THE FUTURE OF EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION - POLITICAL GOALS AND TERRITORIAL DIMENSIONS
The European Forum - Berlin

Berlin (Germany), 24 November 2000



The challenging ideas contained in the topic of this forum, How do we define political finality and territorial boundaries?, are indeed highly thought-provoking. Let me make my position clear from the outset: political finality and the territorial boundaries of the EU, or rather of European association, cannot be defined. I understand European association as a process that does not have and cannot have a final political form or final territorial confines. I am convinced that any attempt to impose some final shape on this process and to limit it territorially would run counter to the very sense and purpose of European association. It is all the more important – and possible – , however, to clearly define the purpose and sense of European association.

The original principle of an associated Europe is to ensure peace and security for everyone on our continent, and to prevent new wars and all the horrors they bring. The nations of Europe, both small and large, can only develop and live in creative coexistence if there is peace. An association of large and small on the principles of equality, free will and democracy, mutual respect and tolerance is the way in which we Europeans can move beyond our tragic history, a history full of mutual destruction, wars, wholesale genocide, ideological and religious fanaticism, as well as racism, Fascist and Bolshevist totalitarianism and exclusivism. The goals of European association, peace and security, are the guarantee for preserving the sovereign life of nations and for their equal status. They are also a guarantee for Europe’s future, and for development and prosperity.

The future of Europe is possible only in a world without war. Europe has been the victim of two world wars. These wars were fomented by national egoisms, especially of the biggest European countries, those that elevated such egoism into a virtue and strength. If we desire peace and security, then we face the imperative task of creating the conditions in which such egoisms can no longer be sustained or manifested in such terrible force as was witnessed in the two world wars and, sadly, in the latest wars in the Balkans. We must create the conditions in which there can be no more war by all against everyone, or in the words of Hobbes, bellum omnium contra omnes, nor any internal European colonialism, which was the vehicle for imposing political interests and ethnic, religious and spiritual beliefs on others. This is the goal of the united Europe we desire and which will be one of the most successful regions of the global market and the world once Eurocentrism has died out.

The task of a united Europe is consequently to ensure fundamentally for all its nations and citizens equality and actual security from the aggression of others. The task is clear, yet it is entirely unclear what path should be taken to complete this task. There is a clear expectation that a united Europe should safeguard the security and inviolability of every European country, and protect their sovereignty. Yet this requires real strength. This very strenght at the same time limits the sovereignty of individual countries. For this reason the essential real strength of a united Europe may be founded only on the sovereignty of European countries, which in terms of guaranteeing vital common peace and security to all is exercised in the United Europe and its institutions. This is possible only as a result of their free decision, in expression of a vital awareness that peace is in the common interest of all, because no country, even though sovereign, can live alone, isolated from the community or even against it. It is for this reason that countries voluntarily agree to a partial limitation of their sovereignty, to a self-limitation with accession and subordination to the real power of the community, which can and must use this power to prevent the arbitrary acts of any individual state and its aggression against others.

To date neither Europe as a whole, nor the EU, have found a solution that might fulfil this goal. There are numerous proposals, from a suprastate to a federation, a community of states or a confederation. Yet all these notions run up against the traditional conceptualisation of the nation state and its sovereignty, and against national egoisms.

In the current debates on the new organisation of the EU, this difficulty is again in evidence. There is a prevalent feeling in favour of effecting institutional changes to gear up the EU for operational effectiveness before its enlargement. Yet here in its very foundations, as I have said, it is not clear what the EU is or what its very nature should be. For this reason it is hard to find solutions for a range of issues which are in fact of vital importance for every community, including the method of decision-making in the community and representation in decision-making bodies, simple and qualified majorities, the number of voting rights, the right of veto and so forth. A community that is not able to resolve the issue of decision-making in a way that satisfies all its members is not viable. This is very clearly demonstrated by the case of the former Yugoslavia.

The possibilities open to the EU, like those open to any community in a similar position, are fairly modest. They involve primarily the quantitative, numerical establishing of the common will and the numerical criteria for representation in decision-making bodies. Yet these criteria are not enough to resolve the issues which I spoke about earlier and which are chiefly concerned with qualities and values. The right to veto or right to outvote are the normal consequences of the use of quantitative criteria, yet they do not automatically lead to general consensus. They are more likely to be sources of special pre-emptive rights and coercion, even triumphalism, and this on the other hand automatically engenders frustration, humiliation and repudiation. Seeking solutions in this context brings us back, irrespective of our true will, to the old, unresolved issues of distribution of influence and power in mutual relations. Through these criteria the biggest gains are made by those who have greater power and who wield it in various ways before any formal voting, which ends up as a rule being a mere formality. In this way the community becomes a space for the mutual testing of the power of the strongest and provides opportunities for exerting pressure or even coercing the smaller members. This runs entirely counter to the fundamental goal of association, which is to prevent conflicts that might threaten peace and security. In such a process this goal cannot be secured, for such a system of decision-making and establishing of the common will carries an inherent, systemic conflict. This task is very difficult, yet it is the key, and it remains far from being resolved.

I believe that certain inescapable points follow from what I have said:

1. The process of European association and the search for ways of decision-making and establishing of the common will, which should render the EU operationally effective, does not involve a technical question. This involves problems which thus far neither the EU nor Europe as a whole have encountered, not even in the context of the OSCE. To date we have always witnessed simply some form of cooperation between two or more countries over common problems or interests. In this situation countries participated only inasmuch as they judged that it served their interests. Each country retained the independence of the measures they adopted and would not agree to any different position. The EU, right up to the most important treaties in Maastricht and Amsterdam and the resolutions from the European summit in Copenhagen, has also based its practices on these principles. And for this reason it is now experiencing a singular shock, which is in turn generating a reconsideration of enlargement as well as Euroscepticism. The EU has admittedly developed a range of institutions and bodies, but these are nevertheless for the most part the means whereby the EU member states exercise individual interests which they judge to be elevated above those of the community. I wish to substantiate this statement by drawing your attention to the right of veto held by every EU member state in the negotiations with candidate countries, a veto which my country of Slovenia has now endured twice, and which is wielded as an instrument of pressure and coercion.

2. There is still no clear picture of what a United Europe should be or what nature it should have so as to ensure peace and security and, through this, a sovereign existence and future for all European nations and states. Yet it is absolutely clear that a United Europe which could ensure for all of its nations peace and security from aggression, is essential and is an undisputed goal. This would be a true qualitative leap into a new reality, to which Europe has not yet found the path. But such a path runs via the development of a common European system of values and common democratic institutions. It is important to understand that the goal of European association is not primarily or merely economic cooperation, and that economic cooperation in the EU has an alternative in world-wide globalisation. Such internal cooperation could even become a kind of shutting out of the world market and internal monopolisation, and this in turn would lead to developmental stagnation of the continent and to new conflicts. And this is not in the interest of European countries, especially not the weaker ones.

3. It is not possible to define the political finality of the substance and form of European association and, consequently, of the EU. By this I wish to say that European association cannot be an action of some kind of political machination. It may only be a process without end, one which has a solidly formulated value system common to all, as well as clear goals which the European nations wish to fulfil in specific times and conditions, and in specific historical circumstances. Association can only be a process where, in line with these historical circumstances our perceptions will change; we will adjust to the common values and rules of life and at the same time we will work to remain loyal to our roots and to our special, national, cultural identity, which is being enhanced by the civilisation and spiritual circle of Europe. And every institutional form of such association, along with the internal mechanisms of decision-making and establishing of the common will, must accommodate this fact. The form must be in the function of substantive goals, and therefore cannot be final.

4. It is not possible to speak of territorial boundaries of European association. If it is to achieve its goals and secure its fundamental purpose, the process of European association must be extended to all of Europe and must incorporate all European nations and states. This will, it is true, require special relations with Russia and with the countries of what is traditionally conceived as the European backyard in the Mediterranean and above all in the Middle East. Yet this merely confirms the position on extending the process of association to all of Europe. For Europe is still divided into several parts, into a stable and secure and an unstable Europe, into a developed and underdeveloped Europe, into a Europe which is integrated into the EU and NATO and a Europe which is only just negotiating over such integration, or which is not even able to negotiate. Expanding these divisions threatens and destroys the security, development and prosperity of Europe as a whole, including its safe, stable, developed and prosperous part. One part of Europe alone cannot be the beneficiary of all these values. This would provoke new conflicts and aggression. All these benefits cannot be halted at some EU border; they may be enjoyed and worked towards only by all of Europe, or else no one will have them. For this reason, extending European association must be understood as a process that has no territorial constraints. Indeed it cannot even be halted at the border with the unstable Balkans, thereby excluding the Balkan nations and states from this process. Of course, those who are entering the process must, prior to their inclusion, fulfil the conditions so that their unresolved internal conflicts, swept under the carpet, could not then detonate and destroy the peace and security of those who for many years have conscientiously and sensitively built and secured it. This is true especially of the countries of South Eastern Europe, in particular those from the former Yugoslavia, for which it would still be hard to say now that they had progressed from a situation of ‘non-war’ to a time of peace, social and economic advancement, or to the rule of law and human rights on a European scale.