Europe: plea for a common foreign policy

Jürgen Habermas* and Jacques Derrida**
Translation by Christian Bouchindhomme (from German) and Douglas (from French)
French original: "Europe : plaidoyer pour une politique extérieure commune"
(Libération/jean-jaures.org, 2003/05/31 - 2003/06/01)

We must not forget two dates: the day newspapers informed their astonished readers of the effort by the Spanish president, unknown to his European Union colleagues, to invite those European heads of state who supported war to demonstrate their loyalty to Bush; but also 15 February, 2003, when in the streets of London, Rome, Madrid, Barcelona, Berlin and Paris, gargantuan demonstrations responded to this maneuver. In retrospect, the simultaneity of these events — the most significant since the end of the Second World War — may well go down in history as the harbingers of a European public forum.

During the heavy months that preceded the war in Iraq, we saw the development of a morally obscene division of labor sufficient to make our blood boil. On one side there was the grand logistical operation of military deployment; on the other, the fevered scrambling of humanitarian organizations, two movements that meshed like clock-work. A witness to this scene was the population — denied the ability to act — which would supply the victims. What brought European citizens to their feet was certainly the power of their emotions. At the same time, the war showed Europeans the long since predicted failure of their common foreign policy. As was the case everywhere else in the world, in Europe the impudence with which it was made to contravene international law fed the debate over the future of international order.

The fault lines are well known yet this controversy nevertheless made them clearer. The antagonism surrounding the role of the superpower, the future of global order and the pertinence of international law and the UN, shed light on latent enmities. The gulf separating the Continental and Anglo-Saxon countries on one hand and “old Europe” and the European Union candidate nations is now a bit deeper. In the UK, the special relationship that binds it to the United States is not at all uncontroversial; yet today as yesterday it remains largely favored by 10 Downing Street. Similarly, central European nations seek entry into the Union, however, they do not wish to see their sovereignty, only just acquired, limited once more. The Iraqi crisis has only been a catalyst. Even during the Brussels Convention, the opposition has become plain to see among those who seek a genuine strengthening of the EU and those who have an understandable interest in freezing the existing mode of intergovernmental administration as it currently exists, or at best in only making cosmetic changes to it. Now the existence of this animosity can no longer be hidden.

The future Constitution will provide us with a European minister of foreign affairs. But what will be the use of this new function so long as governments do not agree on a common policy? A Fischer empowered by this new role would be as impotent as today’s Solana. Ultimately, only those nations in Europe’s “hard core” are inclined to vest certain state powers in the Union. What good will this be if these countries are the only ones able to agree on the meaning of “European interests”? To avoid the disintegration of Europe, these countries must immediately enact the mechanism of “enforced cooperation” established at Nice in order to form not only a common foreign policy but also common security and defense policies in a “multifaceted Europe.” This will create a benchmark which other members (in the Euro zone first of all) will not long be able to ignore. The coming European Constitution cannot and must not allow for separatism. Setting the tone does not mean exclusion. The avant-garde of the “hard-core” must not become a “miniature Europe”; as has often been the case, it must be the driving force. Albeit only because it is in their interests, those states that favor close collaboration will not close their doors to this. And guests will come in these doors with increasing frequency as the “hard core” quickly proves itself able to act in foreign matters, as it shows that, in a complex global society, it is not only divisions that count but also the soft power of negotiating calendars, relations and economic advantages.

In this world, a hardening of relations over an equally stupid and costly choice between war and peace could never be afforded. Europe must add its weight to the scales on the international level and within the United Nations and it must be a counterweight to the hegemonic unilateralism of the United States. At the summits on the global economy and in the institutions of the World Trade Organization, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, Europe must be able to influence the form that will be given to the world’s domestic policies.

It is true that a policy specific to an increasingly integrated configuration of the European Union is at odds with the limited means of Europe’s current administrative orientation. Until now, it has been the functional imperatives necessitated by the creation of a common economic and monetary environment that have acted to promote reforms. Their motivating abilities are spent. A policy capable of assuring a shape for the future, and one that asks members states not only to put competitive obstacles aside but also to agree to a common goal, cannot rely only on the motivations and convictions of the citizens themselves. Majority decisions relating to grand matters of foreign policy can only forego the acceptance of the minority if these countries are in solidarity. This presupposes a feeling of political belonging. In a sense, the populations must bring their national identities “up a notch” to meet the dimensions of Europe. As yet limited to membership in a single nation, civic solidarity is already quite an abstract phenomenon and this does not preclude its being extended to the citizens of other European nations in the future.

This is what gives rise to the question of a “European identity.” Only the awareness of a common political destiny, allied with the convincing prospect of a common future, can dissuade nations or the marginalized groups from seeking to obstruct the majority. In principle, the citizens of one nation must consider those of another European nation as “our own.” But this is an aspiration that gives rise to much skepticism: are there common experiences and traditions that are the basis in every European citizen of an awareness of a political destiny which we have experienced together and which we could fashion in the future? An attractive “vision” of the coming Europe that is capable of spreading will surely not fall from the sky. For the moment, it can only arise from an uneasy, awkward feeling. But it can also arise from the scrum of a situation in which we, the people of Europe, have renewed our bonds to one another. And it must succeed in making itself heard amidst the unbridled cacophony of a public space in which the voices are many. If this question has never been the order of the day before now, it is because we intellectuals have failed in our appointed tasks.

A twisted European identity

To agree on what is not binding is easy. We all dream of a pacific, cooperative Europe that is open to other cultures and dialogue. We hail this Europe that in the second half of the Twentieth Century found exemplary solutions to two problems. Henceforward, Europe is the example of a form of “government beyond the nation-state” which, in the post-national constellation, may gain a following. Similarly, European systems of social welfare have long served as models. Of course, it is defense that now preoccupies national politics. But is unthinkable that a policy that seeks to subdue a capitalism that knows no borders should fall short of the criteria for social justice that these nations established. Why shouldn’t Europe, which has succeeded in resolving such massive problems, also accept this other challenge which is to advance a cosmopolitan order based on international law and to defend this against competing interests?

Doubtless, if we agreed to begin a continent-wide debate we would encounter those who desire a stimulating process to define European identity (Selbstverstandiguugs-prozcss [sic]). This is an audacious hypothesis that two facts nevertheless seem to contradict. Precisely because of their successes in forging identities, won’t Europe’s most important historical acquisitions lose their strength? Moreover, what authority would be able to bind together a region that is like no other characterized by a perennial rivalry among nations that is itself driven by self-awareness?

A war-torn civilization

Christianity and capitalism, the study of nature and technology, Roman law and the Napoleonic Code, city life, democracy and human rights, the secularlization of the state and society, all these acquisitions have spread to other continents and are no longer the preserve of Europe. There is no doubt a sort of Western mindset rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition that retains distinctive traits. But even here this intellectual appearance, noted for its individualism, rationalism and activism is shared with the United States, Canada, Australia. The “West,” as an intellectual configuration, is now greater than Europe.

What’s more, Europe is composed of nation states that ceaselessly define each other in a polemical manner. National conscience, with which language is suffused, literature and national history have long acted as an explosive pile. However, we must add that in reaction to the destructive power of this nationalism, various types of attitudes have also appeared that, in the eyes of non-Europeans, give Europe its latter-day face of incomparable and ample cultural multiplicity. A civilization that, more than any other, has for centuries been torn by conflicts among cities and regions, between secular and ecclesiastical powers, by the competition between faith and knowledge, by the struggles for political domination and antagonism among the classes, can learn only in pain and suffering how it is that differences can be communicative, how oppositions can be institutionalized and how tensions can be stabilized. The recognition of differences — the mutual recognition of the other for his alterity — can also become the mark of a common identity.

The pacification of class struggles by the social state and the self-limitation of the sovereignty of states within the framework of the European Union are only the most recent examples of this. In the final third of the 20th century, on our side of the Iron curtain, Europe experienced what Eric Hobsbawm calls its “golden age.” Since then, certain traits of a common political mentality have become identifiable to the point that non-Europeans recognize in us much more of the European than the German or the French — and this is the case not only in Hong Kong, but also in Tel-Aviv. And its true: in European societies, secularism is more advanced than elsewhere. Here, citizens still view the encroachments of religion into politics with a certain defiance.

Europeans have great confidence in the State’s capacities for organization and regulation but they are rather skeptical of similar capacities in the marketplace. They also have a pronounced sense of the “dialectic of Reason” and do not harbor faultless optimism for technological progress. They declare their preference for the safety that the welfare state guarantees and for regulations that favor labor relations. The threshold of tolerance regarding the use of force against persons is rather lower in Europe than it is elsewhere. Ultimately, if there exists the desire for the establishment of a multilateral and juridically administered international order, this goes hand in hand with the hope for an effective global domestic policy under the aegis of a reformed United Nations.

It is a fact that the circumstances that allowed those privileged Europeans living in the West to develop such a mentality in the shadow of the Cold War have been in decline since 1989. However, 15 February has shown that this mentality has survived the context in which it was born. This also explains why “Old Europe” feels challenged by the merry hegemony enacted by the allied superpower. And why many in Europe, while hailing the fall of Saddam as a liberation, nevertheless condemn a unilateral, mendaciously justified and preventive invasion insofar as it was contrary to international law. It remains to be seen how stable this mentality is and whether its roots will take hold in our historical experiences and traditions.

Today we know that many of the political traditions that command obedience by virtue of their natural character were in fact “invented.” In light of this, a European identity, sprouted under the sunshine of a public forum, will always remain somewhat contrived. Ultimately, only what has been based on the arbitrary is free of artificial ambition. The political-ethical ambition, that is hermeneutically expressed through processes in which the relation one has with himself is collectively made explicit, is not arbitrary. The difference between the heritage that we have assumed and that which we hope to reject demands as much circumspection as the decision on the way in which we interpret this heritage in order to appropriate it. Historical experiences can only hope for a conscious and deliberate acceptance; without such deliberation, it would indeed be impossible for them to attain the power necessary to forge identities. Therefore we conclude by nominating a few “A-list candidates” in light of which the profile of the European mentality produced by the post-war era may appear even clearer.

The historic roots of a political profile

The relationship between church and state developed differently in modern Europe depending on which side of the Pyrenees, or the Alps or the Rhine one found oneself. In each of the several European countries, the indifference of power to any worldview took a different form. Nevertheless, religion takes on an analogous apolitical posture at the heart of civil society everywhere. Even though we regret this social privatization of faith, we must admit that it has desirable consequences for politics. In our region, one would be hard pressed to imagine a president starting his day with a public prayer and justifying highly significant political decisions as part of a divine mission.

The phenomenon that saw the liberation of civil society from various absolutist regimes did not coincide with the establishment and democratic transformation of the modern administrative state everywhere in Europe. Still, among other things, the broad appeal of the ideas that accompanied the French Revolution and that have permeated all of Europe explain why, here, politics have taken on a positive nature in a bipartite form, both as authorities intended to guarantee freedoms and as organizational powers. However, the arrival of capitalism came with a pronounced class struggle.

Today it is this memory that prevents an unprejudiced view of the market. It is possible however that this other evaluation of politics and the market economy is what comforts European’s confidence in the state — a state in which they see a power capable of giving form to a civilizing process and which they also expect will correct the “failings of the market.”

The party system that emerged from the French Revolution has often been copied. But it is only in Europe that it serves to oppose ideologies in a competition that permits the social pathologies resulting from capitalist modernization to be subjected to permanent political review. This is how public sensitivities are chaffed by the paradoxes of progress. In the conflict that opposes conservative, liberal and socialist interpretations, the stakes lie in the balancing of two aspects: do the losses caused by the disintegration of the traditional and protective ways of life outweigh the gains of a chimerical progress? Or on the contrary is it the gains that we can foresee for tomorrow that, by creative destruction, supercede the sufferings that the losers in modernization are suffering?

Having had lasting repercussions, differences of class in Europe appeared to be a destiny that collective action alone could avert. This is why, be it among labor movements or that of Christian socialism, an ethos of struggle for greater “social justice” — an ethos of solidarity seeking equal rights for all — opposed an individualist ethos of meritocratic justice that suffered the most pronounced social inequalities. Modern-day Europe has been molded by the experience of 20th century totalitarianism and by the Shoah — the persecution and destruction of European Jewry in which the Nazi regime also involved the societies of occupied countries. The confrontations with autocracy that arose in the past have made us aware of the moral principles of politics. The fact that in Europe there is a greater sensitivity to the harm done to personal and physical integrity is reflected by the decision of the Council of Europe and the European Union that has made rejecting capital punishment a condition for membership.

All European nations have in the past demonstrated a belligerence that lead them to bloody conflict. From these experiences that stirred minds as much as they did armies, they drew the conclusion that after the Second World War new forms of supranational cooperation were needed. The success of the European Union has comforted Europeans in the belief that there could be no possible domestication of the decision to employ state violence, including on the world stage, other than by the mutual restriction of the space to maneuver that is left to national sovereignties. All of Europe’s greater nations had a moment of imperialism and, more importantly in this context, had to face the loss of its empire. This experience of decline was in most cases part of losing colonial empires. Now this era of domination and colonial history is sufficiently distant for European powers to analyze themselves — which is lucky — from a contemplative distance. From the perspective of the vanquished, they could thus learn to see themselves in the dubious role of vanquishers who are now called on to account for what they have done — namely, the forced modernization of cultures that they severed from their roots. It could well be that this is what has encouraged a particular aversion to eurocentrism among Europeans and given hope to the Kantian belief in a global domestic politics.

Translated from German by Christian Bouchindhomme.

* Jürgen Habermas. Born 1929 in Düsseldorf. His first philosophical works were a critique of Heideggerian theses. He has often participated in political debates, particularly in Germany, regarding national identity. Most recent publications include: l’Espace public (Payot, 2003) and l’Ethique de la discussion et de la question de la vérité (Grasset, 2003).

** Jacques Derrida. Born 1930 in El-Biar (Algeria). A professor of philosophy in at the Ecole normale supérieure, in the 1960s he began to consider the “deconstruction” of literary and philosophical works that he extended to institutions of higher learning. Most recent publications include: Voyous (Galilée, 2003).

[Posted 2003/08/02]

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