Europe after the EU

Published in spring 2016 in paperback, the work of Chris Bickerton, read at the University of Cambridge and a specialist in European Union foreign policy (EU), presents itself as a book accessible to the general public on European integration. In fact, the work is written in a clear style, deliberately stripped of any community jargon but also of any political science concept not directly understandable by a wide audience. The choice of the publication date is far from fortuitous: the work intended to participate in the debates of the British referendum campaign relating to remaining in or withdrawing from the European Union. In fact, if its title presents it as a “guide” to the European Union for the citizen, and if it aims to “describe the origins and functioning of the European Union (EU) as close as possible to the truth” (p. xiii), the work reveals from the prologue another ambition, that of promoting a change in the relationship of European citizens to their political institutions, whether national or European: “It is time,” says C. Bickerton, “for Europeans to take charge of their own future” (p. xiv).

When elites free themselves from democratic legitimacy

The six chapters that make up the work each ask a big question: “Who runs Europe? », “Where does the European Union come from? », “Is the European Union a capitalist club? », “Who is against Europe? “, ” L’EU will it continue to expand? “, ” L’EU could it become a great power? “. They constitute so many essays which can be read separately but all contribute to the central thesis of the work: that of a rupture between citizens and their elites and institutions, of which European integration is the symptom rather than the cause.

According to Chris Bickerton, national political elites have found in the European Union a means of freeing themselves, in their decision-making, from the constraints of parliamentary deliberation. The necessary search for consensus between Member States indeed favors decision-making “ behind closed dors “. It reports in particular that only 3% of community legislative texts were the subject of a parliamentary debate in plenary assembly between 2009 and 2013. National elites – first and foremost members of governments, ministerial cabinets and senior administration – acquire through their participation in community negotiations a legitimacy which allows them to compete with democratic legitimacy. They can take advantage of this legitimacy of cooperation to justify their decisions. To put it another way, their decisions are legitimate not because they are sanctioned by a vote in parliament but because they result from a search for consensus between European leaders. Therefore Chris Bickerton underlines that, far from having been attacked in their sovereignty by an ever closer European Union, “the member states are at the heart of the European Union” (p. 40).

The merit ofEU for politicians and leaders is that it offers them the freedom to discuss among themselves, without taking into account national public opinions. (p.41)

Depoliticization and distrust of elites

Looking back at the history of European integration, Chris Bickerton notes that from the start the European Coal and Steel Community (CECA) as well as the European Economic Community (EEC) were conceived as a means of strengthening and not supplanting the nation-state (chapter 2). Subsequently, the processes of deepening and broadening (chapter 5) must above all be understood as relating to the strategies of national leaders to face certain of their difficulties – particularly economic, but also political – rather than as proof of the success of the logic of ripple effects (spill-over) dear to neo-functionalists. He thus insists in particular on the fact that, starting with the economic crisis of the 1970s, which put an end to the post-war consensus based on economic growth and social policies, the leaders of the Member States have the choice to submit, particularly in the economic field, to a set of community rules that they themselves initiated (chapter 3). In doing so, they decided to give priority to the rules of law over political deliberation and decision-making. Likewise, the negotiations relating to the accession of the former Eastern European countries allowed the national leaders of these countries to present themselves as the privileged interlocutors of theEU. This allowed them to strengthen their legitimacy internally, membership being perceived by the citizens of the former Eastern European countries as a democratic dubbing, but these negotiations at the same time participated in closing the political debate: the transition to a market economy could not be discussed since it was necessary for membership.

The observation of changes in Eurosceptic discourse over time (chapter 4) also leads to the observation of a rupture between citizens and their leaders, including the democratic crisis ofEU would just be one of the avatars. For Chris Bickerton, the previous “permissive consensus” of citizens with regard to European integration was above all a matter of strong trust in national political elites rather than real support for European integration. From the 1950s to 1960s, some people opposed the European project, with European integration being seen in particular by the French and Italian communist parties as reinforcing American influence over Western Europe. At the end of the 1980s, the most virulent criticism came from the right and was based on the fear of a loss of national sovereignty. According to C. Bickerton, Euroscepticism has constituted above all since the beginning of the 2000s a specific form of distrust vis-à-vis the elites, theEU symbolizing the paternalism of rulers for whom deliberation between peers takes precedence over citizen debate.

The last chapter of the work concerns the foreign policy of theEU. Once again, the essential role of the Member States is highlighted to explain the weak influence of theEU on the international scene. In this case, C. Bickerton insists on the fact that “the duty to fight and risk one’s life for one’s country no longer constitutes the basis of the social contract in most European countries” (p. 207). Therefore, they are disinclined to collectively develop a foreign policy based on power. Beyond this primary role of States, however, he does not criticize, as in the other chapters, the absence of deliberation in this area, foreign policy traditionally being little subject to deliberation, including at the national level. It is rather interested in citizen expectations with regard to this policy, as they emerge from opinion surveys. According to him, rather than insisting on the incapacity ofEU to express oneself with one voice and forcefully on the international scene, it is more useful to consider the Union’s foreign policy as a contribution to the development of a European identity, in particular through the deployment of unique actions not supported by other international actors.

Europe, Merkel, Varoufakis and me

The argument alternates certain passages which can be a little technical – in particular on monetary issues, the liberalization of capital and the operating principles of the euro zone – with anecdotes relating to European elites. The reader thus encounters Angela Merkel and David Cameron discussing, in a boat on a lake at the invitation of the Swedish Prime Minister, the candidacy of Jean-Claude Juncker. It also follows Yànis Varoufakis going to Downing Street in a hunting vest. The reader is even invited into the personal life of C. Bickerton when, addressing the issue of worker mobility within theEUhe reports on his experiences as a British teacher-researcher stationed successively in Dutch and French universities and his relationships with the administration of his host countries (p. 97).

In fact, C. Bickerton explicitly bases his argument on a double legitimacy, his legitimacy as a political science researcher specializing in European issues and his legitimacy as a “mobile” citizen, with lived experience of Europe. The stated desire to explain the process of European integration and the functioning of theEU through language accessible to all and giving “flesh” to community institutions and policies constitutes a real success of the work. We can, however, regret some facilities such as the promise of “truth”, an editorial argument which cannot be kept, if only because of the author’s choices. Indeed, focusing the analysis solely on the economy and foreign policy is necessarily reductive and cannot account for the role ofEU in many other areas of public policy.

Let’s forget itEU ! Internationalism as a new horizon

The work turns out to be even more frustrating if we consider the diagnosis made on theEU and the solution proposed in conclusion to remedy this. Considering that theEU is not the cause of the rupture between citizens and their elites but in fact constitutes a screen behind which national leaders hide to avoid the fact that they are responsible, Chris Bickerton indeed proposes to “dismantle ” L’EU. He defends his position as follows:

Dismantle theEU will not be enough to reinvigorate national democratic life. However, this would help us to see that the problems of democracy in Europe do not come fromEU but of the change in relations between States and their citizens at the national level. (…)

All this does not mean abandoning the idea of ​​Europe. This means recasting Europe as a new project of internationalism rather than pursuing a worn-out project of integration or federalism. (pg. 230)

He has since largely assumed this position during the referendum campaign, even speaking on the eve of the vote in The Guardian. The reader can easily follow C. Bickerton when he states that once outside theEU the British will see that it is not the source of all their ills and that the economic problems, or the questions linked to immigration, will be much the same as today. On the other hand, he will have more difficulty following him in his faith in a new project for the United Kingdom, for democracy and for Europe without a complementary proposal. How does the UK’s exit from theEU will it create new relationships between citizens and their elites, and put democratic legitimacy back at the heart of the British political system? What could be this new internationalism that the author calls for? Finally, which actors would be likely to carry this momentum? Without answers to these questions, it is difficult to envisage how the dismantling of theEU can help revitalize the democratic life of the States that make it up.

Chris Bickerton, however, convincingly respects the specifications of this collection, which aims to invite a scientist to answer some major questions present in the public space. It summarizes in an intelligible manner certain major debates, such as the one between Jürgen Habermas in recent years, for whom the integration of Europe must be pushed further in order to establish a true supranational democracy with leaders elected at European level, to Wolfgang Streeck, who advocates the end of the Eurozone to reinvigorate the democratic bond at the national level and establish a primacy of politics over the economy. The educational qualities of the work contributed to making the book a real editorial success.