A Europe Dividing
‘History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.’ This quote, often attributed to Mark Twain, perhaps offers some insight into the possible unravelling of the European political project. In the conventions of American political history it is widely held that President James Buchanan was the man who, through lack of resolve, almost oversaw the collapse of the Union. As a trained attorney Buchanan knew that there was no right of secession under the constitution. However he was unwilling to claim the executive authority required to prevent such action. And so the states lurched towards dissolution. To engage in counterfactual history for a moment: it seems that the United States would have irrevocably split apart; and the two resltuing democratic expansionist empires would have been left perched facing each other and a wide open frontier, bound apart by visceral distrust and envy.
It was not to be however. If Buchanan is remember as one of the worst American presidents of all time, his successor Abraham Lincoln is remembered as perhaps its greatest. Although lacking in executive experience his underlying principle was unwavering: preserve the union at all costs. To this goal he was willing to subsume all other concerns, including his moral repugnance of slavery. To its end he was willing to commit to and sustain a bloody civil war and rebuff suggestions of compromise. Everything else was negotiable, but union was not. The result was a nation ripped apart by an enormously destructive and prolonged civil war, but also one reborn on a stronger footing. The slavery and secession issues that had, since America’s founding, threatened to rip the nation apart were (at an enormous cost) settled once and for all.
It is from this parable-like take on the American Civil War era that perhaps lessons can be drawn for Europe’s undisputed present-day leader, Angela Merkel. The seriousness of the conundrum she faces is immense. Preservation of the European project requires a willingness to risk political martyrdom on her own part. The case for Germany continuing as the backstop of the Eurozone grows more unpopular domestically every day. Meanwhile the irresolute action and half-measures that characterised earlier attempts to save the single currency have merely postponed the day of reckoning. They have also, at almost every turn, increased the cost and the stakes of the next move. The case of the Greek Bailout is perhaps the most blatant example. Yet time and again her approach has seemed reductionist and pedantic. Bowing to national pressures she has proven more adept at tinkering with the terms of bailouts and turning the screws on profligate states, than on securing a long-term fix for the single currency. The result has been a continuing narrative of core vs. periphery and an ominous slide towards a series of defaults, which even the German coffers will not be able to rebuff.
The continuation of the sovereign debt crisis does appear avoidable however, although less so with each downgrade headline. Moreover, preserving the Euro remains the least bad option available. It is a badly constructed monetary system, but not irredeemably so. Meanwhile, the political ruptures between Eurozone and non-Eurozone members are avoidable if the German Chancellor proves willing to stand up to myopic German populism (German banks are after all heavily exposed to the crisis plagued periphery) and place less stock in French endeavours. So far Mrs. Merkel has shown a grudging willingness to take the steps necessary to stave off impending existential emergencies. But the approach will not continue to work indefinitely. Meanwhile political fissures (read: Britain) are widening. Europe will not collapse overnight, but it risks a slow road to monetary collapse, bureaucratic entanglement and political de-integration. What seems the most pressing requirement is resolute action to stem the bleeding of the monetary union. Moreover this can provide a necessary distraction from the current simmering political tensions. Above all else, however, what is required is a willingness on the part of the German Chancellor to assume the leadership role required of her at this time and to transcend present political concerns. Absent this, the European political project risks sliding towards decline and even perhaps eventual dissolution.
