Why Europe Should Become a Republic!
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Ulrike Guérot
WHY EUROPE SHOULD BECOME A REPUBLIC
A political utopia
Bibliographical information of the German National Library
The German National Library catalogues this publication in the German National Bibliography; detailed bibliographic information can be found on the internet at: http://dnb.dnb.de.
ISBN 978-3-8012-7017-9 (E-Book)
ISBN 978-3-8012-0559-1 (print)
Copyright © 2019
by Verlag J.H.W. Dietz Nachf. GmbH
Dreizehnmorgenweg 24, 53175 Bonn
Translated by Ray Cunningham
Cover design: Flora Frank | Rem Kohlhaas, European Flag
Typesetting: Jens Marquardt, Bonn
E-Book conversion: Zeilenwert GmbH, 2019
All rights reserved
Find us on the internet: www.dietz-verlag.de
This is a fantastical story. In it, the citizens of Europe come together on a basis of political equality to create a European Republic and to leave the nation states behind. The story is so beautiful, and so fantastical, that every reader will immediately want to help make it a reality. And if they and their children are still alive, then in 2045 they will all be living in a decentralised, democratic, socially just European Republic that is showing the way for rest of the world – on the path to a global society of equal citizens!!
#The European Republic is under construction
#newEurope
For my two sons, Felix and Maxime,
and for all my European friends
representing here all the young people in Europe
who dream of a different Europe, and who deserve a better
Europe; and all the older people who believed in the EU
and who today are disappointed beyond measure.
And finally there are the Many.
This refers to all those whom I met in countless discussions
about Europe – live or in TV or radio studios – in recent years.
It was ultimately these discussions with the Many
which made it clear to me that people in Germany
and elsewhere wish for a Europe that is completely different
from what we currently have,
and that there is a reason for writing this book.
Cover
Title
Copyright
About the book
Dedication
Preface to the English version
Preface
PART I THE LOSS OF A POLITICAL AESTHETIC
BEFORE WE START:
A quick gallop through the book
CHAPTER 1
The European malaise
CHAPTER 2
Welcome to European post-democracy
CHAPTER 3
The ‘Weimarisation’ of Europe and the problem of the political centre ground
CHAPTER 4
‘Everything is language’, or: European terminology and discourse
CHAPTER 5
The wrong solutions, or: a system running on empty
PART II UTOPIA
BEFORE WE START:
Utopia as a thought projection
CHAPTER 6
Why a European Republic?
CHAPTER 7
The new political order of the European RePublic: building the first post-national democracy
CHAPTER 8
The new territorial order of the European RePublic: regions, cities & Europe’s Tower of Babel
CHAPTER 9
The new economic order in Europe: digital manufacturing
PART III CODA
CHAPTER 10
For women only: bulls’ balls and bonnets – European emancipation
CHAPTER 11
#Error404EuropeNotFound#: Europe’s young people – creative, digital, post-party activists
CHAPTER 12
Europe, we’re on our way: the pioneers on the road to a global cosmopolitan society
Closing remarks
APPENDICES
Notes
List of figures
Preface to the English edition
Brexit is just about to happen, in a most uncoordinated and painful way, even while many people in the UK are still hoping for a second referendum or a delay to the departure date in order to avoid the worst. Leaving Europe seems, in the real world of politics, to be almost impossible, so strong are the ties that bind us (or – in the eyes of those who feel that the EU is a monster, and who think that independence is the solution – the strings attached).
But perhaps there is a third option? A totally reformed political Europe that gives the Brexiters back the sovereignty over decision-making that they yearn for, and the Remainers the open, liberal economic space they want to stay in?
‘Why Europe should become a Republic. A political Utopia’ sketches out this third option. It paves the way for a completely new way of thinking about Europe at a time when Europe needs it most and when many are already talking about an entirely new entity. The EU badly needs profound institutional change to reconnect with its citizens.
Forget everything you’ve ever heard about the EU. This book is not about a Brussels bureaucracy, or cucumber regulations, or a European superstate. In the best traditions of Thomas More’s great work ‘Utopia’, it is about applying everything dear to us in our national democracies – the separation of powers, the principle of political equality and the sovereignty of the people – to a political entity called Europe. In short: it takes the best of English political thought – from the Putney Debates to Thomas Hobbes to John Locke – and applies it Europe.
It is about putting the autochthonous regions in England and beyond – Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland – in the driving seat of European decision-making, whilst respecting their cultural differences and identity. And it is about giving Europe back to the people, because the Republic is about them and respecting their interests.
Is this doomed to remain a Utopia? Perhaps not. The German edition of this book became a bestseller, and many political parties have been inspired by the political framing of Europe as a republic, and have integrated the idea into their party programmes. So have many European regions and city councils, and many European citizens. Europe as a republic is precisely about putting citizens back in control of what is happening, and about making Europe democratic by applying the principle of political equality to all citizens, which is the necessary condition for each and every democracy, across Europe.
Does this brief introduction trigger a passion to read on? The European Republic is a smart, tech-savvy, decentralized, sustainable, digitalized, open, tolerant and liberal Europe that pursues the common good, where solidarity is written with a capital S; it is a network of town halls rather than a centralized body, where Europe can evolve into what it always wanted to be: unity in diversity; a place where everybody wants to live! To find it, read on; and then join us on www.eudemlab.org. We are a group that is growing bigger every day, working hard to make that dream of Europe a reality.
If we work on it together, it need not remain a utopia: the European Republic is under construction!
Ulrike Guérot
Preface
‘The Utopians are particularly fond of mental pleasures,
which they consider to be of the highest importance,
and which they associate with virtuous behaviour
and a clear conscience ...
Of course, they believe in enjoying food, drink, and so forth;
but purely in the interests of health, for they don't regard such
things as very pleasant in themselves —
only as ways of resisting the onset of disease.
A sensible person, they say, prefers staying healthy to taking
medicine, and would rather feel well and cheerful
than have people comforting him.’
Thomas More, Utopia
‘No idea is a good one
which does not seem wholly illusory at the outset.’
Albert Einstein
‘Only if that which is can be changed
is that which is not everything’
Theodor W. Adorno
500 years ago, Thomas More published his description of Utopia, the story of a fictional island where peace and social justice prevail. Utopia became a symbol and embodiment of an imaginary social order, and the impulse behind numerous social innovations and the desire to create together a better future. Europe today needs that kind of utopia, because the EU is broken. Europe, however, remains an unfinished task. Within this dialectic lies the opportunity for a different Europe. Whatever happens on the continent of Europe over the next few years, we can neither leave this continent nor cordon it off, and nor do we want to. Exits, walls and borders are not the answer. What is happening before our eyes is the dissolution of the Europe of the founding fathers: the end of ‘the united states of Europe’ based on the concept of the nation state. So we have to come up with a new concept for Europe – and one that delivers a European lifestyle as close as possible (in a kind of ‘post-modern remake’) to that described in the quotation from Thomas More above. We need a shiny new social utopia.1 And perhaps in today’s Europe we have the wealth and the means necessary, which weren’t available in the past. What is needed is a fundamental re-thinking of Europe on the basis of the so-called MAYA principle used by futurologists: Most Advanced Yet Acceptable!
So let’s imagine we were able to run a coarse comb over the continent of Europe. The national borders would simply catch in the teeth of the comb; those thick, annoying strands would be pulled away. The citizens of the European regions and cities would create a brand new Europe: decentralised, regional, post-national, parliamentary, democratic, sustainable and socially just. A political and institutional system that would enable just the kind of society Thomas More once dreamed of – a society in which modern forms of mental pleasure, virtuous behaviour and health were regarded as central shared aims. The post-national European democracy outlined here would be a network of European regions and cities under the protective roof of a European Republic in which all European citizens would be politically equal. This utopia describes a Copernican Revolution in Europe,2 in which the United States of Europe becomes the European Republic.
This utopia also includes some reflections on what a political community on the continent of Europe might look like. It goes without saying that these reflections remain at the level of abstract sketches. My purpose is to develop a conceptual framework for a coherent project of European integration beyond the nation state and in line with Europe’s shared intellectual and cultural heritage. Our task is to revitalise this common heritage and to bring it forward into the post-modern era.
I choose the term ‘republic’ advisedly. It is the oldest term in the history of political thought for the foundation of a political community. The republic is the quintessence of our common European intellectual heritage. It is from this term that I derive the concept of a democratic Europe which is based on two principles: the political equality of its citizens and the networked, transnational, European character of its governance. The utopia of a European Republic entails the institutional, territorial and economic re-ordering of Europe in the interests of the common good – that is, the res publica.
The utopia described here is not a rigid construct. It is understood as something relational, something in process, and something transitive; that is, as an ongoing form of interdependent, networked, developmental thinking. We have no need for yet another story of European federalisation or centralisation; rather, the aim of this book is to capture here, in its diverse wholeness, the idea that the essence of Europe is without borders. The aim is a granular and collaborative model of Europe accessible for the Many – not a grand historical or institutional project for the few; the topology of a holistic European entity, which remains to be created in all its details, contingencies and modalities by the Many themselves. This approach is in accordance with the many theories of ‘co-leadership’, ‘co-creation’, ‘creative innovation’ and ‘cognitive networks’, with ‘swarm intelligence’ and with ‘central place theory’, all of which express the idea of connectivity and proceed from the assumption that innovation can only arise out of the connectedness and collaboration of many individuals.3
I divide the ‘Many’ into five social groups and tendencies, and I hope that my utopia will be especially relevant to these five. The number five is special in many respects. Depending on how they are classified, Europe is one of five continents. Plato’s geometry identifies five shapes or ‘solids’. Aristotle distinguishes five senses; in Christian tradition, Jesus suffered five wounds during the Crucifixion; Islam is based on five pillars. There are five elements in the Tao tradition. The first five books of the Hebrew Bible are known as the Pentateuch, and the fifth, Deuteronomy, is sometimes known as the Book of Love; and five is held to be the number of the Goddess of Love, Venus. The number five seems to encompass and unify all the elements, including Love. And that is what we need for Europe today!
But who are the ‘Many’, the five social groups and tendencies who make up my – illustrative, and by no means exclusive – target audience, with whom I hope the utopia of a European Republic will resonate, and who then might possibly help to bring it about? They are, first and foremost, the European citizens of today’s European regions and cities – whether settled, nomadic or hypermobile – who constitute the social basis for the European Republic. They represent European civic and civil society and the principle of decentralisation, and thus all the new and modern concepts of sustainability, electromobility, distributed generation, new spatial planning, sustainable agriculture, Slow Food, and so on. Chapters 7 and 8, on the new political and territorial order for Europe, are for them. Secondly, all those who are involved in thinking about the new economy, about cooperatives, the post-growth society, basic income or new forms of the commons. Chapter 9, about a new economic order for Europe – something that is necessarily implied by the reference to the common good inherent in the concept of a republic – is for them. Third, the young people of Europe, for whom we need to create plenty of new space in Europe (Chapter 11). Fourth, with a conspiratorial wink: women. Because the Europe of tomorrow will also, and above all, be a girl thing – won’t it? (Chapter 10) Fifth, finally, the experts and professors in constitutional law, because in Chapter 6 I try to examine the concept of the republic and to set it apart from the neoliberalism which prevails today, an attempt which should be of interest to specialists in the history of European constitutional law. My use of the term ‘we’ throughout is intended inclusively, to represent the Many who I hope will enjoy this book.
These five, therefore – the regions and their people, the post-growthists, the young people of Europe, the women and the constitutionalists – represent all those who could now set to work and create the European Republic as a historical subject. For this utopia – as I have said already – is not something already finished, but only an idea. The ‘Many’ have to join in and work on it. The ‘Many’ are all of us. Because as sovereign citizens – if we ever actually become truly sovereign – at any given moment we hold the future of the continent of Europe, and of its role in the world, in our own hands.
PART I
The Loss of a Political Aesthetic
‘Imagine there’s no countries – it isn’t hard to do.’
John Lennon
BEFORE WE START:
A quick gallop through the book
Welcome to the European Republic! This book is an attempt to rediscover, in a political utopia, the beauty of the European project, which in recent years has been betrayed and lost. Beginning with Plato, Aristotle and Cicero, the republic and other key concepts of political philosophy were first conceived of in Europe. Europe is the continent which has produced the most significant and sophisticated essays and other writings about the state and statehood, and about how societies and human coexistence should be organised. However, ever since it congealed into a system of nation states, this continent has lost its way, and now finds itself in a permanent European crisis in which all that matters is power, the market, and money. Not only the so-called Eurozone crisis in itself, but also the way it has been handled, are testament to the moral and cultural bankruptcy of over 300 years of European political and cultural history. So the attempt to rediscover a European political aesthetic is comparable to restoring an old painting – stripping away layer after layer of colour to reveal the original work which philistines subsequently painted over. In the collective cultural memory of the continent, Europe is always whole – a single body. She was dismembered in the course of the development of the nation state in the early modern period.4 But in terms of cultural history and philosophy, Europe has always been whole and without borders.5
In Part I, the aim is to demonstrate how the design of the EU fails to satisfy fundamental democratic requirements, and why it consequently cannot function properly, and never will. The way the EU is currently constituted cannot lead to the democratic unification of Europe, its hoped-for epiphany. The blueprint was wrong. The nation states – insofar as it was something they ever wanted – have never crossed the Rubicon to a political Europe, and they are now actively blocking the path to a transnational European democracy.
Map of Europe, 1589.
They have therefore outlived their usefulness as actors in the project of European integration. The old EU, its legitimacy founded on a grand narrative of peace, could only be perceived as fulfilling its purpose so long as it was not required, under the rigidly frozen geostrategic conditions of the Cold War and a comparatively stable global economy, to meet any actual political challenges. But that period ended with the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 at the latest. The currency union, imposed on the European states without any form of democratic underpinning, has forfeited any claims the old EU might have had to be furthering the democratic integration of Europe.
The current crises, which seem to pile up on top of each other – the Eurozone crisis, Grexit, Brexit, refugees – are thus only the cyclical symptoms of deep-lying structural faults which have their origins in the way the EU is constituted. The EU is therefore incapable of overcoming them. These structural problems are also the root cause of the political phenomena of populism and nationalism. In this way, the EU is itself the progenitor of the political crisis in which we find ourselves, and is increasingly the problem and not the solution. Its slow death began some time ago and has now started to be noticed by the public. Part II sets out a radical utopia, in preparation for the moment when history will once again release and set free the essence of the European project. For – whatever becomes of the EU – Europe will go on. The re-ordering of the continent of Europe must of necessity be both political and democratic. For that reason, it must respect the general principles of the political equality of all European citizens and the separation of powers. In addition, it has to re-connect what has become an inflated and tendentious interpretation of liberalism to the notion of the common good. What is being proposed here is therefore not more EU reforms, more integration, but a European democracy which observes fundamental democratic principles and adopts them as the basis for a political and institutional re-ordering of the continent with the idea of the community at its core.
It follows that this utopia means conceiving of Europe as a republic, because a republic is what the restorers will find Europe to be when they have scratched away the nation states (which, paradoxically perhaps, almost all defined themselves as republics when they were founded; almost every single time a new political entity has been created in Europe it has been a republic). We should now apply this cultural-historical insight to the epiphany of the European idea itself.
The concept of the republic is multi-faceted and organic. It has grown from within a number of different traditions, and it encompasses three fundamental principles which represent the preconditions for any foundational political project: civic equality, or equality before the law; political equality, or equal voting rights, coupled with a representative parliamentary democracy; and finally, an explicit commitment to the common good, the res publica. The republic is thus defined in normative terms. In essence, the concept of the republic is the link between the two fundamental values of liberty and equality; in it, these two are bound together and interconnected. This applies also to everyone who is a member of the republic, a member of the republican ‘fraternity’. The legacy of the French Revolution of 1789 is equality beyond – or regardless of – class. In the European Revolution of the 21st century, the principle of equality must be extended to encompass equality beyond the nation.
Following the description of the origin and development of the concept of the republic in the second Part, the consummation of the European Republic is then outlined over three chapters. This means the political, territorial and economic re-ordering of Europe, which entails the conceptual combination and practical realisation of a number of current megatrends – localisation, civic emancipation, sustainability, post-capitalism, the post-growth society, the commons, the rejuvenated cooperative movement, decentralisation, gender equality – and their implementation across Europe. What would a new European project that was able to successfully enact these megatrends look like? It would involve the social design of a different Europe: a transnational European democracy, a new institutional edifice for Europe, a spatial reordering, and, finally, a proper and appropriate application of the economic principles of liberalism on which the current internal market philosophy of the EU is based. This Europe will be something woven together out of regions and cities that think globally. It will have left the nation state behind; it will be a European polity in the form of a non-hierarchical, horizontal, decentralised network of regions and cities under the common roof of a republic – not a centralist federation or union of states. This Europe will be an intellectual and political trailblazer for the new relationship between the local and the global beyond the nation.