What kind of experiment is the European project? What are its origins and how did it become so important despite the fact that it was one of many international institutions that came into being after the Second World War? The focus of the latest work by historian Kiran Patel, visiting professor at the Ciampi Institute in September, is precisely Europe.
Professor Kiran Klaus Patel teaches history at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and was a guest of the Ciampi Institute and the Scuola Normale in September. In Florence, his lecture was on the topic of social justice in the European project. We asked the professor, whose latest volume is Project Europe, a History (Cambridge University Press, 2020), a few questions on this and on the European project in historical perspective.
This interview was published on “Il Mulino” (in italian)
Why did you decide to study the history of the Eu and what is the angle from which you research it?
It was a long journey, and it was mainly for two reasons. First, I felt that the European Union has now a relatively long history, but historians don’t deal much with it. I think we should do more so. It is not just the present, not just current matters, but history,
Secondly, I felt that there are more ways to watch at this history than what has been done up to now not just a history of ideas or the focus on diplomacy and negotiations, that need to be done, but also understand how this history impacted people lives. With my background that is the one of a social and political history I thought that maybe I could add something to the discussion.
You put the European experiment in context reminding us that at the end of World War II there were several multinational and international institutional competing projects and that the original idea was not so central, important, powerful as it has become. What has made this relatively small regional project a success?
In today’s world the European Union has become so big and important that we tend to project the idea that we have today – either we like it or not – back into the past. That is wrong. This is overlooking how small and fragile this institution was at the beginning. History could have gone easily another way. Starting from here the question arises: why of the many international forums that were set up after the end of World War II did this one become increasingly important? I think there are three main reasons beside coincidence, luck and circumstances. First it has to do with the specificity of this organization in comparison to some of the others. There was more an “economistic DNA” in this new creature which also made some of its doings less controversial in comparison to others. To give a concrete example, the Council of Europe was established earlier but it dealt with issues such as human rights and culture, two things that are often seen as the chasse gardeè, the preserve, of Nation states. If you did come up with a European proposal, national politicians would have gone up in arms refusing it. If you did something in the economic ground, as the European Economic Community did, you could present it as something to boost prosperity or as technical measures that did not infringe national sovereignty. That has been very often the logic of the European integration: to use economic means also for political ends and this led to an increase of competences and powers of the European project.
Second point – and in this case it was a process as this was not in the original treaties – the European law has more powers than normal international organizations. This made it easier for the European Community to acquire power and centrality in comparison to the European Council or the OECD when there was need to address issues that need international regulations – say satellites or environmental policies. The third issue Is financial resources. The EEC had a budget that could be used not only for the functioning of the institution, there was power to use this money for the agricultural policy and there was also the power to divert resources to new means and through this to grow competences a little bit.
On the topic of your lecture: can you recall why the EC chose not to take the path of redistribution? What were the different point of views/political forces? Is this a story of diverging political point of views? Are there also cultural/geographical differences?
My argument when it comes to social justice is that it was there but in a very different way from what people would think. It was not about redistribution, even if the social democrats and Trade Unions wanted the Community to have a more redistributive dimension in policy-making. That was never the case, there were pockets where this was done, such as the Agricultural policy, but the main thrust was to have the market logic loom large where the idea was that productivity could go up, then production would go up and everybody would benefit. My argument is that this logic was first developed at the level of the International Labor Organization (ILO) since the 1930s and then imported in the first years of the European Community. In that period, you had mainly Democratic Christian politicians at the helm of policymaking and this idea was less controversial than that of redistribution. The other aspect is that redistribution through the Welfare State increasing role would be kept at national level. It was very much seen as part of the legitimacy of post war policymaking that it should remain in the hands of national politicians. This is also due to the symbolic dimension of saying “we care for you”. We have witnessed an historical compromise in which there is a division of labor: the international dimension should be driven by the market and by the European community while at the national level certain dimension of redistribution should also introduced or increased.
Speaking of regional and cultural differences, they do exist and are also institutional. Some countries are very centralized and some are federal (France/Germany) and also the way in which some key notions are being understood. Take the notion of “competition”, there is a very different understanding for this term in France, Germany or Italy. That off course continues to impact the European integration.
Which tools in your view have worked as social cohesion policies?
I argue that the Agricultural policy (CAP), which is mainly seen as an economic policy, was primarily a welfare policy. The idea was to reduce the impact of the transformation of a sector that was becoming much more productive through the use of fertilizers and new machinery and in which fewer people was needed. So a way of life that had shaped Europe for generations and centuries was under threat. My point is that the substantial money was put into the farming sector was meant to slow down the social effects of that fundamental transformation. In that moment, farmers were among those few parts of society very much affected by European policymaking and there was a lot of protests, they were not grateful for what they had received as they were put under a lot of pressure. But the alternatives, either no subsidies at all or similar national policies, probably the pressure would have been much harsher. With no European subsidies agriculture would have been killed in some parts of Western Europe in the ‘60s. If it had remained under national state protection, as it was until then, it would have become unsustainable for some countries such as France or The Netherlands. It was a reduction of the pressure on national governments and what is interesting there was a solution for that part of the population that was particularly dear to the more conservative and Christian-democratic part of the political spectrum, while there was not a common European textile policy even if the sector was also under heavy pressure and where many thousands of jobs were lost. In that case the workforce was often made by women, part time workers and not necessarily politically conservative as the farmers were and hence their support was not seen as so important.
The idea of implementing traditional welfare state tools at European level, you write, would have weakened the national governments which were the providers of public services and therefore there was also a resistance at national level. Along the years, though, Nations did cede sovereignty to the EU on a series of matters. Not on welfare. Governments cede tools for governing the economy and the budget but have to respond to citizens about the quality & quantity of social benefits. Isn’t this a problem?
My focus is on the Cold War period, I am an historian, but I think it is interesting and important to link this to present days discussions. Sovereignty has been eroded not just by treaties but also by rulings by the European Court of Justice, and there are also positive examples of that role of the Court on the matter of social justice. When Ireland joined the Community in 1973 the conservative government hated the idea of equal pay for men and women. So, there was a push from civil society mobilization and a ruling by the Court in 1976 that forced that on the country. This is an example of the force of law that I was making before: something positive, even if the results were all but perfect, was imposed on a national government by the international organization.
On your point more specifically, there is this problem of lot of power has moved in the direction of the Union, but much less in the social dimension. It is very interesting what has happened since the Euro crisis and then since the pandemic and the Ukrainian war. On one hand we have seen the imposition of austerity measures that show how important the EU has become and how disruptive its forces can be for the social fabric of society – which was the case of Greece and to a lesser degree other Southern European countries. The reduction of pensions, just to use that one example, was detrimental for people and obviously triggered resistance toward European policymaking. In 2020 we have also seen Next Gen Eu, which is the first case in which the EU itself has accepted to take debts and to use those resources to help societies to overcome the effects of the crisis. What I find interesting and reinforces the argument I was making is that there is still this economistic logic: there were measures related to healthcare but the tool was the use of money to overcome crisis. Now, we have national leaders – even the Eurosceptics – taking the merit of having brought those resources to the country. Was this a one off or an opening to a more social policy approach that would include more levels of solidarity between the member states? It is very clear that some countries absolutely dislike this, and other that would be very much in favor of this. The Draghi report contains many different messages. It was interesting to follow the German debate when it was released – at least the few quality media that cared. Some critiqued it fundamentally – as the next step towards debts and hence something Germany and other “frugal” states should resists. Others were more balanced and stressed the many other measures in the report, such as the reduction of bureaucracy. The latter finds a lot of support in Germany, but if the Draghi report will be seen as a starting point for more EU debts, we will go back to the same debates during the 2010s – only that now, they will become even more toxic. This discussion has started and is going to be one of the key questions surrounding the new Von der Leyen commission.
As an historian I think that looking back at the roots of this discussion. As an historian it will also be very interesting to understand why Angel Merkel accepted an approach she was strongly and always against, once the official sources available. Probably the explanation relies in the fear of a possible collapse of the whole European single market.
A key question you say for the coming years, you say. Signals are not encouraging for those in favor of more solidarity…
Since 2020 nationalistic and populist forces have become stronger and the EU showed less internal solidarity, particularly on the issue of asylum seekers and migrants. Germany often perceives itself as a country that is always for more European integration and what I think we are observing in this moment is a very problematic approach to the asylum matter. The decisions taken to close the borders and have more controls is challenging some of the very fabric of the European integration because there is no discussion on the injustices of the Dublin regime that made those countries who share borders with the rest of the world have to bear the weight of people coming to Europe. Now is like “Other countries have to take care for their problems as we have our far-right populist one to take care of”. It is a problematic and self-centered discussion where also the idea of European solidarity is missing and that could also backfire for Germany and its role in Europe at some point later. There are societal forces in all member States that challenge the very ideas that the European project has long been informed by. It is not something concrete or specific, it is rather the culture of European integration of compromise in which it is not you or me winning but we need to find a solution for everybody. It is the message from the first generation of policymakers that is now coming under threat. The first European economic commissioners were people who had a past in the Nazi Wehrmacht, in the resistance and as slave laborer under Nazi regime. They all learned the lesson from the war that we need compromise and overcome historic differences to build something together. I think that spirit is something that is more and more lacking.
From 2013 on and through a series of crisis, the EU as an institution has broadened its reach and power. Is there not an issue about an historically given construction that has grown too much without testing its credibility in a democratic way? Is this growing importance and power driven by the bureaucratic/political power in Bruxelles or is it also a political project pushed by nations? And can we say that this lack of democracy, this distant power, can also help explain the success of populist anti-European forces in elections?
There is more than one project. I think that it is more useful to watch the European project as a platform where various actors (bureaucracies, governments, parties, civil society organizations, etc.) push and pull in different directions and in some cases, this leads to a cul-de-sac and in others this leads to new institutional policies – whether we like it or not. I think we have to keep in mind this complex picture to assess what is going on. The process in the last 20 years has been quite different when it comes to institution building across policy fields. I would agree with those political scientist who argue that as a result and reaction to the economic crisis the EU was failing forward in making further inroads in powers in economic governance, particularly in the financial sector whereas the power gained by the Union when it comes to migration has been very little. It is a very patchy picture. Again, this is an unprecedented project so there is no model of supranational cooperation, no mastermind somewhere but the gain of powers particularly in this period that we have come to call of “policrisis” has been one of fundamental increase of the importance of the European integration and as an historian I find it terribly problematic that we discuss this so little. Most people don’t realize how important the European Union has become and also the recent European election or the debate on the composition of the Commission have not seriously discussed what is at stake. Before the European parliament elections, we have witnessed national debates on national issues. This lack of European discussion and the ways of legitimizing policies, which is often problematic because of the strong technocratic element in European policymaking, does not help citizens understand the implications of new policies. This technocratic element has also been reinforced as a result of the crisis. To give a concrete example, the decisions that were taken in reaction to the crisis of 2009 were smaller measures often on the margin of treaties and not based on long public discussions – there was also no time. But also afterwords there was no real discussion in European societies: “Do we really want this? Do we find this appropriate?”. We find ourselves in a situation which is similar at that we faced in the 70s, when the world was also in fundamental change in many ways and when the reaction of the European community was bricolage, make shifts outside of the treaties just to make progress. This is what we have now after the Single European Act and the Lisbon Treaty where the idea was “We’ll fix it one and for all with our wonderful treaty” and things will become clear for everybody. The lesson from those years is that it did not work and the best we can get is these small things here and there. The challenge in this case is that the process is not clear and not transparent and this creates inroads for populist backlash and criticism.
One final question on the new Von Der Leyen Commission…
With every new Commission, there is a reshuffle of power. These are complex processes in which many things need to be considered – portfolios, political parties, the weight of countries, gender, etc. It takes quite some attention to understand what is going on. The new Commission is a good example: due to a diffusion of portfolios, important powers will rest with the Commission president herself; that is a clear strategy. Important issues will go into the hands of politicians of the populist right. We should all pay more attention to such developments. These are not “big bang” changes in European integration but incremental shifts that might lead to problems further down the road.