THE EUROPEAN IDEA THE EUROPEAN IDEA Miller, J. D. B. Please note that the meeting will begin with a prerecorded address by the IMF Managing Director, followed by live conversation. (Laughter.) And if so, who’s the leading candidate? by David Sacks LIPPERT: I agree with Stewart as far as the priorities are concerned when you look at policy fields. The European idea. Jaroslaw? The “European Idea:” Historical Contexts, Debates, and Mental Maps on Europe as a Concept. with Betsey Stevenson Otherwise, they could interfere with the sound system. You’re allowed to ask a question. These ranged from the Comintern (1919), to the Labour and Socialist International (1921) to the Radical and Democratic Entente of centre-left progressive parties (1924), to the Green Internationalof fa… Many thanks to the Council on Foreign Relations for having me today. And I think that, in the past, if we look at lessons from the past, we could see that the supranational institutions played a very important role. And, Stewart, let’s start with you and then just come down to Jaroslaw and Barbara. And this sort of overlapped now with the refugee and migration crisis. There were gentle intimations of mounting enthusiasm for the cause of a united Europe in 1949, but they were crushed the following year by the intransigence of Ernest … You might say that, of course, external enemies should help Europeans to integrate our external policies and to be much more united. Russia? State and Local Conference Calls and Webinars, C. Peter McColough Series on International Economics. So that’s why I think that there is some kind of excuse that, OK, EU is not so much effective in terms of its external foreign and defense policy, but EU as member states, almost all these countries are in NATO. We are just a few weeks after regional elections where Alternative für Deutschland—that’s the anti-European party—gain quite great results. ), by Steven A. Cook supports HTML5 video, Senior Fellow and Director of the International Institutions and Global Governance Program, Council on Foreign Relations, Head of Research Office, Polish Institute of International Affairs, Director of Research, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), James Clarke Chace Professor in Foreign Affairs and Humanities, Bard College. And that’s why I think that we’re going to see more re-nationalization and more of a multi-speed Europe where there’s more opting-in and opting-out regardless, as I said, of what happens with the British decision. What motivated these networks? Q: All right. And we have a reception afterwards that goes for the next 15 minutes. So that’s why we may say that, under this leadership, Germany are very responsible and very European. When you look at the economy, when you look at what’s happening in some of the member states, which I would call a fractioning process, fractioning with regard to basic democratic values, but also when you look at democratic governance. I mean, after crisis 2008 and ’(0)9, when definitely many Europeans had some doubt about common currency, since 2013 we observe a positive trend, and more and more countries and citizens believe in the euro currency, especially those who adopted euro currency quite recently. There’s obviously the question of Brexit. This is an example of 2005 and referendum in the Netherlands and in France, and Dutch and French people voted against European Constitution. It could accommodate many different solutions. And we’re, in fact, the ones that pushed during the Marshall Plan era for a united states of Europe and were more religious than the pope on that score for quite some time during those years—passing congressional resolutions; stating it was the sense of the U.S. Congress that the united states of Europe be formed, et cetera. This theme created a confusion between nationalism and the idea of the nation, between nationalism and state sovereignty. Because I think what Barbara’s telling us is that progress is going to be difficult and slow, and this is—this is no break with European history. European Union (EU), international organization comprising 27 European countries and governing common economic, social, and security policies. But, on the other hand, there are many examples of quite positive image of European Union among European citizens. In 2015, 5.1 million children were born in the EU-28 corresponding to a birth rate of 10 per 1,000, which is 8 births below the world average. PATRICK: Christopher, I think you make an excellent point. The European Union, the free market and the single currency were all plans originally dreamt up by high ranking Nazis, including Hitler himself. And I remember a dinner with Helmut Kohl where they were just giving up the deutschemark for the euro. And, indeed, it’s quite problematic for EU as such that it’s not enough, you know, to wait—waiting for developments and to take on some profits. So I think, for the first time—and that’s also something which, of course, is interesting for academia—is the question whether this is the end of this kind of functional spillover effect, so always looking forward in making some progress in some sectors. I think that the external pressure and migration crisis so far doesn’t change these rules. What’s going on here? It’s important to note that this vision which inspired many of the early moves towards European integration—institutions like the Council of Europe or the European Coal and Steel Community, which began the entire process of European integration—was from the beginning and remains largely an elite-driven phenomenon. Barbara, do you think we’re pointing at—we’re looking at a problem with the European idea in some way, that it needs to be rethought? It’s not because it’s a pro just for supranational, against governmental modes of policymaking. For comparison, the EU-28 birth rate had stood at 10.6 in 2000, 12.8 in 1985 and 16.3 in 1970. And this is a very difficult question for national governments, because no one would like to be—claim or just described by public opinion as a government who rather plays for European interests, not national interests. Beijing has tightened its grip on Hong Kong in recent years, dimming hopes that the financial center will ever become a full democracy. MEAD: OK. I am particularly pro-European – no doubt this has something to do with my place of birth, Limburg, which lies between Germany and Belgium. It seems to me that the easiest way for a disparate group of people to coalesce around a common purpose is to unite in defense against a common enemy. MEAD: Jaroslaw, how much patience do you see in public opinion? But I think when we look at how we can manage all these—this multiplicity of problems, I think we should not only look at the EU level, or maybe not even in the first case look at the EU level and they start with all this kind of institutional engineering and treaty reform, et cetera, et cetera. They may remain in the union. PATRICK: Yeah, I think Ennen (ph), who I went to graduate school with and basically learned everything I know about the European Union from his coattails. And that’s why we cannot exclude the political challenge in this country, and then a completely different role of Germany in the EU. I think the latest estimates are over 25 dead, almost 100 people injured. (Applause. SHARES. There are no airplanes until tomorrow. Germany’s the answer to the migration problem, to the Greek problem, to the euro problem. We have three really terrific discussants here today to talk about this subject. in or out of the European Union—are quite risky for European Union. The EU was created by the Maastricht Treaty, which entered into force on November 1, 1993. It was the element of a U.K. decision to stay in the European Union. Ditto analysis. The council is made up of the Union’s 27 heads of state, plus a president. Inspire, Debate, Engage and Accelerate Action | European Commission China is successfully using the Belt and Road Initiative to promote the adoption of Huawei 5G, while the United States is looking to reverse these gains. So Brexit, for you, is the number one of all of the crises. And that is something which, of course, is very much up to the member states to address it. And there are many other examples when, in terms of rhetoric, Central European countries seem to be anti-European. the european idea THE sudden surge of interest in Britain's future in Eurdpe is most welcome. Thank you, Madam Hauser, for hosting here. Net Politics. March 23, 2021, The CARES Act: Implications for U.S. Competitiveness, Virtual Event (Laughter.) I think that both the eurozone crisis and the migration crisis have exposed the tensions and contradictions between the retention of much power within the nation-state and only a partial—only partial union at the Brussels level. Same with the refugee crisis, where you have the incompatibility, on the one hand, of a Schengen Agreement that has removed the internal border controls amongst its members, and yet there’s no external EU-wide strong border force or customs force. It's the idea that only 18 hand picked top teams in Europe can create entertaining football. And then we had the Rome Treaties as the new—as the new basis balancing the different aspects, the different modes of governance, the supranational one and the intergovernmental one. I’m a resident fellow at the Kennedy School. One of them would be towards more Brussels and more centralization in a way, and the other would be to move more in an intergovernmental direction. And I think we have the third panel on the different—on a different Europe, where all these options, which are on the table again and which are maybe not only academic debates about scaling down, for example, the European—. And after the establishment/foundation of the Community for Coal and Steel, it immediately slid into the next crisis with the failed treaty on the Defense Community and the Political Community in ’54. Within national parliaments, particularly those of the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Italy, the number of supporters of federalism was progressively increasing. And we now see that this might also have reached its limits to use differentiation as a means for more deepening. Its population growth rate was positive at an estimated 0.23% in 2016. Or are these really problems of application and practical issues that we’re looking at? Betsey Stevenson, professor of public policy and economics at University of Michigan, leads a conversation on the new U.S. stimulus bill and how it will shape U.S. economic competitiveness. PATRICK: Thank you, Walter. But I wonder if you could talk about political pressures that might have been created, or alleviated, for that matter, by internal migration in Europe, the shuffling of European populations. Jaroslaw mentioned, and I think Barbara also to some extent, that the Eastern Europeans have actually been more committed to the EU as an institution than the West. They started as gradual processes. On the other hand, we may observe that these countries are very much interested in further integration or just rather to keep the European Union as it is now. Please remember to completely turn off your cellphones, BlackBerrys, and other devices. Search nearly 14 million words and phrases in more than 470 language pairs. So this is my thought from the beginning. And we have still areas where you need to have unanimity, or where it’s politically better to have unanimity and fight for a consensus. State your name and your affiliation. So please do that. Quite suddenly, the idea of the “good European” — one that, at least for Nietzsche, was defined against almost everything German — has become someone who keeps a … The idea of Europe is a modern idea from the eighteenth century that was a response to an earlier religious idea of Christendom contains a number of ideas from Enlightenment thought, and draws on a range of often competing cultural ideas is based on a geographical area, which was communicated through maps and other visual representations March 25, 2021 LIPPERT: I think it’s both. What Is the World Doing to Distribute COVID-19 Vaccines? They are seen as—well, as putting pressure on others, dominating them. For example, where European Union is thinking about sanctions against Russia, we heard from Central European leaders some voices that maybe we should deal with Russia, we should not impose sanctions. And still I think that EU is very much concerned how to encourage mobility of Europeans. And then, of course, there is this tendency then by some institutions or member states to go ahead, to go forward. Because you mentioned a lot of contingent factors. Europe – Civilization. The European project's antecedents go back centuries, but in our times, was revitalised by the disaster of the first world war, the Versailles Treaty and its commitment at least verbally to the idea of national self determination, the experience of an ineffective League of Nations in the face of … But the idea was to try to overcome the legacy of terrible warfare by creating an ever-closer union, which could take different forms, but the idea was that pooling of resources and eventually even pooling of political institutions into a coherent whole. MEAD: All right. Why is the United States still struggling to figure out what to do about the Assad regime? And now, indeed, the situation is very danger, that we observe, for example, in Poland, a country which is still outside the eurozone, some hesitation, that, OK, maybe our efforts is not worth; maybe it’s better to wait, to be reluctant, and observe what—how EU will change its nature. Very often, many national governments try to underline that we serve our national interests—we are against superficial, artificial European, you know, demands or values. And among, then, the less-optimistic are countries who are still outside the eurozone—so, U.K., Denmark, but also Poland and a few other countries. But I think what we now see is that you can only have a strong European Union when you have strong member states, politically and economically. 3. And I very much refer to this triangular sort of leadership formation, for which Germany needs also the U.K., given the tensions between Paris and Berlin on many—in many policy areas. And Germany was quite successful also in—and you referred to that—in using economic instruments for political purposes. But production challenges, vaccine nationalism, and new virus strains are all presenting hurdles. Again, this is a particularly timely moment for that, so. He wanted Britain at the heart of Europe. ISIS? It abandoned the idea of a European Constitution. 1958-06-01 00:00:00 University of Leicester EUROPEAN integration is a question which lends itself readily to symposia and joint authorship. Once upon a time the environment was the EU’s next big idea. And then we have a problem of other countries who also would like to follow U.K. in this regard, that they also would like to negotiate some special status. 2. And in Central Europe, of course, we underline that there is strong need not to overlap with NATO, and that we really would—and, as you know, majority of EU countries are also NATO members. And here I think that, in particular, the Barroso Commission did not perform very well. So I think it’s a—it’s a—it could be very difficult for U.K., for European Union to adapt to this new situation. But I think there are some particular observations we can make. The ideal of European economic unification was a way to pursue national ambitions, but stripped of toxic notions of Teutonic pre-eminence. LIPPERT: Well, when you look at the history of European Union, you’re right. I’m in the religion business. My love for Europe was further stimulated during my time as a Member of the European Parliament. The next session will begin promptly at 9:45. The EU’s common currency is the euro. A question ends in a question mark. I wonder if that means that the cost of maintaining institutional coherence for the EU is losing a kind of intellectual or even moral coherence for Europe. It was even before the EFTA enlargement. And now, in the wake of Paris and now Brussels and undoubtedly more terrorist events, you have a third S, security, coming into play. And it was, of course, established to deal with all those challenges the nation-state cannot. And there’s a good chance that this one could be quite messy indeed. And now Angela Merkel—(inaudible)—also in its own party. You know, not all are included in both of these integrated policies. And there’s a big question as to whether now, in this current circumstance—the eurozone crisis, which continues to percolate along, and also the humanitarian migration crisis—whether or not that dynamic will actually persist. President Trump sent U.S. troops to the border with Mexico to supplement the work of authorities there. The idea of a specifically European unity finally became, at least for some, a feasible project, not only to avoid another war but to avoid the destruction of the idea of European unity. I think that’s the most pressing matter. And on the one hand, we may indeed notice some anti-European rhetoric. And this continued over decades, this kind of tension. That’s why the domestic situation in Germany are very important. by Jacob Lew, Gary Roughead, Jennifer Hillman and David Sacks And there’s no doubt that this security integration, what Barbara said, it was very problematic from the very beginning, OK, in the ’50s, and nowadays as well. One is about the lack of common purpose in the EU and the other is the failure of the EU at the level of popular imagination. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy undertaking and the world’s largest infrastructure program, poses a significant challenge to U.S. economic, political, climate change, security, and global health interests. The common good is a crucial idea in the political, economic, social and cultural debates in the European Union, as it appears clear in its constitutional foundations. It means that if Brits votes against European Union membership, we have European—we have United Kingdom outside the European Union—no associated, nor in some links with European Union. A question is concise. So some now see the European Union as more part of the problem than as a solver of these problem(s). The fact that it’s expanding now to 28 nations means that you’ve increased the cultural and political diversity as well. And this is extremely risky for EU as a whole. LIPPERT: So thank you, Chair. MEAD: Well, Stewart, that’s a good point. Jaroslaw Cwiek-Karpowicz, Head of Research Office at the Polish Institute of International Affairs; Barbara Lippert, Director of Research at Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik; and Stewart M. Patrick, Senior Fellow and Director of the International Institutions and Global Governance Program at the Council on Foreign Relations join Walter Russell Mead of Bard College to discuss the nature of the European Union: it’s creation, institutional effectiveness, approach to past crises, and outlook over the next couple of decades. If so, what is it? And in every crisis, or in many crises—from the origins of the European Union with the European Coal and Steel Community, to the launching of the European Economic Communities in the Treaty of Rome, to the movement toward the Single European Act in the 1980s, and then the Maastricht Treaty—in every case, there was a sense that unless Europe moved forward it would face increased crisis, and that the centrifugal forces would be too great. And that’s why they’re a little bit—much more positive than a few years ago. That’s very interesting. CWIEK-KARPOWICZ: Well, I think, indeed, that the Brexit, deciphering what hurts is extremely difficult and hard for European Union because, according to EU Treaty, there is no partial disintegration. Professor Belofs is the outcome of a Round Table in 1953 and a Study Group in 1956, and … Does the EU need a common external enemy in order to coalesce around a common purpose? We have Stewart Patrick, senior fellow and director of the International Institutions and Global Governance Program at the Council on Foreign Relations; Jaroslaw Cwiek-Karpowicz, head of Research Office at the Polish Institute of International Affairs; Barbara Lippert, director of research, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik. And of whom? And the other thing, of course, is that I do think we have lost a sense of common purpose. MEAD: Anybody want to take that question? This event is made possible by the generous support of the Hauser Foundation. Which, of course, makes—and now we’re, again, at the output side—makes all the decision-making very slow and cumbersome, and you—I think you mostly don’t have something like swift and bold decisions when you look at Brussels. So both scenarios—U.K. And I think that the very enlargement of the European Union, which has always had this debate between how much deepening—in other words, how much more authority and how much more you get involved in giving vertical authority to European-wide structures—versus enlargement, how much do you expand the frontiers. The subject is the idea of Europe. And I don’t think that Britain is going to be the last country that decides that it wants a little bit of a—a little bit more of an a la carte Europe than it currently enjoys. But this time maybe it could be different. So we should be getting a variety of viewpoints here, and I can’t think of three people who would have anything more interesting to say on the topic. So you have huge, huge debates there. But unfortunately, what I had mentioned before, there are many other political options, voices. (Laughs.) Europe is a regional economy with national politics, and it means it’s very, very good at creating a market but it’s very, very bad at tackling collectively anything that is directly salient to national electorates. And that’s why we observed the process of unification of standards in education and the labor markets, and it’s going deeper and deeper. 1.7k. ISBN 0-521-79171-5 – ISBN 0-521-79552-4 (pbk.) And that tension in the United Kingdom’s position still remains. I think both the eurozone crisis and the refugee crisis have in common that this is a crisis of a non-functioning governance system with regard to monetary union and with regard to migration/asylum policy. Can we thank our panel, please? April 2, 2021 I think, however, what’s become apparent is that this irresolution, in a way, or contradiction between a supranational Europe, with authority going to Brussels institutions, versus intergovernmental vision of Europe, the tensions and contradictions are increasingly apparent. And I know that, coming from Germany, that unilateral actions taken, for example, by Germany are not very well appreciated. And something—at least I think—I believe at the end of February they had only resettled about 500 of them, after several months. We shouldn’t forget the single market has persevered throughout this crisis. It’s a pleasure to be here. Is public opinion prepared to work with and support a process that inevitably is going to be less than lightning quick? The C. Peter McColough Series on International Economics brings the world's foremost economic policymakers and scholars to address members on current topics in international economics and U.S. monetary policy. I think that, at the very beginning, after eastern enlargement in 2004, indeed, we observe strong interest in Central Europe towards European integration, adaption our legislation and political systems to EU standards. And obviously during the Cold War it was seen as—which is obviously related to the U.S. posture towards the Soviet Union, as well as the European—was a major driving force there. And he even wants Britain in Europe still, but he wants it on sort of a little bit more of the margins. MEAD: Great, Stewart. I think, when you talk about crisis and the European Union, you have just to admit that crisis is a state of being for the European Union because it started out of a crisis, on the ruins of the Second World War. Here's What the United States Should Do To Respond, Blog Post First of all, I would say that, starting with the sovereign debt crisis, which then escalated into the crisis around Greece, for the first time it was put on the table to kick out a member state, so the Grexit problem. I worked a lot on—in particular, on the eastward enlargement, and what I see now also, when I go to Warsaw or Budapest or Prague, there is some kind of estrangement between the member states. I know that Jaroslaw will say more on public opinion. But by going after those constituencies, what you do is you weaken any support that might be taking you in a direction of more of a federal Europe or more of a common European policy. And I think what you can say for the past, when you look at the eurozone, developing eurozone crisis, and also the refugee crisis, you could blame the EU and don’t talk about the U.S. for its inactivity. C. Peter McColough Series on International Economics, To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that For almost 25 years, the European Union has been a model of democracy, free trade, and fraternity between nations. Edward Heath described the book upon publication as ‘Preposterous… A hideous distortion of both past and present’. They discuss questions of politics, religion, commerce, law, language, literature and affectivity. It was always a different kind of European Union, and overall the system was still robust. The European Union is a unique economic and political union between 28 EU countries that together cover much of the continent.The predecessor of the EU was created in the aftermath of the Second World War. What Germany has to learn is playing the geopolitical game. And when we analyze some European member states and then societies there, we might say that definitely Central Europeans are much more positive about European Union, and they still perceived EU as the only way not only to create its own foreign policy, but also to have prospects for better economic development, and also for its own security. I think the question going forward really is whether or not, in the wake of these crises—there are two ways you could go; at least two ways you could go. Jaroslaw, would you give us some quick background on public opinion and how that influences Europe’s situation in this current moment? There needs to be a way to make sure that there’s some sort of bargain amongst the different members of the EU to actually apportion the burden of those that are eligible for refugee status throughout the European Union, which is something that—it really—it’s quite ridiculous. 1. CWIEK-KARPOWICZ: Yeah, if I might just say a few words on this. And when you go back now to the Maastricht Treaty in which there was this provision on the euro, you see that a lot of our problems also started there. This ‘European idea’ was a driving force behind the establishment of the European Union. European federation. CWIEK-KARPOWICZ: Before I talk about internal migrants—I mean, the Europeans who change their places in EU—I think that we should have in our mind once again Central Europe.