europe will become a culturally homogeneous continent without any national, regional or local differences. The extent of cultural approximation only goes as far as to ensure a peaceful and fruitful coexistence, rather than a boring uniformity. In the end it would seem that the motto of the European Union is indeed a very fitting and appropriate description of the cultural composition of the block: United in diversity.
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SELECTED LECTURES The Geo-Political Foundations of European Identities The Impact of Territorial and Membership Spaces on European Cultures Hakan G. Sicakkan Department of Comparative Politics The University of Bergen
[email protected] A clarification of the relationship between West European political history and legal models of citizen is crucial to understanding better the new formations of social, economic, and political boundaries. The major hypothesis in this paper is that historical processes of state formation and nation building played a significant role in emergence of contemporary legal models of citizen. States generated diverse value systems and corresponding legal discourses framing phenomenon “citizen” while they opted for creating the “right” loyalties and identifications in order to secure continuity of their own legitimacy and of populations’ governability. Stein Rokkan’s typology of state formation and nation building in Europe is employed for delineating the variation in European political history across countries. Citizenship, immigration, and aliens’ laws of eighteen West European countries are used as data sources for the variation in European legal conceptions of citizen. Charles Ragin’s qualitative comparative method (QCA) is employed as the basic methodological tool for generating a synthetic, combinatorial solution to uncovering the systematic relationship between types of state formation and nation building, and contemporary citizenship laws.
CITIZENSHIP IN ROKKAN’S THEORY OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT IN EUROPE Stein Rokkan’s political history writing seems to be the best point of departure for uncovering the conditions for different types of collective identities in Europe because it systematically categorizes and interrelates collective identity formations and types of state-formation and nation-building in Europe.50 Before forming our hypotheses, we need to give an overview of the Rokkanian paradigm. Fig.1 is an illustration of Stein Rokkan’s modelling of state-formation and nation-building processes in Europe. The first phase of state-formation, i.e. the penetration phase, is 50
See especially Rokkan (1970, 1971, 1975), Rokkan and Urwin (1982, 1983), Rokkan et.al. (1987).
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characterized by intracenter compromises and conflicts between the stateforming élite and after successful completion of compromising at the élite level by formation by the élite of a series of cultural bonds between local powercenters and of political / juridical institutions. Phase two (standardization), is a centerperiphery relationship. In this standardization phase, larger masses of population are drawn into the system by introduction of compulsory military service, obligatory standardized education and advanced massmedia that constitute channels for direct oneway contact from the political center to the periphery. This, in turn, brings about an expansion of identity that stretches over the local level to the whole political system and an identityconflict between the new and the old in intralocal and centerperiphery relations. During phase three (participation), masses increasingly assume roles as active participants in political decisionmaking processes in the territorially defined political system via introduction of rights of opposition, expansion of suffrage, formation of political parties that function as a medium for articulation and aggregation of periphery demands. The fourth phase (redistribution), represents the increasing expansion of the state apparatus in form of administrative institutions. During this phase, public administration of welfare facilities and progressive taxation systems are developed in order to ensure the equal distribution of wealth and services. Figure 1 Dimensions of State Formation and Nation Building
Source: Rokkan (1975). 96
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The Rokkanian model does not suggest that these phases will necessarily take place in political development of each polity. If a country’s political development follows the model’s premises, the Rokkanian model postulates that the gap between the political center and the periphery will be smaller and smaller in both cultural and economic dimensions after successful completion of each phase. The bigger the gap between the political center and the periphery, the less democracy. Inversely, the smaller the gap between the political center and the periphery on both economic and cultural sides, the more democracy. This implies the sharing of political power by as many elements and layers of the society as possible in territorial, cultural and economic dimensions. This can be formulated as the growth and expansion of the political center to include all the participant citizens or as occupation of the political center by the periphery. Such a model of political development, which focuses on the interactions between states and societies, implies the gathering and integration of periphery within the political center. Theoretically, this political development reaches at its climax when all the citizens are within the political center, i.e. when they are the state, and have equal political power and rights. This is explicitly a model for describing / explaining the nativestate relationships behind which, by implication, lies the basic assumption that all those who do not permanently reside in a territory at the onset of the stateformation phase are aliens, and those who live permanently in the territory at that time are potential citizens. Temporarily resident aliens and potential immigrants can be placed in this model as a new cultural and / or economic periphery, which Rokkan (1971) actually once began doing in a short paper. In his comparison of immigrants in North America and Europe, he made it clear that a state’s and individuals’ simultaneous relationships of origin to a territory is a first degree factor determining the substance of the citizen concept. Formulated in other words than Rokkan’s own, in USA and Canada the state elites and all individuals but the aboriginals are aliens with respect to their territorial origin, and all individuals and the state are potential citizens with respect to their relationship to the state. In other words, in a polity where neither the state nor the majority of the population have their origins in the state’s territory, the substance of the citizen concept will be determined purely by stateindividual relationships (i.e. express consent, citizenship) and not by individuals’ relationship of origin to the territory. Inversely, in polities where the state élite is constituted of natives, the territorial origin of individuals in contrast to their ethnic belonging, culture and religion will be the most significant factor determining the content of the alien concept. Furthermore, Rokkan emphasized the state and the level of political development as determinants of immigrants’ status also in political systems where both the state and majority of the population originate in the respective state’s territory. Consequently, the most important factors determining the ontological content of the citizen concept in Rokkan are individuals’ territorial origin (territorial bond by birth or jus soli in a Rousseanean sense) and their relationship to a state (state bond, or in Lockean terms express or tacit consent: citizenship). 97
Rokkan used his model for state and nationbuilding in Europe as a reference framework for retrospectively accounting for the various processes of state and nation building, rather than using it as a dogmatic theory for prediction. Therefore, his theory does not suggest that outcomes of state and nation building processes were or will be the same everywhere in Europe. Thus, the above-defined Rokkanian citizen is a model that will emerge only if the political history of a polity perfectly fits the model, that is if all the four phases have come in the right time and in the right sequence. When the empirical state and nation building processes do not conform to the assertions of the model, one cannot expect the alien model in the respective polity’s citizenship law to be based on territorial origin and extended territorial identity. In such countries, citizen models will be based on either local, communal or cantonal membership identities or on ancestral identification. This last aspect of the theory has one important implication as regards the comparative approach in this study. Based on these Rokkanian premises, we can hypothesize that polities with different outcomes of state and nation building processes will systematically differ from each other also with respect to their models of alien, potential citizen and citizen.
CONSTRUCTING THE ROKKANIAN HYPOTHESES Rokkan’s typology concerning the relationship between outcomes of statebuilding processes and membership / identity types is illustrated in Table I.51 Models of citizen are expressed only in terms of the strongest components of collective identity such as “jus soli”, “jus sanguinis”, “jus soli dominant” or “jus sanguinis dominant” although more intricate combinations of these criterions are used in citizenship laws. Therefore, Table-I should be considered as a parsimonious summary of models of citizen in European citizenship laws. These criterions for distinguishing between individuals with and without natural ownership right on a polity can be used to determine countries’ respective models of potential citizen. Potential citizens are those individuals who do not have to do anything more than being born for becoming actual citizens, and aliens are those individuals who meet obstacles laying different degrees of difficulty for their acquisition of citizenship. Criterions giving automatic access to citizenship without individuals’ needing to apply for it are used to determine models of potential citizen in each polity. This definition of citizen excludes rules of citizenship acquisition by naturalization.
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Into this table of Rokkan, I have added arrows representing hypotheses concerning the effects on contemporary models of citizen of territories’ cephality, religious / ethnic diversity previous to the onset of state formation, and of colonialism. I have furthermore added suggestions about the relationships between Rokkan’s identity-space categories and criterions for defining citizens.
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Table I Dimensions in Formation of Models of Citizen and Alien
Source: Rokkan and Urwin (1983: 82). * The cursivated countries and the dimensions denoted by arrows are added. “Strategies of unification” is an elaboration of stateformation processes’ outcome. Its four categorical values vary from political centers’ most successful state formation (unitary state) to their least successful state formation (federalism). While unitary state formation can be regarded as political centers’ successful state building attempts, federal state formation can be viewed as peripheries’ successful state formation. Space / identity characteristics are outcomes of nationbuilding processes. Territorial space corresponds to states’ successful nation building because states have managed in such polities to generate legitimacy by transforming local identifications and loyalties into larger territorial identification and loyalty. Territorial space also represents the unsuccessful 99
peripheries. Membership space represents peripheries’ successful nation building and states’ unsuccessful nation building attempts. Table II List of Variables in QCA-Analysis
Rokkan’s strategies of unification show a high degree of congruence with his space / identity characteristics. The same correlation cannot be found between citizenship criterions and Rokkan’s other two dimensions because there are other intervening macropolitical factors not considered by Rokkan, some of which are illustrated with arrows in Table I. These additional dimensions seem to have systematic impacts on the resultant models of citizen. Combination of colonialism and religious / ethnic diversity seems to lead from a jus sanguinis identification at the societal level to a jus soli based model of alien and potential citizen in the citizenship laws. On the other hand, when politicalterritorial boundaries cut across the already existing ancestral identification, the established jus sanguinis identification becomes modified by the state-imposed jus soli identification.
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Table III QCA-Analysis of citizenship models QCA-Truth Table
Table III illustrates value assignments in the truth table used in the QCA application.52 The analysis was done in three steps. The first step comprised a QCA application where the above truth table was minimized for the dependent variable’s value “1”. Results from this step gave configurations of the independent variables leading to a jus soli outcome. In the second step, the same truth table was minimized for the “0” values of the dependent variable. The results from this stage gave the causality configurations for the jus sanguinis outcome. In the third step, results from these analyses were interpreted and used for explaining how different models of citizen emerged.
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Values of independent variables, except colonialism and premedieval consolidation, were extracted from Rokkan’s (1975, 1982, 1983) conceptual map of Europe. Case values of variable “premedieval territorial consolidation” were extracted from Millar (1967). Values of the dependent variable were assigned with respect to countries’ citizenship, immigration, and aliens’ laws. Moreover, this information was validated and updated in January 1997 through telephone-interviews with law sections of countries’ embassies, ministries, and directorates of citizenship and immigration.
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Conditions for development of jus soli-based models of citizen In Table IV, there are six possible explanations of emergence of the jus soli requirement as citizenship principle in European citizenship laws. These solutions are presented in each row of the table. Indeed, to account for our 18 cases, it is enough to choose only four of these solutions after analyzing each case thoroughly. However, letting this wait for a while, I will now present these solutions. Table IV QCA-Solutions from Minimization for Ius Soli
NOTES: (1) Model: CITALIEN = PREMEDIE + RELIGHOM + LINGUHOM + MONOCEPH + TERANCST + EUROPERI + UNISTATE + COLONIAL (2) Outputs Minimized: 1 Using Don’t Cares: L (3) Method: Quine-McCluskey (Minimal) (4) The addition signs (+) between variabel configurations are to be read as logical operator “or”. Variables within each configuration are connected to each other with the logical operator “and”. (5) Lowercase = condition absent (0); uppercase = condition present (1).
There is one QCA-solution pertaining to France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. With regard to these three countries, colonialism and the subsequent colonial immigration are the only possible explanation of the jus soli principle. Concerning Belgium, Portugal, and Spain, there are other possible explanations in addition to colonialism. In these countries, also pre-state religious homogeneity combined with 102
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a medieval polycephalic geopolitical structure, can be a reason. This set of conditions is the only explanation in the case of Italy. Furthermore, for Belgium there is a third and a fourth possible variable configuration that can explain emergence of the jus soli-principle. These are (1) unitary state formation in territories with linguistically heterogeneous populations, where the respective languages constitute the main language in neighboring countries. State formation in such contexts must necessarily promote a citizenship identity that is based on the territorial principle rather than ancestry and language because the latter two provide loyalty to the contesting neighbor political centers. (2) The second variable configuration comprises the conditions of religious homogeneity, absence of integrated language, and territorial borders cutting across myths of ancestral identification. State formation attempts in such a context, must necessarily opt for a citizenship requirement based on territorial identity because of neighbor political centers contesting for the same population’s loyalty. These two sets of conditions exist also in Ireland’s political history. Similarly, two alternative combinations of explanatory variables account for the case of Austria. The first one is the presence of a monocephalic geopolitical structure combined with non-unitary state formation and other political centers contesting for the same population’s loyalty (Prussia). Our findings in this subsection point strongly back to the hypotheses presented in Table I. These hypotheses focus on the interactions on the macro level between territorial borders, language, religion, colonialism, and strategies of state formation. However, their relevance to each specific case must be shown, which we shall do in section four. Conditions for development of jus sanguinis-based models of citizen Table V presents nine QCA-solutions for jus sanguinis based models of citizen in West European laws. Three of these solutions are enough to account for our 18 cases. However, following the procedure mentioned in 4.1, I will present these solutions and not exclude any one of them for the time being. In the fourth causal configuration, absence of colonial experience is combined with territorial borders that correspond to the existing myths of ancestral identity. In such contexts, there will be no need to emphasize populations’ difference to other political centers through territorial identity, i.e. the principle of jus soli; and the principle of jus sanguinis will thus be the most effective way of connecting the population to the political center. The fifth set of variables comprises religious homogeneity, monocephality and territorial borders corresponding to existing myths of ancestral identity. This set of variables point to the significance of conditions initial to state formation: the interaction between religious composition of the population, myths of ancestral identity, and geopolitical structure. These three variable configurations account for the cases of Finland, Greece, and Luxembourg.
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Table V QCA-Solutions from Minimization for Ius Sanguinis
NOTES: (1) Model: CITALIEN = PREMEDIE + RELIGHOM + LINGUHOM + MONOCEPH + TERANCST + EUROPERI + UNISTATE + COLONIAL (2) Outputs Minimized: 0 Using Don’t Cares: L (3) Method: Quine-McCluskey (Minimal) (4) The addition signs (+) between variabel configurations are to be read as logical operator “or”. Variables within each configuration are connected to each other with the logical operator “and”. (5) Uppercase = condition present (1); lowercase = condition absent (0). The last three configurations in Table-V account for the Nordic countries, except Finland. The first of these comprise conditions of unitary state formation strategy on monocephalic territories with highly homogeneous populations. The second configuration replaces the religious homogeneity condition in the aforementioned first set, with the absence of the colonialism factor. The third variable set comprises conditions of absent premedieval territorial identity formation, absent colonialism, linguistically homogeneous population, and unitary state formation strategy. All the three sets of conditions indicate in fact unitary 104
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state formation in territories with homogeneous populations where the state building élites do not necessarily need to generate a territorial identity. In such contexts, the most effective way of generating loyalty to the political center will be to expand the existing local ancestral identities to cover the whole population. Also regarding the emergence of the jus sanguinis principle in West European laws, our hypotheses in Table-I seem to be valid. However, with these findings from a QCAapplication on our data, the possibility of alternative explanation has increased.
STATE-FORMATION, NATION-BUILDING AND MODELS OF CITIZENSHIP According to the QCA premises, the solutions found in tables IV and V are legitimate, and can be regarded as the necessary conditions for emergence of jus soli and jus sanguinis based models of citizen and alien. However, as pointed out, certain cases comprise more than one set of conditions. In order to find out which of these alternative conditions had an effect in each country, one must weigh the impact of these alternative sets of conditions with respect to each other in each context. This will be done in this section. Jus soli-based citizenship laws in retrenched empires In polities with strong political centers where state formation came before nation building (i.e. seaward and landward nation states), one should expect to find laws based on the jus soli principle because such polities represent the strongest territorialspace identity traditions. That is, birth in the territory should give automatic access to legally residing aliens’ children. Indeed, most of these countries have developed a modified version of the jus soli principle, namely the double jus soli principle. According to this principle, those children who are born in the territory and one of whose alien parents is also born in the territory become automatically citizens of the respective polity. The crucial historical factors that led to this modified application of the jus soli principle are: (1) colonialism, (2) religious / ethnic diversity before state formation, and (3) states’ strategies of unification. Countries with strong political centers that had extensive colonial affairs have typically developed the double jus soli principle in order both to close their borders against further immigration from colonies and to protect and regularize rights of the already arrived colonial immigrants. On the other hand, statebuilding élites opting for a unitary state in religiously / ethnically mixed territories also opted for the jus soli principle in order to undermine competition based on jus sanguinis and religious identifications within the territory. The modern period (17001914) expanded the citizenship identity in these European territories from its narrow traditional limits such as ancestors, local society, land, family and home53 to the broader framework 53
The European expansion of identity beyond the male word took place in 1970s: Formerly, transfer of citizenship by jus sanguinis was only possible through the father s citizenship. jus sanguinis from both parents was introduced in Germany in 1974, in Spain in 1982, in Italy and Austria in 1983, in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland in 1985. (Bauböck 1994).
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of territorialnational citizenship as in France, and of statesubjecthood as in Austria, Portugal, Spain and the U.K. France, Spain and United Kingdom built their states in ethnically diverse territories, whereas Austria and Portugal had highly homogeneous populations after the collapse of their empires. These countries have gone far beyond the jus sanguinis principle and adapted different combinations of jus soli and jus domicili principles, wherein the jus soli component is dominant. The emergence of the jus soli principle cannot be explained only with the factors of early unitary state formation and powerful states building nations in territories with heterogeneous populations. In the other aforementioned jus soli countries, one has both these Rokkanian factors and the factor of colonialism. Since Austria, which is without a colonial past and with an empire building history, has not developed the jus soli but the jus domicili principle, the crucial factor leading to a jus soli oriented development must be the presence of former colonial affairs alone. One can at this point speculate and assert that if the United Kingdom, Spain, and France had not been colonizers, they would too develop the jus domicili principle. Furthermore, with respect to these dimensions, Portugal is different from the other jus soli cases in that it has a colonial past and a pre-state homogeneous population. Presence of a colonial past combined with absence of ethnic / religious diversity has placed Austria somewhere between jus soli and jus domicili principles, albeit closer to jus soli as in the case of Austria. Colonialism alone does not in all cases seem to lead to a pure jus soli model. As we see in the case of Portugal, where prestate ethnic diversity is absent, it is likely that a mildened version of jus soli (combined jus soli and jus domicili) model emerges in colonial metropols. Based on features of our cases, there are two more arguments in this connection: First, historically, not all the colonizing states have been the wellcentralized ones. The polycephalic city belt cases of Netherlands and Belgium with jus soli based citizenship laws represent such polities. Second, Sweden and Denmark are similar to Austria with respect to our three Rokkanian dimensions: imperial history, ethnic / religious homogeneity, and a noncolonial past. Albeit, Denmark and Sweden have developed a combination of jus soli and jus sanguinis principles. I shall come back to these four countries later. The retrenched empires, with the exception of Denmark and Sweden, developed jus soli based criterions. This type of politics of identity was a means for drawing into the political system and assimilating ethnic minorities and alien immigrants in order to create stable unitary states. The rise and demise of jus soli-based citizenship laws in city belt countries The fragmented European core was comprised of economically strong cities located in a broad traderoutebelt from the Mediterranean cost over the Alps to the Rhine and the Danube and as far as to the Baltic Sea. This set of polities developed into today’s polycephalic federal states with membershipspace type of identity. Empirical examples are today’s territorially defined unitary states with territorialspace type of identity, which 106
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resulted in development of strong membershipspace type of collective identity traditions. Switzerland is the perfect example to this. Other countries located in this trade belt were Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, and West Germany. “In this core […] center formation was weak. The only successes were the consociational constructions of the Netherlands and Switzerland” (Rokkan 1975) these citybelt countries, Belgium, Italy, and Netherlands developed jus soli based criterions for distinguishing potential citizens and aliens like the seaward and landward nation states did. Germany and Switzerland developed jus sanguinis based traditions. Germany interpreted this principle ethnically and later transformed into a collectivized ancestral identification. Switzerland, on the other hand, attached the jus sanguinis principle to the territory and created a unique model of citizen. The Netherlands has a combination of jus soli and jus domicili principles, which in practice has the effect of the double jus soli principle (Bauböck 1994, Costa-Lascoux 1989). In religiously divided and linguistically homogeneous Netherlands, jus soli functioned as a system of boundary maintenance against strong foreign centers’ exploitation of this religious division. The catholic and protestant sides had both strong economic resources, and Amsterdam could not opt for a religious standardization policy as London and Paris did. A politics of identity that encouraged and strengthened territorial identification and placed a secondary importance on religion, which in the absence of a strong political center was the only means for avoiding a probable social division along religious lines. The Netherlands has also been a colonial metropol. The double jus soli principle had the function of delimiting the demos against the colonial immigration. Belgium is quite similar to Netherlands in this respect. A history of colonialism and identity cleavages, but this time along the linguistic dimension that overlapped with the territorial boundaries of the two languages: the Flemish and the French. In Belgium a membership principle based on individuals’ territorial origins rather than their ancestral origins was the only way to justify and legitimize the political power of the state élite. This initial to statebuilding combined with her colonial past led Belgium to develop a membership principle based on double jus soli principle like the aforementioned countries. That territorial space came to be more important in Belgium than in the Netherlands is due to factors: (1) The Belgian statebuilding élite opted for a unitary state by making French the only official language of the state in the beginning, and the Dutch State did not, (2) Unlike the Dutch religious division, the Belgian linguistic cleavage was territorially defined. With the ambition of creating a unitary state with French culture, they opted for creating a territorybased Belgianness (jus soli) that could serve as the common identity of Flemmings and the Walloons; instead of a jus sanguinis identity that could threaten the legitimacy of the Belgian state.
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Although she was a polycephalic citybelt polity with linguistically and religiously homogeneous population and without colonial past, Italy developed the double jus soli principle. Italy had a tradition of territorybased jus Italicum (Italian Right) during and after the consolidation of the Roman Republic. This lasted from the consolidation of the Roman Republic in 510 BC until the Roman Emperor Caracalla removed the territorial principle from the citizenship law in 212 AC (Millar 1966). Jus italicum gave automatically citizenship right to those who originated from Italy. It excluded all those other Latinspeakers from citizenship. The notion of jus italicum was significant in Italy’s unification into a unitary state in 1860. Consequently, Italy developed a double jus soli tradition, which is very similar to her historical Italian Right tradition, the legacy of her premedieval imperial past. A comparison of these three cases may generate more information about the impacts of our Rokkanian dimensions: Belgium and the Netherlands satisfy the condition of ethnic / religious diversity and colonialism on the one hand; and differ from each other in their strategies of state building on the other. The Netherlands has formed a consociational system through a union-state building strategy, whereas Belgium opted for a unitary state formation, though without success in her standardization phase. The combined presence of ethnic / religious diversity and colonialism factors led in these countries to the development of jus soli based citizenship laws. This difference in their strategies of unification can be the reason for the slight difference between their models of citizen. That is, between the Belgian double jus soli and the Netherlands’ slightly more receptive combination of jus soli and double jus domicili that does not require parents are born in the territory. Furthermore, one has the polycephalic Italy with both a premedieval and a modern history of unitary state building strategy, which also has developed a combination of jus soli and double jus domicili. The Italian empirical input indicates that different combinations of these factors have led to the jus soli based citizenship laws in the city belt countries. “Tradebelt Europe inherited strong linguistic standards from the ancient empires, but there was no corresponding development at the political level: national identity came first, political unification came only much later” (Rokkan and Urwin 1983). However, as argued above, the factors of unification strategy, premedieval territorial consolidation, linguistic / religious cleavages and colonialism were still crucial in the citybelt countries; and they led to jus soli based principles for distinguishing potential citizens and aliens in Belgium, Italy and Netherlands. Germany and Switzerland developed principles that are utterly different from these three citybelt countries. Because of her polycephalic power structure, citizenship was a local level issue in Germany until 1852. After 1852, Germany began to centrally exercise the authority to grant citizenship. In Switzerland, citizenship is still a cantonal level issue.
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There were four historical macropolitical factors that played a crucial role in Germany’s developing into a jus sanguinis country. First, Germany, together with Italy, was the latest statebuilding country in West Europe. However, she was different from Italy in that she had never experienced a larger territorial definition of demos in her history that was similar to the jus italicum of the Romans. Secondly, the German territorial identity overlapped with the German ancestral identity almost perfectly, with the exception of the German Jews; and the state’s legitimacy could be maintained by an ancestral (jus sanguinis) limitation of the natural ownership right on the German polity. Thirdly, the German nation was built before the German State, which meant a popular construction of demos instead of an éliteled construction of it. Finally, the presence of a large catholic German minority in Bavaria made a jus sanguinis identification more plausible a unification strategy than the jus soli principle, since the Bavarian catholic identification was also territorially concentrated. Whereas the jus sanguinis identification undermined the religious (i.e. Bavaria) and intercity economic cleavages during consolidation of Germany, it served to undermine the ideological cleavage during the coldwar period, and became an ideological justification of Germany’s reunification goal. In line with all the ethnic Germans, also the citizens of GDR could automatically acquire citizenship upon immigration to the West. Thus, the jus sanguinis identification functioned as a uniting ideology in Germany. Switzerland developed a non-ethnic jus sanguinis principle. The Swiss model is an incomparably different version of the pure jus sanguinis one combined with the jus soli principle. This is due to its political development with the presence of four different linguistic populations. Like the Netherlands, the Swiss Confederation was built against the external threats by the surrounding powerful territorial centers. Furthermore, they both had culturally diverse populations: Whereas the Dutch territory was merely religiously heterogeneous, the Swiss territory was both religiously and linguistically divided. Although one should on these premises expect them to develop the same sort of identification criterions, they went utterly in different ways. This difference is due to two things: (1) The presence in Netherlands of a colonial past and its absence in Switzerland, (2) The Swiss cultural diversity was more open to external threats than the Dutch one because the only languages spoken there were the languages of the strong neighbor territorial centers. Therefore, whereas the Dutch unionstate could maintain its legitimacy through connecting the identity to its territory, it could simultaneously eliminate the impact of the religious diversity. However, the Swiss polity had to relate the Swiss identity both to territory and ancestry; in other words to the joint principles of, respectively, jus soli and jus sanguinis. The former principle was a means for distinguishing French, German and Italian components of the Swiss citizenship identity from external identities that were closer to the Swiss languages (those of France, Germany and Italy). The latter functioned as a tool to protect the internal cultural diversity and to provide for nonmixing with the enormously large immigrant population. 109
The demise of the jus soli principle occurred through other macropolitical processes in Switzerland than in Germany. Although both are city belt countries with a polycephalic territorial structure, the Swiss population is highly diverse both in linguistic and religious terms, whereas the German population is almost perfectly homogeneous in linguistic terms. Switzerland did not experience a centralization attempt as Germany did. The Prussian attempt to create a common territorial identification in Germany had to pursue and consequently resulted in a collectivization of the societal level jus sanguinis identity, while the German polycephalic territorial structure continued to exist. A similar collectivization of the jus sanguinis identification in Switzerland was not possible because of the prevailing religious and ethnic diversity. We cannot speak of the jus sanguinis principle in Switzerland in ethnical terms as in Germany. For the Swiss sanguine comprise at least four ethnic identities in linguistic terms. Thus, the Swiss model of citizen is based on a multi-ethnic and thus nonethnic jus sanguinis principle. The Swiss jus sanguinis principle functions as a means of transferring citizenship from parents to children and not in order to enable one ethnic group to claim a natural ownership right on the Swiss polity. Jus sanguinis-based models of citizen in European peripheries Jus sanguinis identification is not peculiar only to Germany and Switzerland. Some polities that were European peripheries and that were not liberated before the XXth century also developed strong jus sanguinis identification. These are Greece, Finland, Norway, and Ireland. Norway is analyzed in subsection later together with the other Scandinavian countries. However, Ireland is an exception amongst the European territories with its Britishlike model of citizen based on a combination of the jus soli and double jus domicili principles. Greece can be likened to Germany because the Greek national awareness was established long before the Greek State became sovereign in the Greek peninsula. The more or less same outcome was achieved in Greece through a different statebuilding process. Greece’s Ottoman past was crucial in this respect. Ottomans’ indifference to the idea of standardizing the culture and religion at the societal level, and to forming a common territorial identity, was a determinant of the resultant weaker territorial identity in Greece. The fact that they were treated as an economically privileged group within the Ottoman millet system encouraged a territoryindependent jus sanguinis identity amongst Greeks, who lived spread in Istanbul, the Black Sea costs and densely in the Greek peninsula. Their economically privileged and culturally strong position in the Empire, combined with their politically disadvantaged status, was an important determinant. The Modern Greek citizenship law transformed gradually into a more jus sanguinis oriented one. However, unlike Germany, she did not reach the level of defining ethnic Greeks that were citizens of other countries as her natural citizens before 1995. Until then, jus sanguinis principle was combined with jus soli principle. Only those 110
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Greeks born in Greece were considered as the natural Greek citizens, and ethnic Greeks were discouraged to immigrate into Greece. In 1995, Greece began to facilitate dual citizenship to ethnic Greeks residing elsewhere, although they may not intend to reside in Greece. “Greece cannot deny those people, who have kept their Greekness for 4000 years, the right to call themselves Greeks just because they happened to be born outside the territory of the Modern Greek State”.54 The Finnish Nationality Act of 1968 based the automatic acquisition of citizenship on maternal jus sanguinis. Through relationships of domination with Sweden, the Finnish ancestral identity had been strengthened and later was confirmed by the Finnish independence; in this respect Finland is very similar and can be paralleled to Greece. The outcome of the Swedish politics of identity in Finland was very similar to that of the Ottomans’ millet system: Sweden simply encouraged the development of a strong Finnish identity. However, the reason why Swedes did so was utterly different from the Ottomans’ motives. “While the position of the Swedish minority as a whole strengthened [...], the Swedish élite had a direct interest in the development of a broadlybased Finnish movement as an essential element in a strategy to protect the inherited structure of government against the Russian center” (Alapuro 1982). A jus sanguinis based identity prevailed in Finland at the societal level; and this identity was gradually projected onto the state level beginning from her independence in 1917. This process was parallel to and followed the development of mass political participation and of Finnish welfare state. Among these European territories, Ireland has exceptionally developed a jus soli based model of alien. The present Irish citizenship law attributes automatically citizenship status to persons born in Ireland from legally resident alien parents. Compared with Greece and Finland, one should expect to find a jus sanguinis model also in Ireland. There were two factors crucial to this seemingly anomalous outcome. First, while the former two were encouraged to develop an ancestry-based identification by their respective territorial centers, London discouraged the latter to do so. Second, the Irish linguistic identification was crosscut by the religious identification. Under the British rule, the population of Ireland developed into two separate social entities that were defined in terms of religion: The Catholic Southern Ireland and a Northern Ireland with a protestant majority. This aspect undermined the significance of the jus sanguinis identification in Ireland because an ancestry-based motive for national mobilization proved to be implausible, as experienced after the Government of Ireland Law of 1920.55 54
From telephone interview with the Greek Embassy in Oslo, January 1997. The Irish national movement that led to this law was Catholic in essence and did not get the support of the Irish Protestants. When the Northern Ireland expressed her wish to join the United Kingdom, a jus sanguinis based definition of the stateindividual bonds became practically difficult in Ireland. 55
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Whereas division of the Irish population along religious lines and London’s strong imperial jus soli policies may to some extent account for why a jus sanguinis model did not emerge in Ireland, these factors fall short of explaining the emergence of jus soli model. Since a jus sanguinis possibility was implausible, there were two alternative models left for Ireland: jus soli and jus domicili. Ireland has no past as a colonial metropol; on the contrary, she was a periphery of Britain. Furthermore she is not an immigration country and she did not need to delimit her demos with restrictive means. Thus, the jus domicili principle was as plausible as the jus soli principle. However, the origins of the Irish citizenship law lie within the British citizenship law tradition, which has been dominantly jus soli oriented. The British and Irish citizenship laws were harmonized through a series of agreements between their respective governments in order to give reciprocal facilities and rights to each other’s citizens residing in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Reincarnation of the Phylai-model of citizenship in Scandinavian countries A twostage process characterizes Scandinavia’s history of stateformation and nationbuilding. First, an expansion of territory and territorial identity by the Danish and Swedish attempts to consolidate the Nordic territories. Second, their shrinkage through the Norwegian, Finnish and Icelandic territorial stateformations that resulted in the expanding centers’ withdrawal to their core territories. The Danish and Swedish attempts at consolidation brought together large Nordic territories in different times, whose populations could with extra effort understand each other’s languages. These two expansions and the following territorial shrinkage were of utmost importance to the emergence of a territorial identity (jus soli) and undermining of an ancestral identity (jus sanguinis) in Scandinavia. In contrast to Prussia that unified and centralized the citystate Germany and expanded the local jus sanguinis identifications into a polity level jus sanguinis identification, the Nordic territories experienced a territory division. This made it practically implausible for the respective statebuilding élites to encourage a jus sanguinis identification based on the Scandinavian sanguine.56 This in turn transformed the identity in both jus soli and jus sanguinis directions, but undermining in the beginning the jus sanguinis component significantly. The XXth century Scandinavian countries’ collective identification can best be labeled with an ancient Greek concept: namely, the phylai, i.e. the soil and ancestry of Attika. Such identification made it possible for the Athenians to exclude and discriminate against those Greek speakers who originated from neighboring cities and who were almost like them.57 Similarly, the real Norwegians, Swedes, Danes and 56
The Norwegian citizenship law of 1950 is indeed of a jus domicili character: If an alien had lived in Norway during five years from he was 16, he had the legal claim to become a citizen provided that he declared consent between the ages of 18 and 23. However, this was amended in 1979 in the direction of the jus sanguinis principle, a date which follows the immigration halt in West Europe. 57 Bauböck (1994) has traced the jus sanguinis identity understood in terms of blood and kinship back to the ancient Polis. In my opinion, this misses the territorykinship interaction in formation of the citizenship identity in Polis.
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Icelanders are those who descend from their respective phylai and have the customs and dialects associated with their respective phylai. Phylai has been a means for distinguishing, discriminating against and for not sharingin one’s territory with those who are the least other, or those who are almost us. Norway and Iceland have one important common characteristic: In contrast to Denmark and Sweden, they do not have a history of Empire building in the near past. Similar historical factors in Greece and Finland were significant to the construction of a pure jus sanguinis based model of alien. Albeit, the Scandinavian territorial division cutting across the Scandinavian ancestral identification has played much greater a role in formation of the Norwegian and Icelandic phylai models of citizen. In Greece and Finland, it sufficed to define the stateindividual identification in terms of the jus sanguinis principle because they were linguistically and culturally much too different social entities from the conquering territorial centers. For Norway and Iceland the situation was different: In addition to their ancestry, they had to attach the stateindividual bond also to the territory in order to mark their differences from their respective conquering centers more clearly. Although the principle of jus sanguinis existed in the Scandinavian laws in this sense, a jus sanguinis model of citizen as a tool for defining stateindividual bonds was entirely absent in their laws until 1970s. The emphasis on the jus sanguinis principle started in the 1970s in these countries, namely after the impact of alien immigration became visible. While the jus soli / jus domicili principle was a consequence of the common Scandinavian cultural / ancestral heritage and of their wish to distinguish themselves from the least other, the emergence of the jus sanguinis principle was due to their coming into contact with the most other, i.e. aliens.
SUMMARY OF EMPIRICAL FINDINGS The above discussion points to the significance of three factors leading to a jus soli based model of citizen. The first factor is colonialism. All polities that have been colonial metropols have unexceptionally developed different combinations of jus soli and jus domicili principles that emphasize territorial bonds rather than ancestral bonds. The jus soli models have served in these polities as instruments of excluding the colonial immigrants who had not arrived before the decolonization started, at the same time as they protected the already arrived colonial immigrants from expulsion and state discrimination on the basis of their ancestral bonds. There is no exception from this conclusion within the category of colonial metropols Belgium, France, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and United Kingdom. Polities that have developed jus soli models although they were not colonizers in the modern era are Austria, Italy, and Ireland. After her transition from empire-ness to state-ness, Austria’s problem was to keep distance to Germany, which had the ambition 113
of unifying all Germans. In Austria, a jus sanguinis model of citizen was implausible both because the Catholic character of the Austrian identity crosscut the larger German ancestral identity and because Austria preferred to remain as an independent state. This macropolitical context made it possible for the imperial traditions of jus soli to survive in Austria. In Italy, the jus soli principle instead of jus sanguinis came because of the long historical tradition of the Italian Right combined with a unitary state structure. As to Ireland; she is the only polity amongst the lateindependent European peripheries that has developed a pure jus soli tradition. I argued the jus sanguinis model was implausible in Ireland because the religious character of the Irish nationalism crosscut the Irish ancestral identification. The fact that the religious division crosscut the German ancestral identification in the whole central Europe combined with linguistic homogeneity left one unification strategy for the Prussian statebuilding élite: jus sanguinis. Later this citizen model became the German ideology during the cold war in order to achieve the reunification with the East Germany. Although a polycephalic and polyethnic country, Switzerland did not develop a jus soli model of alien and citizen. This was because there was no successful territorial consolidation and centralization attempt, and thus there was no political center seeking legitimacy in the Swiss history through the jus soli model in order to undermine the impact of the cultural diversities. The Scandinavian countries Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden also developed jus sanguinis models. However, the processes leading to this outcome were different in Scandinavia than in Germany and Switzerland. The fact that territorial borders crosscut the Scandinavian sanguine made it implausible to introduce in the beginning a jus sanguinis model in the Scandinavian countries. Therefore, the territorial principle became as important in Scandinavia as the ancestral principle. In contrast to Ireland, which was also a European periphery, Greece and Finland also developed jus sanguinis models. In these countries, the jus sanguinis principle came as a consequence of the imperial policies by the Swedish and Ottoman empires.
CONCLUSION At the end of state formation and nation building processes in Europe, an individual identifying with a state, its territory, and its native population had probably lesser possibility for defining another individual as an alien than one had before the onset of these processes. S/he had now alternative objects of identification that extended beyond his / her immediate surroundings. Historically, states functioned as civilizing agents 114
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through their identityextending role in Europe to the extent they managed to transform local identities into larger territorial identities. States civilized the daily conduct of intranative affairs in Europe to the extent they managed to transform “ancestral identification” (jus sanguinis) into territorial identification (jus soli). States did so by bringing gradually different types of individuals into contact with one another under their sovereignty and by compelling them to interact and identify with new human types and territories. Successful states created a new type of citizen defined in terms of individuals’ territorial origin. They did so by transforming the Lockean stateofnature phenomenon “individuals’ natural ownership right on private propriety” into the Rousseanean stateofpoliticalcommunity phenomenon “collective natural ownership right on a state’s territory and resources”. This meant the exclusion of individuals who did not origin from the state’s territory since they did not possess a natural ownership right on the polity by their territorial origin. In addition to states’ extensive coercive efforts for standardizing their native population’s culture, religion, and language through obligatory standard education; development of technology, mass media and communication facilities that followed the Industrial Revolution catalyzed this ongoing process of identity expansion. Processes of democratization, which brought along massparticipation in decisionmaking, hastened even more the process of individuals’ identification with the state’s territory and its native population; confirming also the very logic of extended territorial identity. The following phase was the inevitable consequence of the fact that masses had a say in the decision making: a process of redistribution of territorial resources based on equality amongst the native population. One important outcome of this last phase was that citizens’ actual collective ownership on their polity was realized through democratization and massparticipation. Another consequence was that citizens became increasingly more conscious of the fact that they were sharing in with each other their respective democratic polities and its resources. Thus, citizens’ natural collective ownership rights on their polity through the principle of jus soli came gradually to be the basic justification of their membership and participation rights vis á vis those of aliens. However, emergence of territorial identity and the principle of jus soli as the dominant citizenship criterion were not a given consequence of all types of state formation and nation building process. Political centers’ successful attempts at consolidation of territories with ethnically and religiously diverse populations under a unitary state led to two weighty outcomes. The first one was recognition and inclusion of native ethnic and religious minorities as citizens of equal worth, which in turn generated today’s republican type of citizenship identity. The second outcome was declaration as aliens of individuals who did not have jus soli bond to the respective polity, although they might have ancestral, religious, or cultural affiliations with the native population. Conversely, states’ unsuccessful attempts 115
at unification of territories with heterogeneous populations led to combinations of membership criteria where traces of jus soli identification were invisibly weak in their citizenship laws. In such polities’ citizenship laws, the principle of jus soli remained as a shrunken version that was defined in terms of local communities rather than states’ extended territories. Furthermore, this shrunken jus soli version became combined with the already existing principle of jus sanguinis, resulting in today’s communitarian type of ethno-cultural citizenship identity. As to states’ successful consolidations of ethnically homogeneous territories, the outcome was an extension of the already existing jus sanguinis identification based on blood and kinship, from family and clan affinities to ethnie. This extended type of jus sanguinis identification was not limited by territorial boundaries and it generated today’s ethno-national type of purely ethnic citizenship identity. Development of territorial identity and of the phenomenon territorial citizen was instrumental to strengthening the state’s legitimacy in ethnically and / or religiously heterogeneous societies. The principle of extended jus sanguinis, on the other hand, functioned as a means for legitimate consolidation of ethnically homogeneous societies. The political-historical processes comprising states’ efforts for generating and reproducing their legitimacy by promoting the most effective identification criteria were of highest significance with respect to the emergences of contemporary models of citizen in European law traditions. Although Stein Rokkan himself never attempted at predicting the future in his comparative political-history writings, the idea of speculating about European citizenship based on these findings is irresistable. I started out by asserting that a clarification of the relationship between political history and today’s citizenship models was crucial to understanding today’s citizenship models. XXth century citizenship models correlate almost perfectly with political élites’ strategies of unification. There is unfortunately little reason to think that EU-élites will choose strategies that are substantially different from the last two centuries’ élites’. There is a striking similarity between the motives behind EU’s present European citizenship ideal and the XIXth / XXth century citizenship models: consolidation of the “divided” territories by expanding the existing identities and by creating new loyalties in order to achieve a more effective governability. This seems to be an élite-led process that does not allow individuals to participate in the process of their own identity’s formation, or formulated in Veit Bader’s “blunt” words: “[…] one should be very suspicious when ruling élites detect and try to mobilize the virtues and duties of citizens in order to solve their own problems of governability and to create loyalty without effective democratic say” (Bader, 1999)
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Anderson, Benedict (1991) Imagined Communities (London: Verso). Bader, Veit (1999) “Citizenship of the European Union. Human Rights, Rights of Citizens of the Union and of Member States” in Ratio Juris Vol 12:2 (Blackwell Publishers) Bauböck, Rainer (1994) Transnational Citizenship (Aldershot: Edward Algar). Costa-Lascoux, Jacqueline (1989) “L’Europe des politiques migratores” in Revue europénne des migrations internationales (5:2). Dahrendorf, Ralf (1994) “The Changing Quality of Citizenship” in Bart van Steenbergen (ed.) The Condition of Citizenship (London: Sage Publications). Drass, Kriss A. (1992) “QCA 3.0” Programme Manual, Northwestern University. Falk, Richard (1994) “The Making of Global Citizenship” in Bart van Steenbergen (ed.) The Condition of Citizenship (London: Sage Publications). Frasier, Nancy and Gordon, Linda (1994) “Civil Citizenship against Social Citizenship” in Bart van Steenbergen (ed.) The Condition of Citizenship (London: Sage Publications). Günhan, Atilla and Sicakkan, Hakan G. (1995) Neural Networks as an Alternative Model in System Identification Paradigm: A Comparison of Statistics, Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA 3.0) and Neural Networks as Tools of System Identification, Reports in Information Science (39), Department of Information Science, University of Bergen. Gunstneren, Herman van (1994) “Four Conceptions of Citizenship” in Bart van Steenbergen (ed.) The Condition of Citizenship (London: Sage Publications). Habermas, Jürgen (1992) “Citizenship and National Identity: Some Reflections on the Future of Europe” in Praxis International (12:1). Hammar, Thomas (1990) Democracy and the Nation State: Aliens, Denizens and Citizens in a World of International Migration, (Aldershot: Avebury). Hobbes, Thomas (1990) Leviathan, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Hobbes, Thomas (1949) De Cive, or the Citizen (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts). Ireland, Patrick (1994) The Policy Challenge of Ethnic Diversity (Massachusetts: Harvard University Press). Kangas, Olli (1994) “Macrosociological Comparative Methodology. On Regressions, Qualitative Comparisons and Cluster Analysis in Politics of Social Security” in Thomas Janoski and Alexander Hicks (eds.) The Comparative Political Economy 117
of the Welfare State; New Methodologies and Approaches (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Lieberson, Stanley (1992) “Small N’s Big Conclusions: An Examination of the Reasoning in Comparative Studies Based on a Small Number of Cases” in Ragin, Charles (ed.) What is a Case? : Exploring the Foundations of Social Inquiry (Cambridge University Press). Lieberson, Stanley (1997) “Causal Analysis and Comparative Research: What Can We Learn From Studies Based on a Small Number of Cases?” in Blossfeld, Hans (ed.) Rational Choice Theory and Large Scale Data Analysis, (Westview Press). Locke, John (1988) Two Treatises of Government (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). McRae, Kenneth D. (1983) Conflict and Compromise in Multilingual Societies (Wilfred Laurver University Press). Martin, Philip L. and Miller, Mark J (1994) “European-American Immigration Convergence” in International Migration Review (28:3). Millar, Fergus (1981) The Roman Empire and Its Neighbours (London: Duckworth). OECD / Sopemi (1992-1996), Trends in International Migration (Paris: OECD). Parekh, Bhikhu (1991) “British Citizenship and Cultural Difference” in Geoff Andrews (ed.) Citizenship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Ragin, Charles (1987) The Comparative Method (University of California Press). Ragin, Charles (1991) “The Problem of Balancing Discourse on Cases and Variables in Comparative Social Science” in Comparative Sociology (32: 1-2). Ragin, Charles (1994) “Introduction to Qualitative Comparative Analysis” in Thomas Janoski and Alexander Hicks (eds.) The Comparative Political Economy of the Welfare State: New Methodologies and Approaches (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Ragin, Charles (1995) “Using Qualitative Comparative Analysis to Study Configurations” in Udo Kelle (ed.) Computer Aided Qualitative Data Analysis (London: Sage Publications). Ragin, Charles (1997) “Turning the Tables: How Case-Oriented Research Challenges Variable-Oriented Research”, in Comparative Social Research, (JAI Press). de Rham, Gérard (1990), “Naturalisation: The Politics of Citizenship Acquisition” in Layton-Henry, Zig (ed.) The Political Rights of Migrant Workers in Western Europe (London: Sage Publications). Rokkan, Stein 1970, Citizens, Elections, Parties, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. 118
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Rokkan, Stein (1971) “Fremmedarbeitaren och det etablerade partisystemet” in Schwarz, David (ed.) Identitet och minoritet: Teori och politikk i dagens Sverige (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksel). Rokkan, Stein (1975) “Dimensions of State Formation and Nation-Building: A Possible Paradigm for Research on Variations in Europe” in Tilly, Charles (ed.) The Formation of National States in Europe, (Princeton University Press). Rokkan, Stein and Urwin, Derek W. (1982) The Politics of Territorial Identity: Studies on European Regionalism (London: Sage Publications). Rokkan, Stein and Urwin, Derek W. (1983) Economy, Territory, Identity: Politics of West European Territories (London: Sage Publications). Rokkan, S., Urwin, D.W., Aarebrot, F., Malaba, P., and Sande, T. (1987), Center-Periphery Structures in Europe (New York: Campus Verlag). Rousseau, Jean Jacques (1989), The Social Contract (London: Encycloædia Britannica Inc). Sicakkan, Hakan G. (1996), “Three Models of Alien: An Evaluation of Methodological and Conceptual Tools Provided by Fredrik Barth and Stein Rokkan” in J.C. Knudsen (ed.) Likeverdighet og utestengning: Forskningsmessige utfordringer, (Equality and Exclusion: Challenges for Migration Research), (Copenhagen: Nordic Council of Ministers, TemaNord). Sicakkan, Hakan G. (1998), Politics of Identity & Identity of Politics: A Macro-Comparative Analysis of West European Models of Citizen, Alien and Response to Immigration (1945-1995) (Bergen: IMER Norway/Bergen Publications). Sicakkan, Hakan G. (1999) The Political Historical Roots of West European Models of Citizen and Alien, Research note, (Bergen: IMER Norway / Bergen). Soysal, Yasemin Nuhoglu (1994) Limits of Citizenship. Migrants and Postnational Membership in Europe (University of Chicago Press). Stephens, Meic (1978) Linguistic Minorities in Western Europe (Llandysul: Gomer Press).
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Selected historical foundations and socio-cultural effects of capitalism and communism in Central Europe Marta Zágoršeková, Veronika Fodorová, Peter Reťkovský Faculty of International Relations The University of Economics in Bratislava
[email protected] INTRODUCTION The objective of this article is to attempt to describe the situation of the inhabitants of Central Europe in the 20th century, using the analysis of the main ideological foundations of two social system concepts – capitalism and communism – and their effects. Of course, it is impossible to comprehensively analyze the issue in the scope of just one article. We shall, therefore define the differences of the above two ideologies and provide reasons for their social and cultural effects spanning into the present, using certain standard scientific abstractions. Our article is the result of teamwork of authors belonging to different generations. Our intention is to show that the investigation of the existing social processes, which influence our lives as human beings, shall always include elements of subjective reflection and personal attitudes, regardless of our efforts to study our world objectively and “scientifically”. We shall not attempt to cover them under the veil of all-encompassing terms. On the contrary, massive abstractions will be decomposed to their constituent elements and we shall show in what forms, as well as deformations, they have become the instruments of action for many people, whether they were political actors or just a silent and ductile mass manipulated by the political actors by holding in their hands the instruments of harsh power. I will attempt to answer the following questions: 1. What are the fundamental differences between the ideologies of capitalism and communism? 2. What do the ideologies of capitalism and communism have in common? 3. What historical experience have the inhabitants of Central Europe had with the capitalist and communist ideology and practice? 4. What benefits does the idea of Europe carry?
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WHAT ARE THE FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE IDEOLOGIES OF CAPITALISM AND COMMUNISM? Capitalism as a manufacturing method evolved thanks to accumulation of financial capital and development of trade. When trade with the Orient began to flourish in Florence and other Renaissance towns, the first stage of capital accumulation was initiated. The expansion of these activities was accompanied by the creation of a new world-view, which can be in short characterized as anthropocentric. This world-view freed the individual – regardless of his/her status as a nobleman, serf, or a citizen. (By the way: some good examples include the memorable Hanse Towns still seen in Norway, as well as Bratislava, which also developed from an original Hanse Town). During the era of the primary accumulation of capital, enlightenment, rationalism and love of arts constituted the world-view and the ideology of the new social classes of merchants. Throughout the following 300 – 400 years, this ideology – as a result of the industrial revolution – has gradually changed into an ideology supporting not only the ownership of “inanimate capital”, but also hidden ownership of “animate, i.e. social capital” or, as Marx put it, the exploitation of the industrial workforce. If one accepts most historians’ opinion stating that this era of capitalism finished at the end of World War One, one also accepts that the ideology of this type of capitalism ended with the war, as well. However, during liberal revolutions of the 19th century Central and Western Europe, it wasn’t the ideology of individualism and rationalism, which prevailed, but rather an anti-monarchic policy of nation-states. New nationstates (e.g. in Central Europe) in turn interconnected capitalism with corporativistic ethnocentrism. It became later clear that ethnocentrism can develop into nationalism and its extreme form – fascism – which threatened not only the fundaments of capitalism, but paradoxically, also the fundaments of the nation-states. This was evidenced by the World War Two. Two important historians – a Frenchman François Furet and a German Ernst Nolte58 – show that fascism provided many ideological reasons for the creation of its own opposition in the form of liberalism as well as communism, which, in its Soviet version, started to conspicuously resemble the very concept it was trying to criticize – fascism.
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Furet, F. ; Nolte, E.: Fascisme et communisme.
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WHAT DO THE IDEOLOGIES OF CAPITALISM AND COMMUNISM HAVE IN COMMON? In their articles, Furet and Nolte agreed that genocidal fascism and Bolshevik gulags resulted in the disappearance of differences between the “national capitalism” and “international communism” in the given historical period. Both regimes were able to compromise the liberal idea of capitalism, as well as the egalitarian idea of communism to such extent that in spite of the equilibrium of their military power, they ceased to exist. According to their opinion, which I share, the regimes, which have developed after the collapse of bipolarity, can no longer be characterized using the notions of capitalist or communist ideology. I would also like to add that terms such as globalization, “clash of civilizations”, “the west versus the bloody borders of Islam”, “the end of history”, “post-modernism”, “postcommunism”, “neo-Marxism”, “neo-liberalism” and others are – in my opinion – only a form of saturated expressions disguising our inability to understand the reality, in which we are living. WHAT HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE HAVE THE INHABITANTS OF CENTRAL EUROPE HAD WITH THE CAPITALIST AND COMMUNIST IDEOLOGY AND PRACTICE? For over one thousand eight hundred years, the Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Austrians and Hungarians lived in feudalism, under the duality of power of two political actors – the Catholic Church and the Habsburgs. The “spirit of capitalism”59, which started to spread in Europe in the Renaissance era, was only able to arrive to Central Europe after the abolition of serfdom (1781, in Hungary as late as 1785) and after the proclamation of the so-called Toleration Charter. Serfdom, however, was not replaced by capitalism, but only by its more moderate version, the “servitude”. The socio-cultural effects of these two charters, (as well as of more than 6 thousand other directives and 11 thousand acts issued during the decade of Joseph II’s reign between 1780-1790) resulted in an increase in erudition, the possibility for a part of the young generation to study in free foreign universities, development of trade, urbanization, and the implementation of certain elements of the industrial revolution – at the beginning mostly through free crafts. This sovereign, also popularly called the “Hat King”60 , was however only able to contribute to the propagation of the enlightened “spirit of capitalism” in Central Europe for a short period of ten years. The resistance of the feudal aristocracy and its fear of the ideas of the French Revolution forced him to repeal a larger part of his reforms on his deathbed. 59
Weber, Max: The Protestant Ethic And The Spirit Of Capitalism. (originally in German 1904-1905, first English edition printed in New York 1958). 60 Jozef II. was not formally crowned as Czech or Hungarian king, to set himself apart from his predecessors. He was the disseminator of Voltaire’s enlightened rationalism and allowed for the spread of the protestant ethics and criticism of Catholicism as per the ideas of Martin Luther and John Calvin.
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Besides the “Hat King”, who often visited Western European countries, the ideology and practice of capitalism were, in the Central European context, only known to a small group of alumni of foreign universities. In the polyethnic Habsburg monarchy, spiritual culture and education were still dominated by the Catholic Church, which on one hand formally preached the unity of believers regardless of their nationalities, but on the other hand also supported the duality of power principle. Unlike Western Europe, where opposition to church dogmas and secular power of the church had been increasing in strength since the Renaissance era, in our territory, the dominance of the Catholic Church in the field of education lasted almost until the beginning of the 20th century, resulting in various contradictory processes. It was namely the church and the church orders (the Jesuits, the Franciscans), who institutionalized education, yet this education was still oriented predominantly towards the needs of the Church and the most powerful classes of the population – the feudal nobility. The second attempt to overcome the feudal heritage and liberalize our society was undertaken during the revolutionary years of 1848 – 1849. The struggle of the Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians and Poles for their freedom, however, was more concentrated on their resistance against the Habsburg Monarchy and the requirements of their national liberalization than on the modernization of the socio-economic system and implementation of elements of the market economy and capitalism. Although there were certain components of economic reforms, which were implemented after the suppression of the revolution in accordance with the ideas of capitalism, market economy and industrialization, it is paradoxical that these reforms were enacted by the representatives of the monarchy, whose power was based on feudal principles of land ownership and on the support of land aristocracy. Therefore, the idea of capitalism was unable to infiltrate this process. The common masses had no experience with the “spirit of capitalism”. This situation remained unchanged until the beginning of the 20th century and the creation of nation-states on the remains of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. At the time, however, Europe witnessed not only the spread of the capitalist ideology and practice, but also of their criticism, especially in the form of German and French communist ideology and communitarian ideas. For the above reasons, the Central European region was not the birthplace of capitalism or communism – there were no internal socioeconomic needs of the new nation-states to that effect. Both ideologies were spread here as an “import article” from abroad. In case of the first Czechoslovak Republic, this included the principles of British and American provenience, in case of Poland and Hungary, the ideological impulses came predominantly from the German and French political philosophy and romanticism. Since the Czech, Slovak, Hungarian and Polish intelligentsia was educated predominantly at German and Austrian universities, where the nation-state concept of Herderism and 123
Hegelianism was dominant at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, both ideas were transported by the educated elites to their domestic environment. The nucleus of Hegel’s idea of society – as pointed out by his main critics (Karol Marx and Karl Reimund Popper) – was the state as a power institution, or a state as the highest objective of a historic development of nations. As a result of many other historic circumstances, Hegel’s concept of etatism was, in the Central European region, connected with the romantic idea of the nation-states. In the first half of the 20th century and in the above region, these two principles of thought gained a stronger ideological support of their political actors than the ideas of liberalism and capitalism. The concept of a nation-state required a modification of the political status of nations’ cultural identity. It was necessary to emphasize and enforce the idea of freedom of nations as a collective, group idea, and find a definition of this group identity. The national culture, i.e. the religion, language, traditions and other ethno-social group characteristics became the source of the definition of national identity. The concept of a nation-state cannot, therefore, be considered to be a concept of an open civil society, although it applies in its internal political system certain elements of democracy and liberalism. The collective identity as an instrument of politics is contrary to the idea of individual freedom and the spirit of capitalism. On the other hand, an ethno-centric concept of the state, this being a historical paradox, has contributed to the maintenance of ideologies requiring political cohesion of large social groups. Such “group” or mass totalitarian ideologies include the fascism and communism. Regrettably, historical evidence for this lies in the merging of German nationalism with fascism, as well as the cohesion of the ideology of communism with the eastern, Russian Bolshevism. The Central European area became a buffer zone for the conflict of these two different, yet largely identical ideologies and their hard power during World War Two and the post-war rearrangement of Europe. Before World War Two, Poland ceased to exist as a state and was divided between the fascist Poland and the Bolshevik Soviet Union61. Czechoslovakia, as the first nationstate of Czechs and Slovaks, also became a victim of these two ideologies62 and Hungary succumbed to both the ideology of nationalism and fascism.
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The Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact of August 23, 1939, whereby Poland practically ceased to exist and was attacked by Germany from the West and by the Soviet Union from the East on September 1. This actually constituted the 4th historical division of Poland. 62 The Munich Agreement, September 30, 1938, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, the so-called Slovak State 1939-1945, the Horthy Hungary 1919-1944.
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The post-war configuration of Europe and the emergence of the bipolar system resulted in the disappearance of Central Europe from the map of Europe and in fact became the spoils of war of the Soviet Union. Let us now pose a question: What is the experience of the inhabitants of the Central European region with the communist ideology? People living in this region had almost no historical experience with the ideology or with the practice of capitalism in the form it exhibited before and after World War Two in Western Europe – however, they also had no experience with communism in the form it had acquired in the Soviet Union. It would be incorrect to assume that the Marxist criticism of the 19th century capitalism reached the Central European area in its authentic form of Karl Marx’s political and economic theory or other communitarian utopias. From our today’s point of view it seems clear that the communist ideology was a policy instrument of the Soviet Union as a regional power, used to maintain its hard power hegemony. However, since communism could not draw energy from endogenous sociocultural sources in the Soviet Union, the Soviet-type communism disappeared together with the disappearance of the “artificially” created proletariat state. During the era of totalitarianism, the inhabitants of Central Europe were confronted with Bolshevik Marxism-Leninism, mediated via retranslations of Marx’s and Engels’ works from Russian, metamorphosed by Lenin’s Bolshevism, rather than with its original version. The nucleus of this multiply deformed communist ideology lay in the hegemony of Bolshevism and the superpower policies of the USSR. Communism as an ideology was but an instrument of this policy. And it was exactly in its quality as an instrument of superpower policies, that Marx’s criticism of the 19th century capitalism was able to transform into the ideology of communism and a totalitarian political system, although the original Marx’s concept never contained such implications. Shortly after the end of World War Two, the Austrian philosopher, Karl Raimund Popper, published a fundamental analysis of totalitarianism, which had become a typical feature of fascism, as well as communism. Liberal and neo-liberal capitalism, however, are not immune to the vices of fascism, either. In its work The Open Society and its Enemies (1946), the author shows that the closed ideological structures of fascism and communism serve a single purpose – the acquisition of totalitarian power. Popper juxtaposes this with a model of an open pluralist society governed by the norms of social responsibility, which at the same time does not restrict the individual human 125
freedom. The norms of such an open society are based on deliberative (discursional) understanding of democracy, thereby creating a barrier to the outgrowth of power into totalitarian forms of collectivistic ideologies with nationalist, capitalist or communist substratum. Popper’s open society philosophy is based on a permanent dialogue and one’s preparedness to modify an accepted consensus, should its imperfections become evident. Openness is a metaphor for the willingness to permanently verify one’s social knowledge and self-reflection. Closed structures, on the other hand, exhibit a tendency to absolutize the status quo in its ideological and economic sense. The claim that the population, which spent more than 40 years living in the states of the so-called Soviet block, had no proper experience with the ideology of capitalism or communism is supported by the argument that dissemination of social knowledge, as well as of a certain ideological paradigm, requires not only the social participation of educated elites, but also free functioning scientific and cultural institutions. These factors were missing during the Bolshevization of Central Europe. The directives of totalitarian regimes not only eliminated the independence of such institutions, but also stripped them of their representatives of critical thinking. During the Bolshevik communist regime era in the states of the so-called Soviet block, all dimensions of social life were governed by what Popper called the “closed structures”. Their instruments included censorship, auto-censorship, monopoly of the communist party in the field of the media, science and culture, elimination of the so-called bourgeois branches of science such as genetics, cybernetics, social science, political science and philosophy, and their “replacement” with the so-called scientific communism or Marxism-Leninism. This “scientific communism” represented the following: A set of opinions and theorems of party leaders – mainly Stalin, Lenin and other leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union or their ideological apologists. Critics of the communist ideology and the deformation of the political regime did exist in the Soviet Union as well as in the eastern block states; their voices, however, were silenced. This led to what the Polish philosopher Adam Michnik called the creation of a new type of man – the “homo bolshevicus”. What kind of man was he? He was divided into two subspecies: homo bolshevicus parasit and homo bolshevicus mimicker. The first one survived by collaborating with the regime, the second one mimicked his agreement with the regime in public, at work or during the May Day manifestations; but at home, in the living room, he swore to his wife that he wanted to have nothing to do with the communists. There were also so-called islands of positive deviation or dissent activists, but their activities were harshly prosecuted by the regime using the secret state police.
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In addition to the criticism of the Bolshevist ideology penned by a small number of intellectuals, philosophers and scientists, people living in the eastern-block countries63 also attempted to express their collective public resistance – such attempts in Poland, Hungary and the former Czechoslovakia were, however, suppressed by the military. The scope of this article does not provide us with the space required for a more detailed analysis of this issue. We would, however, like to point out one of the conclusions: Central Europe – as has been illustrated – did not, based on its own endogenous needs, create the ideology of capitalism or communism. From the point of view of the inhabitants of this region, these ideologies were imported together with the power interests of the superpowers.
WHAT BENEFITS DOES THE IDEA OF EUROPE CARRY? There is, however, one grand idea that Central Europe can claim to be an authentic actor and initiator of – it is the “Idea of Europe”. For centuries, Europe was the criterion for the value of arts, scientific research, philosophical thinking and religious preferences. Not even Hitler’s fascism coming from the west or the Bolshevism coming from the east were able to decompose and destroy the European cultural identity of nations and individuals living in Central Europe. Although historical attempts to keep pace with the development of European industrialization, liberalization and democratization of the society were unsuccessful in the eras of Enlightenment and Romanticism, one must strive for the same objective today, faced with the many pitfalls of globalization. In spite of this, for us, the idea of Europe constitutes a pillar of tradition, stability and perspective. We understand the European values, because our education, our science, arts and religion – from a national point of view, with respect to the differences in languages and traditions – share the common European identity. It were, however, not only important historical personalities such as George of Poděbrady or John Amos Comenius, who were the initiators of the idea of Europe; as opposed to the two imported ideologies, the idea of Europe has its roots in the deep endogenous substratum of the Central European culture. This also explains why in this region, the European cultural policy is today perceived as a guarantee of the maintenance of the continent’s diversity and authenticity. As my PhD student, Veronika Fodorová wrote during the preparation for her dissertation thesis, Europe is integrating in many areas. Its identity and the future of the territory “United in Diversity”, however, still produce a multitude of unanswered 63
Such as, for example, the Czech philosopher Jan Patočka, the writer Václav Havel, Polish philosopher and theologian Karol Wojtyla (John Paul II.), Hungarian social scientist Gyorgy Konrád, Slovak politician Alexander Dubček, political scientist Miroslav Kusý and others.
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questions. The implementation and deepening of the common (European) interests are based on its identity as a category of culture. The question of the European identity is closely related to the issue of public support for the European integration project, or the degree of the will of EU citizens to support further EU enlargement, as well as to support further qualitative intensification of cooperation within the integrated space. Culture creates room for strengthening harmony on the European continent – on the other hand, it is also a source of differences, which, in case of their incorrect interpretation and insufficient understanding, could lead to the creation of a conflict influencing the internal policy of the member states and negatively impacting the integration of European states, leading to its retardation. This assumption constitutes the motive for a deeper analysis of the influence of culture on European endogenous (within the integrated space of the member states, including Norway, Switzerland and Iceland), as well as exogenous (towards third countries; the EU enlargement to include new countries signifies a territorial approach to other cultures) integration. The European culture has its “boundaries”; the EU enlargement means the alteration of the character of the existing integration unit from a relatively culturally homogenous to a culturally diverse community, whereas the boundaries of the integrated area will be constantly pushed back, will lose their function of an approximate localization of the West European Culture, and will only demarcate the integrated (and not relatively culturally homogenous) space as per the implementation of the common policies. In case of a discontinuation of the quantitative EU enlargement, a cultural de-homogenization of the integrated space will probably ensue with respect to the acceleration of the movement of persons, which will accelerate thanks to further evolution of the scientific and technical progress, past and present migration waves, the demographic development, its influence on the economic interests, as well as the necessity to saturate the subjective and individual cognitive requirements. “Europeanism and the geographic definition of Europe have become subject of conflicting interpretations. In this regard, Graham Avery and Fraser Cameron state: ‘It was perhaps far-sighted that the Union has never in its treaties or other documents attempted to officially define its geographic delimitation.’ Any attempts to distinguish Europe based on its religion or culture have equally failed, thanks to which the European Union, through its eastern enlargements, is facing an increasing degree of diversity.”64 An efficient solution of specific practical issues rooted in the integration process can only be adopted based on the recognition of relations, a wide context of the cultural dimension, and its socio-cultural reality.
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Baráňová-Čiderová, D.: Rozšírenie EÚ na východ. Prínosy a riziká rozšírenia Európskej únie o krajiny strednej a východnej Európy pre EÚ. 2007. pp.19
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Quo vadis, Europe? was officially opened at the new Assembly Hall of the University of Economics in Bratislava, providing project participants with the first networking opportunities. The opening was attended by notable guests including the Norwegian ambassador, Her Excellency Trine Skymoen, Ms. Diana Štrofová, the State Secretary of the Slovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ms. Jana Lenghardtová, the Vice-rector of the University of Economics, as well as Professor Milan Šikula of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. 135
The academic part of the project consisted of lectures and subsequent workshops further elaborating on the discussed issues.
136
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Another important part of the meetings was dedicated to discovering the culture of each of the participating nations – including their gastronomy. 137
The project continued with meetings in Akureyri, Iceland and Bergen, Norway.
138
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Gradually the ices between the delegations started to break and the national delegations slowly united, forming a truly European project team.
139
The hospitality of the project hosts became almost palpable, and when the time came to say goodbye, lasting friendships had been made, ensuring fruitful future cooperation between our three countries, cities and universities.
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“Varying definitions of Europe” Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Map_of_Europe_(political).png
“Political map of Europe” Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Europe_countries_map_en_2.png
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“European Union membership (members - dark blue, candidates - blue, potential candidates - light blue)” Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/EU27-candidate_countries_map.svg
“Predominant religions in Europe” Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Europe_religion_map_en.png
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D es cr ipt i on of t he Proj e c t
Description of the Project Project QVE was an international project based on cooperation of universities from Slovakia, Iceland and Norway. The project was composed of meetings and consultations of scholars, young researchers and students with different cultural backgrounds. The main aim of the project was a presentation of new visions of European future in 2030. Project’s uniqueness consists in the connection of young Europeans with knowledge and creative thinking towards key issues of our future. The content is divided into three lines: Stability, Prosperity and Culture, whereby each of them is analyzed by different participating country. The first topic Stability focuses on security issues. Furthermore, attention is paid on serious problems of nowadays Europe and their potential future development (e.g. demographic trends, migration, organized crime, conflict regions, peace as a prerequisite for stability etc.). In the framework of the second topic Prosperity, participants were dealing with the issue of current European position in the world. Key problems explored are sustainable development and environmental conditions, energetic self-sufficiency of Europe and the application of R&D findings into economic practices. The third and the last topic Culture sketches European identity vision with strong focus on mutual relation between common European identity and particular national identities. In addition, role of traditions in building cultural identity on national level is stressed. Participants were divided into three work groups – euro optimistic, euro pessimistic, euro realistic. Each of them has evolved its own outlook of European future until year 2030 in regard of the analyzed topic. Composition of each work group has taken into account national and gender criteria.
Par t i c ip at i ng Unive rs it i e s
Participating Universities
University of Akureyri, Iceland
University of Bergen, Norway
Faculty of International Relations, University of Economics in Bratislava, Slovakia Contact details: University of Economics in Bratislava Faculty of International Relations Dolnozemská cesta 1 852 35 Bratislava Slovakia e-mail:
[email protected] web: quovadiseurope.euba.sk
Notes
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