25 June 2015
The threat from outside the Bubble
by John Watson
In my next life I think I would like to work at the EU Commission. That is not because I love Brussels, although to be fair the chocolate there is excellent. Nor is it the stimulating company; I am sure there are lots of jolly people but the fact that they are continually supplemented by those who are regarded as a nuisance at home must have a dilutive effect. No, it isn’t the gravy train either; nor is it the undoubted pulling power of the Commissioner’s uniform. No, it is none of these prosaic attractions, great as they may be. Rather it is the wish to live in a bubble where everyone has a common world view, a world where differences can be settled in a civilised way because disagreements are as to method rather than as to final destination, a constructive world where difficulties can be smoothed over with allocations of cash – a sort of FIFA without the football, I suppose.
The EU’s bubble is built around a common faith in the project. There are differences as to the degree of union which will ultimately be achieved but a general acceptance, for the time being anyway, that the EU is ratcheting towards a system of closer co-operation rather than the other way. The sense is at its strongest in those countries which have adopted the euro and that is why, until very recently, no real consideration was given to how one of them might leave the currency union. Bubble-think said that the euro would bring prosperity to all its members; because that was the consensus view, the ultimate triumph of the euro was assured.
In times of prosperity that worked well. One or two recidivists apart, there was a general enthusiasm to join up, nowhere stronger than among the poorer nations in Europe who saw euro membership as a way of accessing the prosperity they could see elsewhere. It wasn’t surprising, then, that the Greeks decided to join and, bubble-think being what it was, that the tests were fudged to allow them to do so. The prosperity which flowed from the great euro project would paper over any cracks.
Austerity, of course, has change perceptions. It is one thing to belong to the euro when it brings a prospect of unlimited wealth. It is another to obey its rules when they involve making cuts in your citizens’ standard of living. That hasn’t changed the mindset in the bubble, of course. There, a country leaving the euro is still regarded as a disaster to be avoided at all cost. What it has done is to change the game at a different level. It is now the European electorates who are questioning whether they are prepared to pay the price.
Syriza’s triumph in the Greek polls was a symptom of this. It won its victory on an anti-austerity platform and its leaders must have reckoned that the other EU members would live with its program because, as members of the bubble, they could not contemplate an exit. Time will tell whether that approach was right but the resistance to it has been far higher than they must have expected. That is because other governments, and particularly those whose citizens have already taken the pain of austerity, are having to worry about their own electoral prospects and the way in which their publics will react if Greece is seen to be treated too generously. UKIP may have had a hard time in the British general election but the Spanish government will have to beat off a left-wing anti-austerity challenger within the next year and there are a number of right-wing parties hoping to make hay out of the EU’s uncertain response to migration across its southern border.
The inevitable result of all must be to break up the consensus on which the EU has traditionally operated. The strains of austerity and immigration are going to mean that voters will take far more interest in the mechanisms of the EU than they have in the past and governments will have to meet their concerns rather than just getting swept along with the tide. What would do in an age of plenty will not do as Europe comes under pressure, so EU institutions will now be tested to see if they can continue in their current form. Then we will find out whether the group-think of the past has led to them being built on unsure foundations, on the shifting sands of everlasting prosperity. It certainly promises to get rough.
No, on reflection, I think I would rather come back as a rock star.
