American Maggie

To a lot of Brits, the UK isn’t part of Europe. When they say “Europe” they mean those countries cut off from England by the Channel, with great vacation spots and better food. Europe is the place Brits colonize with Irish pubs, dabble in foreign languages, and occasionally take an interest in the art. Sounds familiar? In some ways, Brits are Europe’s “ugly Americans”.

So with the EU Presidency up for grabs, it’s no surprise that Tony Blair is paraded around as the British George W., but with better elocution. He’s the one who took Britain to Iraq, kept the UK out of the Euro zone, and always sides with places like Poland that happily ally with America. To many Americans, and especially conservatives, putting Blair at the head of the EU would be a dream, because he’s so ‘un-European.’ And in a rare confluence of politics, Mr. Blair could also be a favourite of those Europeans who want a strong EU abroad: he would be a recognizable face, at least, unlike that of the other leading candidate, Jean-Claude Juncker. The Luxembourgian once had to argue that “he was not a dwarf”.

However, as perfect as this match might seem, Blair has that one fatal flaw that will always rob him of any real power among the Euro-elite: he is irremediably British. Europe inevitably splits into two blocks – the Franco-Germans and their Maastricht allies on the one hand, and Brits stubbornly on the other, siding with any euro-sceptics that will follow their obstreperous lead. For the Franco-German camp, the EU is a substitute for their own sovereign power as well as the key alternative, in their eyes, to the ‘Anglo-Saxon way’. They want regulation that is more ‘fair’, health care is more ‘social’, and a foreign policy that is more ‘sophisticated’ when it comes to threats like Russia. As for the new Eastern members, the typical attitude towards them is that they should just get with the programme. In former French President Chirac’s words, Eastern Europe should treat any EU disagreements with America as a good occasion to shut up. Any British leader, no matter how useful his international caché, will always come from that other world.

And this is where Mr. Juncker comes in as an unlikely foil – a consummate eurocrat with inoffensive European features and the manners of a notary: he is neither the EU’s own George W. or a European counter-force. He’s uninterested in Europe’s role in worldwide power struggles, or any real competition with the US and China, but rather takes a ‘Swiss’ approach: a focus on the inside, on consolidating Europe’s fiscal rules, and keeping international pursuits at a modest minimum. He would make Europe into the Switzerland of the world: a nice little peaceful place with relative prosperity and few – if any – grandiose claims. At a meeting of the Eurogroupe last year he reminded more forceful leaders like Sarkozy that the “XXIst century will not be European”.

Such low ambitions might be strange to most Americans, but this ‘managed decline’ of Europe off the world stage would not be a bad thing. An internally stable Europe is a big achievement in itself – it’s not so long ago that Europe had pockets of warfare like Northern Ireland and the Basque region. Solving Europe’s fiscal problems would save Iceland from the brink as it comes into the EU in 2012, and help bring Eastern Europe into a good regulatory fold as it moves towards the Euro. Each of these would help re-build small pillars of the global financial whole. And there are countless internal issues creeping up: the population is aging drastically with the share of over-65 at 17% already. Immigrant populations are putting new cultural demands on its systems. Mr. Juncker would have his hands full even without any international forays.

For America and its global causes, a Europe that’s mostly silent abroad would only be a problem if it had spoken with America all along, or showed any interest in creating a common front. But it’s only a few countries – like Poland or Denmark, that ever break the anti-US mould. So for the EU to turn away from a global vision to a Swiss approach would at worst just take away a clamouring dissent that emboldens America’s enemies. If Mr. Juncker focuses on building up the EU from within, America would have more energy to spend on other worthwhile causes, like courting the favors of India.

******

Christine Nikol writes from London, UK where she works as a business consultant.  She has previously written for The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. and as an intern for the Paris office of Newsweek.  She has a Masters in English Literature from the University of Oxford and a B.A. in Government from Harvard College, where she was Editor in Chief of the Harvard French Review, an annual journal of transatlantic politics and culture.  She is originally from Poland and Canada and has also lived in France, Nepal, and Singapore, but America is by far her favorite.

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.