The good secular rationalists who founded the European project after the horrors of the Second World War believed that political stability could be restored by meeting the material needs of the citizenry. After all, it was the ravages of the Great Depression that transformed the Nazis from a fringe party in 1928 to dominance of the Reichstag in 1932. The post-war social welfare state could eliminate hunger and joblessness while skilled functionaries would ensure growing prosperity. The record of European integration correlated nicely with several decades that saw sustained increases in health and wealth for European citizens. By the end of the 20th century, community leaders had reason to believe they had perfected enlightened governance while rivalling the US in overall prosperity and industrial prowess. Commentators such as Jeremy Rifkin and Mark Leonard argued that the EU with its superior model of social democracy was destined to lead the world during the coming century.
Events have not been kind to the European Union in the quarter century since. America has bounded ahead of a stagnating Europe, China has seized massive market share in industries once led by EU firms, and a belligerent Russia no longer powers European industry with cheap fossil fuels. Were the EU’s problems merely a matter of economic management, reform programs such as that proposed by Mario Draghi could restore the fortunes of the bloc. Unfortunately for the European project, a deeper problem is reflected in a governing malaise that has seen voters flee from the reliable centre to the radical extremes. The standard European tools of subsidy and regulation are not sufficient to assuage the needs of a restive populace, because their hopes for the future often derive from non-material sources. It is an elite vanity that only the highly educated and well-heeled can pursue post-material objectives, such as the spiritual satisfactions of environmental protest or veganism. Yet less educated and less moneyed non-elites seek non-material goods as well, such as durable family ties or a strong national affinity. If their leaders do not promote them, they will seek others who will. Government freebies are no substitute for the non-material values that grant citizens a distinctive identity and a strong communal claim on the future.
Call it the “Molenbeek Fallacy.” Consider a group of young men several years ago in that Brussels suburb. They enjoyed subsidized housing, free health care, free education, all of the luscious benefits of the finest social welfare states created by mankind. They lived lives in a wealthy European capital their cousins back in North Africa could only dream of. In the eyes of the rational materialists who run the European project, the needs of these men had been met, and they would therefore become happy and productive European citizens. And yet these same young men executed the Charlie Hebdo and Bataclan massacres. The European project offered them material riches but no meaning, leaving a void filled by the ministrations of radical jihadis. Belgium, a state that commands loyalty only during the World Cup, is incapable of countering sectarian extremism with an inclusive affinity for a national community.
An extreme example to be sure, but in a (so far) less violent way do the disaffected voters of prosperous European states demand their governments offer more than handouts. A durable national polity must provide its people a sense that their citizenship confers membership in a community worth defending. Many centrist parties have gradually abandoned this obligation in deference to a generic European identity, which remains a hard sell to those not actually on the EU payroll. This offers parties not beholden to Brussels a clear political opportunity. Marine Le Pen has deftly lifted Gaullist patriotism from a president who prefers hectoring his people to leading them. Viktor Orbán offers his supporters a defence of the Hungarian nation from the bossy cosmopolitans in Brussels. Germany’s AfD gains traction with voters by assuring them that it’s okay to be proud of their country, a claim regarded by many of their opponents as fascist-adjacent. Not surprisingly, AfD supporters show the greatest willingness to defend their country. Greens show the least, which likely limits their appeal to Germans seeking a positive affirmation of their citizenship. That the comfortable elites in many Western capitals are the most dismissive of national pride fuels the sense of betrayal by their less exalted countrymen, who then vote for parties most likely to knock their betters off their political perches.
In a very basic sense, the demotion of a sense of national community within the EU has been politically counterproductive. The nation state still resides at the most effective intersection of administrative capacity and community loyalty. A positive sense of national community enables higher levels of social trust and creates affinities that can overcome the brutal zero-sum battles that haunt dysfunctional polities. Governments that actually get things done depend on strong national identities that can sustain sacrifices and trade-offs for the sake of the collective good. Despite the millions of euros thrown at the problem, the EU has thus far been unable to replace national loyalties with a pan-European level of social trust that blesses well-governed states like Finland or Denmark. And so do many EU laws appear as diktats from on high rather than organic responses to the needs of European citizens.
The EU is paying a price for its decades-long effort to displace national allegiances with a pan-European citizenship. A flag, anthem and handsome emblem on a passport cannot substitute for the ethnic, linguistic and cultural bonds that unite a national community. European governments still function within their national cultures, which are the primary means of societal reproduction, and can evoke an organic loyalty based on shared language and heritage. To recognize this is not to embrace retrograde Blood and Soil nationalism, but only the simple fact that people tend to trust those with whom they share a common language and tradition. Disputing this with a contrived pan-European identity risks the same fate that befell the old Austro-Hungarian empire, which only sharpened national divisions with greater demands for allegiance to the Imperium.
A European Commission president somewhat more humble than the incumbent would embrace radical subsidiarity and devolve more powers to member states where it might be more effectively employed instead of amassing more powers in Brussels. To her apparent regret, Queen Ursula does not rule a nation, but only an administrative apparat perched like an expensive silk hat atop member states. It may provide lucrative agricultural and development aid, but it will never command the instinctive allegiance of its people. No one cheers for Europe at the World Cup.
What will the EU do when cars become commodities?