Κώστας Β. Mποτόπουλος

“TA NEA” newspaper, March 10 2009

A ghost is roaming about Europe. And it is not, my dear vanquished Karl, the ghost of Communism. Today’s menace is called dissolution - and it is psychological and social rather than institutional and financial; the breaking of the Union into two - or even more- subgroups and most of all, the fragmentation, that is to say the death, of the European political plan. The danger in question rose violently to surface due to the crisis but is not a child of the crisis. The root cause should, in my opinion, be traced to the continuous sacrifice of politics on the altar of an economic affluence with feet of clay.

I count myself among those who still reckon that the 2004 enlargement of the European Union was politically necessary and that the post-Soviet states instilled diversity and power into Europe. It would be hypocritical, though, not to acknowledge the fact that these states not only upset the overall European balance (a prospect which was to a large extent predictable) but also tipped it to the detriment of unity. For this twist, the responsibility is shared. “The old guard”, the core of the Union, received the new members without first setting the required conditions for integration. The Europe to which they were looking forward and into which they were integrated had neither the strength to enforce its paradigm nor the tools to shape collective conscience. And when the crisis emerged, which of course weighed heavily on the countries with more vulnerable and less adapted economies, the messages sent by the Union’s strong were not actually in concrete solidarity with their Eastern “relatives”. From the imperial French presidency, the weak Chech presidency’s equally imperial redoubling by Sarkozy and the late discovery of protectionism for French products, to the German rejection of joint solutions and (Eurobond-type) tools defending the weak, Italy’s identification - and targeting - of Romanians with Roma and Britain’s “usage” of the Eastern countries only as a lever to promote a pro-NATO approach, the examples of arrogance and of inability to come to terms with the new reality are very ample.

Then again, the former Eastern Bloc countries interpreted their accession to the EU in a rather passive and selfish way. Let us ponder - and may they ponder too - over their rather inconsiderate pro-Atlantism and pro-Americanism as well as their explicitly atavistic anti-Russianism; over the disastrous “Kaczyński experience” as well as the Polish prime minister’s recent remarks against a European “return to Socialism”; over the Czech president’s -and also at the moment European President’ s- provocations against all European institutions; over the plans to “resurrect” the technologically outdated nuclear factories in Slovakia and Bulgaria, plans laid out as soon as the recent energy dispute broke out; over Romania’s plunge into economic scandals and corruption; over Bulgaria’s flawed Rule of Law; over Slovenia’s belated objection to the prospective accession of Croatia. And when the crisis came knocking at their doors, these countries chose to intimidate - swagger, no more no less - rather than find an explanation, to evoke past ghosts (the new “Iron Curtain”) instead of fresh ideas. Furthermore, they gave priority to a shortsighted economic perspective over politics and ethics, while drawing arguments from their weaknesses instead of the power emanating from their new European position.