The "Europe" Idea

In some important respects, Conquest argues, the "Europe" Idea - in the sense of a political and economic union of the countries of the European continent - originated in the United States. Following the defeat of Germany in World War II and the collapse of most European civic and political structures, it was felt by many in the US that such a union would be easier to handle than a lot of little countries. Here, right at the outset, the US policy makers turned a willfully blind eye to the failed examples of Soviet and Yugoslav multinational federalism. This blindness extended far into the future for, as Conquest goes on to show in a more contemporary context:

...we may also note that we hear no similar insistence on the unification of the North American members of NATO, two countries far closer in tradition and language than those of "Europe"; nor is the Americo a currency to be found in Ottawa. Or again, we find the notion, held by some in Washington, that Germany should be backed because it is, or could be, the "biggest" of "united" Europe - it might just as easily (if we must think in these categories) project itself through such a Europe.

In fact, the author notes, the European Union is to an important degree "a forced creation" - forced both by the vicissitudes of Europe's own history and by the demands of a United States that has insisted on federal principle and praxis, to become an entity that is essentially redundant in the modern world, "a bloc hindering the development of world free trade, being from the global point of view a large-scale special interest (or set of special interests). And it has proved inadequate to finding a joint foreign policy with the rest of the democratic world, or even as yet within its own councils."

The central argument of the essay is, in the first place, that the European tradition, to the extent that one exists, is not confined to the "Little Europe" of the map - the "ill-defined peninsula of Eurasis", running from the Atlantic islands to the Urals. It extends far beyond those geographical limits to its "transoceanic transplants" - the Europe that is to be found in North and South America, in Australia, in Africa, and beyond. A definition of "Europe" that fails to take account of this fact is an empty and meaningless one. The second vital point is that "Europe, or European thought, has generated a wide variety of political notions; and that the linguistic, legal and administrative traditions of the countries of that part of Europe usually considered representative of its civilization are notably dissimilar."

The concept of "Europe" is usually viewed as the elaboration of a political, or politico-economic entity. Yet, Conquest asserts, it is really something different - it is an Idea, in the truly ideological sense of the word. It is an Idea related in nature and not dissimilar to the Ideas of Communism, or Nazism, or any of the other ideologies that haunted and plagued the twentieth century. In the present situation, when the old ideologies have failed, and no new ones appear to have emerged - though in the period since the book was written Europe now faces the new threat of Islamism - "Europe" "seems to emerge, in many minds, as a sort of substitute."

Conquest examines the modalities within which the Idea of Europe is set to function: he notes that "to be put into effect an Idea requires an abnormal proliferation of bureaucracy. Thought the bureaucratic trend can subsist without a sustaining Idea, it does so with weaker morale and greater vulnerability. The previous excesses of Western bureaucracy were morally justified in terms of the humanistic benefit of nationalization and etatization to the population. This is now largely abandoned; so the bureaucratic trend was left mentally unprotected. On this view, the Europe Idea played an important psychological role."

The Federationist characteristics that are an essential feature of the Europe Idea stem from two basic arguments: 1) an argument in terms of sentiment, of a supposed European feeling - "we are all Europeans now"; and 2) a "hard-headed" argument couched in terms of practical necessity: "this is the future", "this is the face of the world of tomorrow", and so on. To those who doubt the notion of a European allegiance, the author goes on to show, the proponents of Federationism advance the appeal to conscience in the aftermath of the disasters of World War II. Conquest notes that this appeal is not without its Honorable aspects. Yet what it fails to take into account, "what it missed and misses, above all, is how the feel of citizenship arises - that it cannot simply be elicited by appeals or compulsions on behalf of a supranational entity." By way of demonstration, Conquest points to all the many examples of multinational federal arrangements that have failed: the USSR, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia are the most obvious ones, but he is also able to list the United Arab Republic, the Federation of the West Indies, and Malaysia. And he adds three more: the union of Sweden and Norway early in the 20th century, that of Austria and Hungary, and the two separate attempts to form a Central American Union.

The focus of the essay then shifts to the ideologists themselves, those who see themselves empowered or charged with the duty of inculcating the masses with the Idea. These ideologists are, of course, members of the political and financial establishment who have been imbued with the Europe Idea, figures such as, in Britain, Michael Heseltine and Kenneth Clarke, who had been "over there" in the United States and thought what a fine thing it would be to have something similar "over here" in Europe. The concept of political unity is presented by such ideologues as an end in itself - when the matter of economic advantage is discussed, it turns out that there isn't much of that, and that this is the price that must be paid in order prevent Franco-German wars. "As Kingsley Amis once put it, the argument often amounts to saying, 'Britain will suffer economically, but at least it will lose its independence' (or vice versa)."

A further argument that is advanced by the ideologists of federalism is the presence of a European culture - somehow, it is argued, this culture, with its "aesthetic" broadening of our feeling about the human individual, can influence the civic and social life of countries. Yet, as Conquest points out:

... just as Eastern thought did not translate itself into political liberty, so the rich compost of European thought only exceptionally nourished the civic or consensual order. In fact, some of the products of the European liberation of thought were dead ends, with "dead" the operative word: too many of the humanist minds of the Continent, from Andre Chenier to Osip Mandelshtam, were victims of these fatal aberrations. At any rate, European culture cannot be enlisted on the side of the European denationalized corporate state.

The British journalist Alan Watkins once noted at a conference in Germany that "the more convinced supporters of the EEC among us - Mr David Marquand, Mr Peter Jenkins, Mr David Watt, the late John Mackintosh - could hardly order a glass of wine in German," unlike Richard Crossman, who opposed the EEC. Similarly Edward Heath's vile French in favor of the EEC ("Wee,wee,noo som tooss Yuropayong") had earlier been in marked contrast to Enoch Powell's polished French, Italian and German criticisms of it in Paris, Rome and Bonn.

Above all, the essay argues, the "Europe" Idea is divisive of the West. It is also profoundly anti-American. Conquest quotes Horst Teltschik, the former chief foreign policy adviser to Chancellor Helmut Koch, as making no bones about the matter, and saying:

It is a good thing for every superpower to have a rival of equal strength, keeping the scales in balance. The history of the last few decades shows that there are many on this planet who favour having a counter-weight to the USA or an alternative. As a European, I say that a Europe in the process of integration should take on that role.

It needs hardly to be pointed out that the "alternative" that was once the Soviet Union is now promoted by figures like Teltschik in the form of "Europe".

And, Conquest reminds us: "Wilhelm II in his day also advocated a 'United States of Europe' against America."

For as long as the concept of Europe does not include and embrace the "Europes Overseas", it will fail to unite, and will divide the true Europe. "Federal Europe cuts across the deeper unity, and does not promote its realization."

In the chapter that follows, and which I hope to discuss next, Conquest considers the possibility of "a more fruitful unity", one that goes beyond the obsolete and premature European Idea - "obsolete in the sense that physical propinquity, the cartological tidiness, on which the whole idea so largely rests is no longer as real as it might have been in the days of Sully... premature in the sense that the political cultures involved are not yet similar, or assimilable, enough for what is intended, while there are other more closely related cultures whose connection should take precedence."

In particular, Conquest considers the role and position of Britain in such a future unity.