The absence of Europe’s influence and guidance has become clearly obvious — whether on the regional scene or global stage. We are more evidently seeing some shocking decline in Europe’s role almost everywhere there is a crisis, as well as poor leadership to tackle issues on the home front and to deal with increasingly widespread troubles around the world.
It has become unambiguously clear that European leaders tend to quickly get themselves into squabbles and sometimes find themselves engaged in surprisingly shallow issues or matters of marginal nature. Many Europeans feel the stark difference between the calibres of leadership of today and, say, ten or 20 years ago. European leaders such as France’s Francoise Mitterrand and Britain’s Margaret Thatcher, as well as Germany’s Helmut Cole, are greatly missed. Those three leaders, despite their political difference and ambitions, had remarkably succeeded in not only enhancing Europe’s stance on the world stage, but also in maintaining the European Union’s (EU) credibility and cohesiveness. Former chancellor Cole stands out for his creative role in dealing probably with the most challenging issue of his political life — reunifying Germany almost a quarter of a century ago, in 1990. That was undoubtedly a defining and critical moment in Germany’s and Europe’s modern history since the Second World War.
It was the solid commitment of the European unifying pioneers that provided Europeans with almost continuous prosperity for at least half a century. The forerunner to the EU was formally established in 1952 and now has 28 members with a total population of more than 500 million people. It started off with six countries: France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg and established in the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) before it was formally renamed European Economic Common Market (EEC) five years later. With Croatia, the most recent country to join in 2013, the EU is expected to expand further as several nations are currently being considered for membership.
In 1973, Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom, marked the first EU enlargement and that was followed by Greece joining in 1981. Spain and Portugal joined in 1986, and Austria, Finland and Sweden in 1995. In 2004, eight countries of central and eastern Europe — the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia — joined the EU, finally ending the post-war division of Europe. Cyprus and Malta have also become members in what has been the EU’s biggest enlargement. In 2007, Bulgaria and Romania joined the European club.
The drive towards a Union in Europe originated from the days after the 1945 war. There was, for the first time in many centuries, a strong desire to bring European nations closer together in a way to put an end to any possibility of conflict that could cause damage to Europe. In his speech on September 19, 1946, the legendary British leader, Winston Churchill, fully supported this idea, proposing for Europe a structure under which “it can dwell in peace, in safety and in freedom ... in a kind of United States of Europe”. Churchill went explicitly further, defining the role of the European giants: France and Germany. The first step on the road to re-structure European family “must be a partnership between France and Germany”. he stated. “In this way only can France recover the moral leadership of Europe as there can be no revival of Europe without a spiritually great France and spiritually great Germany.” Churchill’s idea was to make the material strength of a single state less important. “Small nations will count as much as large ones and gain their honour by their contribution to the common cause.”
Regrettably, as modern history has shown, Churchill’s dream was never fulfilled and the course of events has taken a totally different direction. Britain stood on the sideline when the first group of six founding nations agreed to establish ECSC in 1951 and declined an invitation to sign the Treaty of Room in 1957. Britain was then accused of jealously protecting own interests and decided to remain the “imperial power” that it illusively thought still was. When the British government of the time realised that it would not be able to maintain its superiority, it opted out.
Noting that France and Germany were making a strong recovery and forming a powerful alliance, Britain changed its mind and applied to join the EEC in 1961 only to be vetoed, twice, by the late French president Charles de Gaulle. He considered Britain as hostile to the idea of constructing a Europe and being closely linked with the US. Eventually, it was not until 1973 after De Gaulle left office, when Britain was able to join the EEC under the Conservative government of the Edward Heath.
However, within a relatively short time, Europe has become a divisive issue within British politics on the one hand and between Britain and many European countries on the other. The division was not, and is still not, over ideas related to advancing collaboration to bring Europe closer to tackling issues that are fundamentally of concern to Europe’s population and the world at large. But sadly, instead, as the Ukraine crisis has exposed, British and major European politicians are mostly engaged in petty personal squabbles.
Mustapha Karkouti is a former president of the Foreign Press Association, London.
