Image of European Parliament, June 2018. Global Media Group/Press Association. All rights reserved.
IM/HD:
We are today witnessing the advance of nationalist, xenophobic and
extreme-right groups in every successive European election. They have even managed to enter
government, for instance, in Italy. What’s going on?
Etienne Balibar (EB): This trend has been
ongoing for years and reveals a crisis in the current form of European
construction, which is probably irreversible. It is moving from one country to
another, but the formula is the same: the effects of austerity measures on the
poor and middle classes as well as the development of social and territorial
inequalities are the logical result of so-called free and undistorted
competition. These elements crystallise within the malaise created by the
technocratic government of the EU and its member states. They foster
nationalism, xenophobia and a loathing for democracy.
But ever since the Greek crisis and Brexit, it
has also become clear that it is neither possible to leave the EU, nor to expel
a member state. Obviously, some political forces believe in an exit from Europe,
but no government can impose it. I think the situation will further deteriorate
as we head towards a mutual neutralisation of hegemonic forces in Europe due to
the lack of an alternative project on the part of new individuals, emergent groups
or political movements. The consequences of this development are unpredictable.
IM/HD:
Will we see an EU showdown with Italy, similar to the one in 2015?
EB: The statements of the president of the EU
Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, are revealing. He has said that he wanted to
avoid the errors made in 2015. But what errors is he referring to? Is he
talking about the content, about the wilful destruction of an economy and a
society? Or is he merely talking about the form this took, which hadn’t
respected the procedures? The European leaders know that they cannot show the
same open contempt towards the choice made by the Italians with which they
treated that of the Greeks. But I do find it telling that they want to avoid a
conflict with the extreme-right while they deliberately sought it with the
left-wing government. I do find it telling that
they want to avoid a conflict with the extreme-right while they deliberately
sought it with the left-wing government.
IM/HD: Do the suggestions for an overhaul of Europe
put forward by French president Emmanuel Macron during his speech at the
Sorbonne or the plans laid out by German Chancellor Angela Merkel really take
into account the full extent of the crisis that Europe is undergoing?
EB: What plan? It’s mere window dressing. Of
course cultural exchanges are important. But it won’t take us very far if it’s
only to proclaim once again the common destiny of the European peoples. The
crux of the matter is the EU economic and financial structures. Banks have
already been consolidated. The project to transform the European solidarity
mechanism into a monetary fund was inspired by the rules of the IMF. And
Germany and the Netherlands still don’t accept a common budget without
guarantees against transfers.
Ever since the crisis of 2008, economists have
repeatedly said that a single currency cannot work without a common budget. But
Germany only accepts minor adjustments, and it is likely that the French
government will head in the same direction. This will seal the sovereignty of
financial institutions instead of limiting competition between European states
and producers and thereby strengthening solidarity.
The project that is here outlined certainly
doesn’t attempt to ward off the splitting of Europe into hierarchical economic
zones: attractive zones for foreign capital, subcontracting zones, zones for
the supply of a cheap workforce and holiday zones for the bourgeoisie and petty
bourgeoisie. What happens in Greece today is striking. The salaries and
pensions have collapsed, current accounts are picking up, and the tourism
industry is running at full capacity. The environmental and sociological
consequences are terrifying.
IM/HD:
Macron’s Sorbonne speech at least
mentioned the necessity to fight against the rise of the extreme right. Does
nothing in the project that is currently under discussion pick up on this
dimension?
EB: Frankly, I find it astonishing that no
debate on the crisis besetting European construction is taking place in the
European Parliament. Maybe it would be a cacophony, speeches with fascist
leanings would be delivered by populist forces, some of which are already in
power or about to enter government. But we can’t ignore the fact that the
crisis of the system is also its lack of democracy. The more profound it gets,
the more technocrats will argue that the population should not have its say. They
fear that their capacity for action will be paralysed. The
more profound [the crisis] gets, the more technocrats will argue that the
population should not have its say.
But what are
they doing about it? I wonder when the time will be ripe for public debates
about the problems of Europe on a European level and not in a small committee
of the Commission or of the heads of states. The situation is certainly worrying
enough for a debate to take place in the European Parliament without waiting
for a common agreement between Macron and Merkel on a minimum programme.
The “reconstruction” programme won’t get Europe
out of its current crisis. Let’s stop the hypocritical discourse dividing
Europe into those who pay and those who receive. As if German, Dutch or French
tax payers were subsidising southern Europe. This really is the true
“populism”.
All creditor countries are profiting from the
differential salaries and interest rates. Germany is able to export everywhere
because it is producing in national conditions while selling on the global
market with a currency that is not too strong. This explains the entire opposition
of German capitalists to amending the contract of 1992. It is the foundation of
their European governance. Macron has never even contemplated attacking it.
IM/HD:
Why are left-wing factions so unable to weigh in on the current debate?
EB: If the left wants to rebuild itself, this
can only happen in many countries simultaneously. The left has to conceive of
itself as a European Left, despite the many difficulties. In this sense, the
idea of a trans-European campaign launched by Varoufakis seems right.
Such a campaign is necessary in order to break
down the barriers and bring the debate onto the citizen’s level. But this is
not self-evident. Many believed (myself included) that unification from above
would exert sufficient pressure to trigger off a cross-border debate despite the
many obstacles such as language, political cultures, organisational crises, the
rise to power of technocrats, the monopoly of national political elites. All
this made people withdraw into their own territories which are slipping from
their grasp. And this is exploited in demagogic and backward discourses. But
the left must face the real world.
It was also an error to believe that the
European construction would render the national question obsolete or relativize
it. The current crisis proves the opposite. No nation or region has the
privilege of nationalism to themselves. The purely negative conception of
national interest remains the most commonly shared matter in Europe. Every
single country is afraid of being exploited by a neighbour or dissolved by a
globalisation in which Europe would merely be the humble instrument. The purely negative conception of national interest
remains the most commonly shared matter in Europe.
IM/HD:
Are such examples as the Aquarius and the
600 people who cannot find refuge on a continent as rich as Europe proof that
conservative ideas and nationalist movements deploying the mythical threat of
massive immigration have won out in our societies?
EB: The only advantage in this appalling episode
is that Europeans cannot perceive of the problem as purely Italian any more.
For years, France has had an attitude of
repugnant hypocrisy. It gives lessons to others, but from Calais to the Italian
borders migrants and those who help them are being harrassed. Inequalities and
humiliations are creating this identical “hostile environment” to the one the
British government made a hue and cry about. What I’m also scandalised about is
the fact that France hasn’t even accepted a tenth of the refugees it had
promised to take, while Angela Merkel accepted hundreds of thousands of them.
Finally, we have to admit that the policies of the Visegrad group are not so
very different from our own: they’re only more sincere. Finally, we have to admit that the policies of the Visegrad group are
not so very different from our own: they’re only more sincere.
The question everybody is asking is how to
balance all the dimensions of the problem. Rationally, looking at the number of
displaced persons and the capacities of member states, there is nothing irresolvable.
It’s not an invasion. It is necessary to create the proper means to receive
them, teach them the language, help them get through… The other aspect is the
Mediterranean hecatomb which is taking genocidal dimensions. It’s an extreme
phrase, but how else are we to define the elimination of thousands of individuals
based on their race – an elimination that is tolerated, anticipated and
organised by default. It’s a rampant genocide, taking place not in a closed
territory but in a borderland between states. History will hold us accountable
for this.
IM/HD:
What would your main propositions for the genuine rebuilding of Europe look like?
EB: Europe can only be relaunched by addressing
three questions. First, the question about the role it plays in globalisation:
can it change its course and if so in what direction? Secondly, faced with
neoliberalism, can a social European project be revived, and if so with which
supporting forces ? Thirdly, can an equilibrium be found between the
representation of the citizens by and large and the representation of nations
or nationalities. In other words, can Europe invent the representative,
participative and pluralist federal framework that it needs? Can Europe invent the representative, participative and pluralist federal framework that it needs?
I insist on this question because it is the key
to the other ones. Each one of our countries suffers from the pathology of
representative democracy, because the formal powers are not localised at the
same place as the real powers.
But the era of representation won’t end as long
as public institutions exist – Habermas is certainly right on this point. The
question of European finances needs to be linked to the question of the
political representation of the European people.
Thanks go to Moh Hamdi for translating from the French.
