LONDON: You can, with Colin Powell, gently regret that “some in Europe are quick to find fault with any position the United States might take”. Or, with Benjamin Netanyahu, snake oil pedlar supreme, you can spray our continent in bile. “The fact that today a Europe which 60 years ago refused to lift a finger to save millions of Jews has turned its collective back on the Jewish state is downright shameful,” he told the US Senate the other day. Pause. “Yet my friends, I must admit, I expected no better from them.”
These are dog days for the European project. Take a few current affairs off the Euroshelf. The stench of Le Pen, lingering on: the fault lines in Belgium and Holland and Austria, and beyond: a feeling of beleagurement and fear from Burnley to Brindisi. Why should we need Woody Allen, for heaven’s sake, to inform Hollywood that Cannes isn’t some fount of anti-Semitism?
Nothing about the big picture seems particularly reassuring. Nor, down below, are the smaller things. Can Spain and Britain, best of friends, settle a tiny trauma over Gibraltar? Probably not, on present form. Can the ticking clock of EU enlargement bring a little peace to weary old problems like Cyprus after 30 years? Don’t watch this space either.
Diplomatically and militarily, Europe is still a pygmy. We can’t solve stuff within our own borders. Why on earth should we presume to lecture the rest of the world on conflict resolution? And what, in honesty, do we have to say, as Europeans, to the White House which should engage their attention?
The Chirac lecture on probity in government? The Berlusconi lecture on trans-media ownership? The Schroder lecture on economic dynamism? Even the Blair lecture on incisive leadership?
When there are really big issues, where do we Europeans find ourselves? Out of sorts and the action on national missile defence. George and Vladimir have stitched that up without us. Let the star wars commence and President Putin take the Nato route into our lives. We were wrong about that; quiveringly, hand-wringingly wrong. Why should the Oval Office heed our entirely predictable doubts about Iraq or our remonstrations about the West Bank?
Nevertheless, on the record and off, the White House assessment of Europe’s last 18 months deserves a calm hearing. You can only aspire to teach once you’ve learned something worth imparting. On present performance, in the capitals that matter the lecture theatres are empty.
And now it all gets tougher. I was in Ljubljana the other day, chairing a meeting between Macedonian journalists. Why apologize to your fellow countrymen for speaking the dominant language of the country they all live in and want to see survive, build and eventually join the EU, too?
Yet one not-too-distant day, if all goes well, Macedonia will join Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Albania and the rest inside the EU — some way behind Slovakia, a little behind Romania and Bulgaria. It’s an aspiration, coldly considered, to take the breath away, vaulting ever higher in ambition. Can the union bring a peace and prosperity to the Balkans that the region has never known? Can the lowering of national borders defuse a visceral nationalism?
We haven’t begun to get our heads round enlargement. We haven’t related the enemies within — of hate and prejudice - to the friends knocking on our door. Getting closer to the people, Le Pen? We haven’t raised their eyes or explained what they must do.
It’s a mighty project. And if it bears final fruit, it will be the eleventh and most humane wonder of the world. But meanwhile, the counsel of humility remains. The heart of global leadership doesn’t lie in Europe. We don’t have a third way, but 330 different ways. We have more mountains to climb than we know.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.