WE'LL TAKE THE ANGLOSPHERIC NATIONS AND EASTERN EUROPE:

EU's growth triggers identity crisis (William Pfaff, April 5, 2005, International Herald Tribune)

In all of the countries planning referendums, rather than ratification by Parliament, all sorts of anxieties about Europe, as well as about domestic matters, have been loaded onto the vote.

Does the constitution further "Americanize" Europe? Does it subordinate Europe's security to NATO? Is European Union just an extension of the American alliance, as U.S. officials and many American academics and policy experts would like it to become? Some in Eastern Europe think EU membership is a defense against a possible Russian threat. Some in Western Europe think of it as defense against an eventual American threat.

Another currently influential idea about the EU is that Europe's international mission is to quell disorder and impose democracy through example, and by offering countries the possibility of EU membership if they accept European political standards. This somewhat smug view says that the United States invades countries and says: "Be democrats or we'll kill you," while the EU peacefully converts others to democracy.

Europeans are deeply divided on whether their union should practice American free-market economics or defend their established social market systems. Do they want a "technical" Europe (as Britain would prefer) or an integrated one? They are divided on further expansion. They are anxious about immigration.

These divisions, including the ancient one between American/Thatcherite economic "liberalism" and the European social market model, all have their origins in history. The old EU expanded to 25 because it believed itself obliged to admit the former Communist states, whatever the consequences. It has been unwilling to admit that expansion has made it impossible to forge a highly integrated Europe with ambitious common foreign and security policies.

A single market, single currency and free passage of individuals and goods, have all worked for limited parts of the EU. But they were largely uncontroversial and of obvious mutual benefit. Further integration is not.

It is obvious that the alternative to an integrated Europe is several "Europes" with different degrees of integration and differing relationships with the outside world. If the constitution is turned down, sending the Europeans back to their unsatisfactory Nice Treaty, this is the solution the Europeans will have to develop.

The notion that the alternative to a constitutionally integrated Europe is no Europe is absurd, and by now, impossible.

Isn't the New Europe better off in NAFTA an d the Axis of Good than in the EU?

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 5, 2005 12:00 AM