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The founders of the European Union had three aims. One was to secure peace between France and Germany. Another was to create a single free trade area for Europe, thereby harnessing the division of labour as a source of economic growth. The founders believed that economic integration would bring Europeans closer together, recalling the old adage that if goods cannot cross borders, soldiers will. They realised that the third aim could only be achieved in the long term, step by step: to form the United States of Europe, as powerful and productive as the United States of America.
The US Model
Was the US a plausible model for increased European cooperation? In 1789, the American revolutionaries replaced the Confederation established in 1781 with a Federation. Under the Confederation, the individual states had seemed too powerful and the federal state too weak, unable to levy taxes, ensure free interstate trade, or maintain a military. But there were important, perhaps crucial, differences between Europe and this new and powerful Federation. First, Europe comprised various countries with their own languages, histories, and cultures, whereas the US shared one language, one history, and one culture. Another difference was that each European country had her own political tradition, whereas the US relied on the strong Anglo-Saxon, or rather Germanic, tradition of government by consent and the right of rebellion. To some extent, the Netherlands and Flanders in Belgium shared this tradition, but it had been largely suppressed in Germany. France had a tradition of centralisation: the Jacobins of the French Revolution were the heirs of Colbert no less than of Rousseau.
European Voters Reject Centralisation
Of course, the EU’s founders recognised Europe’s great diversity. As Jean Monnet made clear in his memoirs, the formation of the United States of Europe had to be gradual, the product of increased integration, first economic, then political. A European identity would then grow out of, and largely supersede, national identities. This process should be carefully guided by an enlightened elite, not led by democratic rabble-rousers. To some extent, Monnet and his soulmates succeeded. Economic integration between 1957 and 1993 brought prosperity to Europe through competition. But with the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, the European Union changed course, aiming not only at the legal and political integration necessary for a common market, but also at further political integration, a euphemism for centralisation in the French tradition. This development, however, has been resisted by European voters, who have repeatedly rejected increased centralisation. The response of the enlightened elite in Brussels has been to hold new elections until the desired result was achieved, or simply to ignore the voters and make superficial changes to their own proposals, as when the European Constitution was rejected and, subsequently, the Lisbon Treaty, similar in content, was passed.
The Swiss Model
The idea that the US model is inappropriate is almost irresistible. Indeed, there are two other models that might suit Europe better. One is Switzerland, which overcame tensions between linguistic, religious and cultural communities through extensive devolution: the cantons have far greater control than communities in most other European countries. In the European context, this would imply returning powers to the nation states, as well as to communities within them, while retaining only those powers in Brussels that are indispensable to the operation of a free and effective common market. The lodestar should be the principle of subsidiarity: that decisions should be made by those whom they affect.
The Nordic Model
The other model is Nordic cooperation. The last Nordic wars were fought between Denmark and Sweden in 1813–1814 and, briefly, between Norway and Sweden in 1814. In the nineteenth century, a sense of a common Nordic identity, and even destiny, grew across all the Nordic countries. However, the national interests of the five countries differed, so they did not form a military alliance or an economic union. In 1952, though, the Nordic Council was established as a forum for cooperation among the five countries, and legal and economic integration gradually occurred, spontaneously and with minimal surrender of sovereignty. Passports were abolished, the labour market was integrated, equal access to social services across borders was granted, and cultural exchanges were promoted.