We have entered a new era. Of course, it is difficult to predict what the emerging world will look like. But certain trends are undeniable. The kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro and Donald Trump’s desire to appropriate Venezuelan oil resources, as well as the threat to Greenland, are not isolated acts and are already part of a series of actions and declarations that seem to mark a profound and lasting evolution of our world system. We are, without a doubt, entering a new era of imperial conquests and what the economist Arnaud Orain called the “capitalism of finitude”, marked by a growing rivalry between powers for the appropriation of resources (financial, natural, human, etc.). For how long?
What we know from this envisioned world is that peaceful trade and international law are no longer relevant. This new capitalist regime is characterized, instead, by the accumulation of resources and the appropriation of value based on the national interest and the supremacy of the strongest. It sacrifices the political and economic “weak zones”, relegating them to the status of vassals or colonies on the outskirts of the imperial centers. In this new emerging world, the European Union (EU) appears like a lamb among wolves.
The American Umbrella
The United States’ rapprochement with the autocratic powers of Russia and China exposed the deception: “The European king was naked.” And it seems, moreover, immobile or almost so… because, paradoxically, the EU does not possess the malleability that the structure of a long history confers on empires. Although it may have appeared to react to the recent pandemic and financial crises, it did so without altering its fundamental principles, forged during the era of “liberal capitalism”, which we know has legally enshrined a form of public powerlessness.
In short, the EU was gradually built on a “liberal-federalist” logic: a liberal single market, free and undistorted competition, free movement of capital, an independent European Central Bank, free trade agreements, a very small budget and the neglect of industry and sovereignty in the name of the American umbrella. The global change we are witnessing makes this entire liberal-federalist apparatus obsolete.
In this context, the question is simple: will Europe be able to adapt to this new era? The point here is not to save Brussels’ “liberal-federalist” institutions, because this is not one of the adaptation crises that have marked the history of the EU.
The issue is deeper. It is on a continental and civilizational scale, and affects not only the EU, but Europe and European societies as a whole. It calls into question their political freedom, that is, their ability to collectively decide their own destiny and, therefore, their very existence as democracies. On the other hand, autocracies, making use of their public powers, seem capable of organizing their societies and economies for the benefit of their predatory national interests.
Reinforced Protection
The “new federalism” that we defend must, therefore, go beyond the “liberal-federalist” phase to conceive the association of European democracies as a “central bank” of democracy, guaranteeing all European societies the concrete conditions for the exercise of democratic life, both against empires and against the nationalist forces that act as their representatives in the Member States.
To play its role as supreme democratic guarantor, the new “social-federal” logic must establish, as it defended, [o antigo eurodeputado] Altiero Spinelli [1907-1986]a genuine European public authority capable of providing greater protection and sovereignty in support of national democracies (and not preventing them from protecting themselves).
This new social-federalism is still largely to be invented. Not as supranational institutional engineering, but as the response of democratic States to the challenge posed by empires and as the condition for international relations, particularly with the Global South, that transcend the relations of domination inherited from the past.
This new social-federalist spirit must become the lever for the remobilization of European societies, as it is precisely their fragility that allows autocratic regimes, such as Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, to imprison their people in nationalism and drag them into Faustian pacts with empires.
Poor responsiveness
This “new social federalism” must therefore reconnect with the post-war determination when, at the Hague Congress [em 1948]a broad spectrum of political, trade union, business and civic movements participated in revitalizing the idea of European federalism. Everything indicates that the people of Europe can only count on themselves, as their political, economic and other leaders have demonstrated their limited capacity to respond since Trump’s arrival.
The recent call by historical associations of the European federalist movement for the creation of parliamentary bodies, bringing together national and European representatives to analyze and implement the transformations necessary for this turning point in Europe, could constitute a first step. These bodies must be created without delay, as the situation is urgent in the face of empires. However, to achieve an objective as utopian as the great post-war federalist congresses, it is necessary to build a new transnational social alliance, which starts from this common interest in the survival of our democracies and, thus, unites all the forces favorable to such a project, forces that are currently fragmented both at the European level and in different national contexts. Only a project like this, and its Preparation around a new Hague Congress, inspired by the one that triggered the first wave of European unification in 1948, could guide and inspire the countless mobilizations necessary to finally build a party of Europe.
Signatories: Etienne Balibar, philosopher; Justene hicroix, politics; Dominique Méda, sociologist; Thomas piketty, economist; Kathharina Pistor, jurist; Guilillame sarite, political scientist; Antoine vauchez, politics; Jonathan White, sociologist.
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