The process of European political integration is moving at speed,
cheered on by the United States. Europe, the argument goes, has been
the place where the wars start, wars into which America is ultimately
dragged, and European political union will put an end to such
conflicts. And as far as U.S. foreign policy is concerned, things
will be a good deal easier once there is a common European foreign
and security policy, providing, as it were, the State Department with
a single number to call in Europe.
Those assumptions need to be questioned. The single currency, due to
commence next year, is a leap in the dark. Never has a group of
sovereign nations attempted such a pooling before. Never have
democracies been willing to invest so much power over the lives of
their citizens in a body--in this case the European Central
Bank--which is not democratically accountable. The tussle is on
between the German bankers, who want to ensure that the currency will
hold its value as reliably as their beloved Mark has done, and the
rest, who fear for the impact of such austerity on their rates of
unemployment.
We do not yet know whether the euro will be soft and inflationary, or
hard and recessionary. In either event, chaos and recrimination in
Europe are not in the U.S. interest. As I shall argue in this essay,
those who believe that political union is the key to avoiding
conflict have got it wrong. Rather, future danger lies precisely in
forcing nation-states into an artificial political union that will
transfer policy-making from the individual states, which are
democratic, to the European Union, which in itself is not. The
traditional danger in Europe has come from extremist nationalism.
Political union seems likely to rekindle it, as national interests
are ignored by policymakers who are both remote and irremovable.
