Notes on European political culture

Europe: The travel advisory

U.S. State Department issued last Sunday a Terrorism alert aimed at American citizens traveling or planning to travel in Europe until roughly the end of the year. The alert which urges ‘extra caution’ but ‘does not discourage Americans from visiting Europe’, does not actually mention Europeans. Nonetheless it implicates them massively.

The advisory is remarkable if only in its semantics: Americans in Europe, and by extension Europeans in Europe, you are under threat: globally, homogeneously, without nuance or distinction. Complete, full, integral threat. Threat without specification or detail, without determination or differentiation, without prescription or framing. Simple, perfect threat.

Europe, the proud homeland of any number of universal Enlightenment principles, universal rights, liberties and privileges, meets itself in the door: universal threat. No matter who you are, where you are, what you are, you are equally under threat.

Read comments / Leave a comment »

Security and prosperity

The romance of security and economics goes way back, at least in modern times. Historians tell us that before the modern age, security was more akin to peace of mind. It was a spiritual matter and a largely religious one. From around the Feudal period, society’s need for a more objective security became visible, and with it the willingness to pay for security. The transition to modern times saw the transformation of security into a commodity.

Today, in the post-post-Cold War setting, security is not only inseparable from economics; it is entirely unthinkable without it. In our time, security has become industrialized. We look overwhelmingly to industrial innovation to give us solutions to security challenges. Societies put their trust in technology and in the hands of the industries that produce them.

Read comments / Leave a comment »

We are all Roma!

French officials have declared themselves ‘astonished’ after European Commissioner for Justice and Fundamental Rights, Viviane Reding, described as ‘appalling’ the French practice of mass expulsion of Roma groups from French territory. Reding’s comments were a reaction to a 5 August French internal directive instructing police authorities to target Roma for expulsion. The leaked directive was quickly superseded by a new one that dropped all reference to Roma.

To the degree that they are citizens of the European Union, individuals of all ethnic and racial backgrounds enjoy the same rights and privileges (and obligations) as all European citizens. These include, in general terms, a right to non-discrimination and, more particularly the right to free mobility with the external borders of the Union. In short, they have the same right to camp in Loir-et-cher as a gaggle of Brits in the Black Forest.

Read comments / Leave a comment »

Happy Birthday FRONTEX!

This week here in Warsaw, FRONTEX, the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union, celebrates its 5th birthday with a series of high-visibility conferences and events.

The events revolve around the solemn proclamation of today, 25 May, as the European Day for Border Guards. The day’s star-studded program includes no less than Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, Interior Minister of Spain, Cecilia Malmström, Commission for Home Affairs, Juan Lopez Aguilar, Chairman of the Committe on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, Ilkka Laitinen, Executive Director of Frontex and Baroness Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

Read comments / Leave a comment »

Europe’s new security providers

Here is a riddle. Who or what authority is it that will assure or not assure the sovereignty of Greece and by consequence a number of other European member states in the months and years to come?

Well, we can safely say that it will not be President Karolos Papoulias, the current Greek government, or the national Parliament. No, it is not the European Commission or the European Council, at least not directly. If you guessed the new Franco-German Eurozone alliance, you would be getting warmer, but still be wrong. The International Monetary Fund or the World Bank? Close, but no.

Read comments / Leave a comment »

Van Rompuy’s transatlantic security narrative

European Council President Van Rompuy addressed last week the Brussels Forum of the German Marshal Fund on the subject of transatlantic relations (Transatlantic Responses to Global Insecurity). Evoking the post-War history of the GMF, Van Rompuy used the occasion to reflect on the course of U.S.–Europe relations and, in particular, on the continuity between a shared past at the origin of the GMF and an uncertain future.

Read comments / Leave a comment »

Finance and European identity

Members of the Eurozone, led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicholas Sarokzy agreed on 25 March to coordinate financial support to help Greece face its debt problems. The following day the European Council put its weight behind the agreement, solving, at least for the moment, the Greek debt crisis.

The crisis has set off an extraordinary set of political events on the European playing field. In a new way it unexpectedly raised old issues of European identity, of inclusion and exclusion in Europe, this time relative to the Eurozone.

Read comments / Leave a comment »

What can we ask of a treaty?

The New York Times has recently taken to reporting on the failures of the Lisbon Treaty, manifested by the visible growing pains in the new leadership structures of the European Union (here).  To be sure, The Times is hardly alone in noting what seems to be a problem in the implementation of the New Europe. Earlier criticism focusing on the profiles and personalities of Council President Herman van Rompuy and High Representative Lady Ashton have mutated into disparagement over the Lisbon Treaty itself.

Read comments / Leave a comment »

Ukraine in the heart of Europe

On February 7 the ‘Russia-friendly’ Viktor Yanukovych defeated Yulia Tymoshenko, the liberalizing, Western-leaning co-leader of the Orange Revolution, in the second round of the Ukranian presidential elections. As reported by Reuters: here.

A first-cut analysis is straight forward. The European Union, having admitted Bulgaria and Romania on still-flimsy premisses, having held Turkey in limbo and given Russia itself preferred partner status (short-term Schengen visas for Russians are now entirely waved), it has for years turned its back on Ukraine’s petitions for membership. If the West says ‘talk to the hand’, we turn to the East.

Ukraine’s principle Western partner, the European Union, has been far from a loyal friend. While the world stood still for the Orange Revolution(s) of 2006 (and 2007), the EU seems unmoved. See the analysis of FAZ writer Andreas Umland here.

While it is clear that corruption and a disfunctioning legislative system leave it far from an ideal European counterpart, the uncanny conclusion drawn by by the frontpage of the Wazsaw Gazetta that Russia is now closer to being an EU member than Ukraine, gives rime and reason to an odd political irony.

Read comments / Leave a comment »

NATO redux in Paris

In a speech to the French National Military Academy on 29 January US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did her best to press the old wine of 20th Century security thinking into the new bottles of a shifting European security landscape.

The speech in its entirety can be found here. The report and analysis from Le Monde can be found here and here.

Europe’s political class is still scrambling to find its footing at the dawn of the era of the Lisbon Treaty and the new architecture of power, legitimacy and politics it is producing. The European Council of Ministers is consolidated around a new ‘president’ of Europe, the EU has a distinct new foreign policy and security spokeswoman and a beefed up operational capacity of the European Parliament.

Add to this the fact that NATO is itself in the middle of its own identity crisis. It’s own 1999 Strategic Concept is generally considered obsolete, and a highly visible, multi-national fact-finding and consensus building exercise is under way in order to identify a new one. The group of experts assigned the task is led by none other than Cold Warrior Madeline Albright.

In terms of the trans-Atlantic and European politics of security, the present juncture rivals 1989 and the transformation of the Cold War concept of security.

Read comments / Leave a comment »