WUNRN
The Future of
Europe
CONSIDER FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS,
ECONOMICS, EMPOWERMENT, EQUALITY
"The
voices of the most vulnerable groups such as the Roma, migrants, the disabled,
women, unemployed, youth and the ageing population should be clearly heard,
amplified and finally understood."
WUNRN Note: Women are not to be
labled so often as "vulnerable," but should be validated as strong
forces for Europe past, present, future.
Choosing a
new path for development based upon self-reflection only happens rarely in
history. This would be impossible without a fundamental shift in the
self-perception of the vast majority of Europeans, including the political and
business elite, national political classes, intellectuals and academics,
churches and religious communities.
During the
past year, when the multiple and increasingly political crises of the EU
reached a peak, Euro-enthusiastic pundits started to tell us that Europe is in
bad shape. After a long period of sleep, the social sciences and critical
thinking woke up and raised the alarm about the future of Europe for good
reasons, but maybe at the very last minute.
During the
last year much has been said about the causal nature of the complex, puzzling
and rapidly changing European landscape. Alternatives to the present
misfunction were mostly confined to short term policies. Larger, more complex
visions, and longer term solutions, are rare and have not reached a critical
mass of the concerned public or the media. Why did the alarm come so late, and
why are the suggested alternative therapies so vague and unconvincing?
It is
surprising that so many of us are surprised about the increasingly political
nature of the present turmoil, whose roots are clearly identifiable in the
still profoundly misunderstood velvet revolutions of 1989. Although
fifteen years after Big Bang Enlargement was quite enough time to draw
conclusions from a series of warning signs, e.g., accumulating tensions and
deepening conflicts on economic, social, political and cultural levels -
neither the political nor the economic elite, nor the decisionmakers and
bureaucratic apparatus of EU institutions were able to rise to the task.
The European
project has been appealing in general for almost everyone, but nobody seems to
sign up for ownership. Everyone wanted a stake but nobody felt responsible for
the whole. This has inexorably led to a lack of genuine leadership. The
rhetorics of a new Eurospeke just about managed to conceal the partial
interests of different stakeholders – from national politics via multinational
companies and economic institutions to an unelected and, therefore,
unaccountable supranational bureaucracy. But that was it.
From the
early ’90-s it was clear that eastern enlargement was unavoidable, and that
consequently integration would continue under completely different conditions,
but with methods and practices that have not changed in any significant way.
Conferences and think tank deliberations about 'Europe at the Crossroads’ did
not bear fruit: there was no common consensus about the European public good
and consequently no written or unwritten European social contract for the
post-enlargement period. Given the lack of guiding and binding principles,
stakeholders of the integration process remained interested exclusively in
their own stake: everyone wanted to have and keep their slice of the shrinking
cake of a more than modest EU budget. Under the attractive rhetoric of the
European social model and social dialogue, redistribution was determined by the
political power and economic influence of formally equal memberstates. European
integation remained caught in the iron cage of the nation state, guarded by the
apparently omnipotent agents of neoliberal praxis.
No new
players were allowed into the game. 'European civil society’, instead of
becoming the agent of diverse values and interests, actively shaping the
integration and enlargement process, became an ideological culprit and the
substitute for a real Europe-wide social dialogue. Instead of empowering new
players to open up perspectives for the endangered integration process, old
players did everything to make them ineffective. With the marginalization of
regions and the coopting and ideologisation of a European civil society 'from
above’, two important potentially catalytic actors were excluded from the
game. Not (yet?) being able to fully empower themselves, they remain part of
the discourse on Europe without much chance of fundamentally shaping decision
making. They remain sources of hope and frustration
German
Europe vs. New Citizenship
Ulrich
Beck in his recent book paints a
frightening picture of 'German Europe’ based on German
euro-nationalism and a new German hysteria called stability guaranteed by
austerity policy. Beck promotes
a bottom-up Europe: a 'Europe of citizens’. He is right in general terms
that Europe could be reinvigorated if ordinary Europeans acted on their own
behalf. The question is how do we get there? The everyday European citizens of
the various different regions of North and South, East and West are either
ignorant about each other or if they are not, they feel mostly alien,
envious, frustrated and threatened by those 'others’.
In more
fortunate cases citizens from peripheries are eager to find jobs as gastarbeiter in core
countries and if they succeed, they adjust as much as possible to staying
there. Interested primarily in survival, they are far from becoming engaged in
rebuilding Europe from the bottom-up.
And they are
the luckier groups among the losers in a fake social integration. The others,
the unemployed millions or those who live in permanent existential fear,
outrage and anxiety, are not going to attend seminars and workshops about
creating the new European citizen - they are, rather, the anti-citizens of
Europe.
The
ideological foundation of a German Europe is that of the modern European
nation-state and its international framework, the Westphalian
system. This system contains all of the inherent contradictions and
tensions which remain subtle and manageable during relatively stable periods,
but become a primary source of nationalist fervour, populist and extremist
movements, scapegoating and mutual exclusion in times of severe and prolonged
crises.
Our
time is such a turbulent period and the EU, whose original function was to
offer a new model to replace the chaos of the Westphalian system, is itself in
chaos. Instead of offering common solutions and joint multilateral efforts to
mitigate severe financial, economic and social pain, its strongest
memberstates have reintroduced bilateral negotiations and agreements with third
partners in order to secure their national energy supply, meanwhile criticizing
smaller memberstates if they try to follow their example.
Instead of
burdensharing, the EU under German leadership introduced methods of punishment
under the auspices of 'austerity measures’. So we should not really be amazed
about the escalation of scapegoating, mutual accusations, exclusion and
national introversion.
The entire
construction and mission of the EU envisioned and targeted the creation of a
new sort of democratic polity, a set of transnational institutions, regulations
and citizens’ rights, in order to mitigate, manage and finally articulate these
traditional social-cultural and political tensions within its expanding
boundaries. What might be surprising, and what has been revealed in these past
few years of the crisis is how weak and socially empty and insensitive these
institutions and regulations are, and how little de facto solidarity remains among European
citizens belonging to economically and culturally different regions in times of
real hardship and severe existential troubles.
Europe
Needs a New Debate
The
development of the new monster, German Europe, is a natural offspring of the
preconditions provided by the 'nation state-freemarket’ paradigm. And it is a
direct consequence of the failure of the European project. European integration
was envisioned and expected to achieve exactly the opposite.
Up until the
explosion of the more political than economic European crisis, it was the
bubble around the heads of many Eurocrats, pundits and political experts. The
bursting of the bubble has revealed sharp antagonisms, strong emotions and a
deepening cleavage between the European South and the North. The emperor is
naked: Europe under German diktat
is not the EU of citizens. There is no unity in this outburst of diversity.
The story is
not only about a few countries of the 'lazy and corrupt’ South. Political
sentiments in the eastern periphery are less directly anti-German. Anti-German
and anti-Merkel protests and sentiments are a permanent feature in Portugal,
Spain, Italy Greece and lately in Cyprus. Strong – sometimes even violent –
protests against superimposed austerity measures and interference in democratic
decisionmaking in Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary are more inclined to target the
EU in general. One million people marched in the streets of Budapest in
January 2012, chanting: 'we won’t be an EU colony!’ But since Germany
dictates EU economic policy, this difference between the South and the East is
marginal.
The
southern and eastern periphery of the EU is set against its northern and
western core. This schism might escalate into the protracted and sharp conflict
that Mary Kaldor calls a ’new war’.
In the absence of viable alternatives, this structured peripherialization might
become (and partly became) the hotbed of resurfacing nationalisms, racism and
all kinds of possible social, political and cultural exclusions.
But the real
picture is even more profound: existential fear about the future, lack of trust
in politics and governance, scapegoating and xenophobia haunt the entire
continent. The ground is shaking under the feet of the 'stable middle classes’.
They see Old Europe’s population ageing and shrinking, while immigrants pour
into European megacities and regional small towns. The world of relative
certainties is replaced by a new world of growing uncertainties. Europe is
changing size, colour and scope. Strong and dynamic opposing tendencies are
blurring black and white pictures. An island of stability, peace and tolerance
is giving way to unpredictability, perplexity and permanent change. What Steve
Austen calls the 'staccato society’.
It is true
that in times of growing existential fear and uncertainty, fundamentalist
ideologies and practices have a greater chance of attracting people even in old
or ’consolidated’ democracies. It is also true that European citizenship,
supported by crossborder solidarity, is not the immediate priority this season.
From many angles the downward spiral looks unstoppable. Citizenship and
solidarity make sense only when citizens feel a natural belonging to their
respective communities. For the time being, there is nothing natural about a
post-and transnational European demos. To give this aspiration a real chance, a
lot needs to be done.
A grand
debate should be launched about the Future of Europe – a debate which was
dismissed after 1989/91. An open, bottom-up dialogue might not result
immediately in solidarity among Europeans. But it might help to reveal
opportunities as well as constraints. This, however, should start immediately –
in fact, it has already begun in smaller and bigger circles throughout the
continent. We need to find out how to connect these local debates and turn them
into a grand debate on the future of Europe.
With a long
delay, 'Europe’ has to start to learn about herself. This learning process
might be neverending, but it might be fruitful. The speed of bubble bursting
can be accelerated: civil fora, universities, parliaments, online and offline
magazines, regional TV stations, European movements and political parties with
crossborder aspirations, social networks, trade unions, etc., should be interconnected
by it. This new debate will be effective only if it is able to break out from
the small niches of social and political fragments – so it needs creativity,
courage and openness. But it also needs a warning alarm.
Towards
a New European Social Contract
The debate
I’m suggesting should be fundamentally different from the debate during the
constitutional convention. The voices of the most vulnerable groups such
as the Roma, migrants, the disabled, women, unemployed, youth and the ageing
population should be clearly heard, amplified and finally understood.
Future
European citizenship, as well as transnational democracy, has to be based on
inclusion and provide perspectives to the hopeless, marginalized, criminalized
and ignored strata of citizens. Their existential demands and interests should
be the main impulse for a new debate. The stronger and better-organized players
and stakeholders, such as governments, business, trade unions, chambers, etc.,
should carefully listen to the voices of the excluded.
This might
not be possible without severe disagreement, conflict and controversy. But a
new European Social Contract cannot be imagined today based upon harmonious
agreements, mutually shared world views and the expectations of 500 million
citizens and their representatives. Only a combined bottom-up and top-down
approach might help to provide the proper conditions for such a widescale
debate which would pave the way to the re-formulation of the European public
good. This could be the common denominator upon which a transnational social
contract might be based.
There exists
only a narrow margin of opportunity to reach this goal. Choosing a new path for
development based upon self-reflection only happens rarely in history. This
would not be possible without a fundamental shift in the self-perception of the
vast majority of Europeans, including the political and business elite,
national political classes and middle classes, intellectuals and academics,
churches and religious communities. Today they are more than a little entrapped
by the Euro-centric world view of European universalism. The bubbles of the
White Christian Club, determined by the well nurtured and stubborn self-image
of the greatness of former colonial powers and empires, are still haunting internal
discourses and decision-making.
For the
world empires of the 19th and 20th centuries, it is seemingly difficult to
absorb the fact that their Europe (our Europe) will never be the same as it
used to be. Neither will its integration processes be so well protected as they
were by outsider global policemen, during the Cold War.
'Europe’ has
a fundamentally different meaning, message and potential today which needs to
be digested and further articulated by itself. If it really wants to turn its
mission into a positive and inclusive social project of open-ended regional
integration, it has to say farewell to its old image, way of thinking, speaking
and acting.
The New
Europe will be – as it partly is already – a cultural, religious and ethnic mix
and one should understand this as a strength rather than a weakness. It
will include a critical mass of Muslims and citizens of other religions and
non-European cultural habits. Millions will continue to migrate and try to
settle from Asia, Africa and even Latin-America. This might be seen as a threat
of reverse colonization but also a potential for the renewal of an ageing and
not yet too diverse European society.
European
citizenship and citizenry, therefore, cannot be pre-defined upon the basis of
national belonging. There has to be a new direct legal base for European
citizenship – which would dramatically change the internal social landscape and
open completely new perspectives for minorities like the Roma. European
democracy – once invented and constructed – needs to be founded upon new,
cosmopolitan principles of citizenship.
This is not
to suggest ignoring or dissolving nation(member)states. It suggests finding new
legal, institutional and socially hybrid versions and mixtures of direct and
representative, formal-procedural and substantive versions of democracy. The
inclusive forms of democratic procedures and decisionmaking need to be invented
on the transnational, European level. This would turn Europe into a
different kind of political power.
The
process of reconsidering and reinventing democracy in an age of uncertainties
will not be smooth. But when else can it be done? The alternative is a
protracted (and in unforseen moments accelerated) decay and disintegration of
existing institutions which will conclude in the self-destruction of the
achievements of European construction – an unstoppable negative spiral,
according to Mary Kaldor.
All of the
bubbles waiting to burst were once close to reality or, as many believed, were
reality. Those times are gone and will never return. The bubbles of
imagined realities have to burst sooner or later. The longer we carry them
around our heads the more bitter and painful it will be to face real realities.
It is better for them to burst now. That might open the way towards a new
European citizenship based upon a new social contract. And hopefully to a new
postnational way of re-imagining and reinvigorating democracy.
______________________________________________________________
----- Original Message -----
From: WUNRN
ListServe
To: WUNRN ListServe
Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2013 5:48 PM
Subject: Europe - Crisis & Austerity Measures Disastrous for
Women
WUNRN
European Women's Lobby - EWL
IMPACT OF THE CRISIS ON GENDER
EQUALITY NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSES SAYS WOMEN'S RIGHTS & GENDER EQUALITY
COMMITTEE TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
[
“Women are facing a silent
pernicious crisis which worsens and weakens their condition. Before the crisis
there were already more women affected than men by unemployment, precarious
work, part-time, low wages and slow careers. Today, as a result of austerity
policies, they suffer a double punishment. This is an issue at the heart of
political equality and employment. I say stop to the decline of women in
society”, said Elisabeth
Morin-Chartier, EPP MEPs and rapporteur of the resolution, based on the report
she initiated in December 2012, available here.
The consequences of austerity
measures in Europe are disastrous for women’s rights: they undermine women’s
rights, perpetuate existing gender inequalities and create new ones, and hamper
the prospects of sustainable and equal economic progress in
Austerity measures also lead to a
care crisis, since the cutbacks in public care and health services lead to the
transfer of the responsibility of care from society to households, i.e. mostly
women, and a return to traditional gender roles. In 2010, 28.3% of inactive and
part-time working women in the EU were not able to work full time due to care
responsibilities, up from 27.9% in 2009.
Moreover, those measures have a
broader impact on non-economic factors: reduction of funding for women’s
organisations and gender equality institutions have direct consequences by
undermining women’s voices in the public sphere, and the decrease of vital
services such as shelters for women victims of male violence.
Long-term measures are needed to tackle the negative
impact of the crisis and invest in a sustainable future for women and for
Europe
In the non-legislative
resolution, MEPs call on the European Commission to stop budget cuts in the
public sector, in social security benefits and social welfare, education and
childcare services. They also call for greater female entrepreneurship by
facilitating women’s access to microcredit and improving a public transport
policy to facilitate mobility.
They also stress the structural
factors which show that female poverty is not new nor only due to the current
financial and economic crisis: the pay gap between men and women, gender
stereotypes and the lack of proactive measures to ensure work-life balance are
some of the long-standing reasons which are accentuated in the context of the
crisis.
This “double punishment” is also
highlighted in the EWL publication “The price of austerity – the impact of women’s rights
and gender equality in Europe”, which maps the impact of
austerity measures on women in the EU, based on the input of the EWL members
and other sources. Recommendations are addressed to the European Commission, EU
member states and women’s organisations.