Filenews 6 October 2022
By Andreas Kluth
Europeans are used to the kind of "baroque-style" summits like the one that will take place this week in Prague, inside the castle grounds from where the Thirty Years' War began.
Forty-four national leaders - including among them friends, enemies and traditional opponents - will make their appearance at the inaugural meeting of the so-called European Political Community.
What exactly this institution will develop into remains to be seen. The idea, however, is to remind most Europeans (Russia and Belarus have not been invited) that they share something higher and deeper than a common geographical position - that is, common ideals and common destiny.
At least that is the vision in any case. It was suggested, as is the case with all grandiose inspirations, by Emmanuel Macron, president of France. The latter came to it with the conviction that all other European structures are too 'flawed' to help a continent torn apart by war, border disputes and various crises in the fields of energy, migration and the economy.
Malfunction
In this assessment, Macron is right. The mere drawing up of a list of all the other European agencies creates vertigo. It starts from clubs such as the Council of Europe (nothing to do with the European Council of leaders of EU member states) and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe - OSCE (which even includes non-European countries and Russia, the continent's largest warmongering player).
At the top of it all, there is the European Union. Destined to be the largest peaceful project in history, it is theoretically supposed to gradually integrate its member states - currently 27 - into something like the United States of Europe.
You don't need Macron to realise that none of these clusters are flexible or strong enough to solve Europe's biggest problems. The EU, for example, is so complex institutionally that it's hard to count how many presidents it has (probably around 10). In policy areas such as trade it may be a superpower, but in most others - mainly in defence - it is a dwarf.
Its design flaws are infinite. The EU cannot expel members who strategically deviate from its principles (hello Hungary!), while it is cumbersome when a country wants to leave voluntarily (goodbye, British!). On many important issues, each divergent member can veto all decisions. In other areas, the EU treaties are rather ambiguous - they contain, for example, a mutual defence assistance clause on which no one really relies, which is why all but six EU states are also members of NATO.
Non-EU people
Another disadvantage of the EU is that it does not include many European countries. Turkey officially became a candidate for accession to the bloc in 1999. He has lost all hope of joining for a long time and may never stop making a fuss about the issue. Several Balkan countries fear that they are destined for the same pattern. What is worse, from their point of view, is that Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia - which the EU wishes to support in the face of threats from Russia - may overtake the Balkans in line.
Macron obviously hopes that the European Political Community will one day do better. Starting as a "soft law" institution, it could mature into a club that members can enter, but also leave, but not hinder its operation or undermine it. It could also offer a continental scene for Britons, Turks, Swiss, Albanians, Georgians and all those who cannot or will not join the EU. It has already been decided that the next Meeting of the Community will be held in Moldova.
As good as Macron's intentions may be, of course, Europe will not cease to be Europe just because it has yet another institution. A country represented in Prague, Ukraine, is fighting for its very existence against a European invader. Two others, Armenia and Azerbaijan, were at war with each other only last month. Another two, Turkey and Greece, could find themselves in the same situation at any time, with a third, Cyprus, probably wedged between them. North Macedonians, Albanians, Bosniacs and other Balkans suspect that the European Political Community is just Macron's comforting prize, because no one intends to let them enter the EU. Guests from Serbia, after all, deny that guests from Kosovo truly represent a country.
Optics
Well, yes, it would be easy to make fun of this continental symposium, Macron's megalomania to constantly propose new monsters of bureaucracy and the Europeans who are as divided as they have always been. Too easy, in fact.
A more open and optimistic perspective, however, is that Macron and other European leaders are refusing — even at a time when a European, Russia's President Vladimir Putin, is threatening others with nuclear war — to end their dream of continental peace, security and harmony.
This week's session will not be a new Westphalia Peace or a new Vienna Congress. It will not solve the problems of the continent, it will not unite the enemies, nor will it pacify the warmongers. However, it deserves attention and support.
In times like ours, gathering and talking peacefully is much better than not talking at all.
Source: BloombergOpinion
