Europe 5.0

Welcome to the new Europe era: Moving Away from Multiculturalism to Intolerance

There are many facets to the understanding of why Europeans have grown to dislike the EU in spite of its perceived benefits. Though many such analysis are approached from EU’s economic benefits like the advantages of having a common currency, I am going to touch upon the more underlying issues associated with its economics but focusing more on the human aspects of it like employment, migration and thus the impact that EU could create as a geo-political union.

We grow up to become patriotic with time and  gradually start identifying ourselves with the idea of a nation. The patriotism then starts getting manifested through our actions during football matches or during the Olympics when we usually end up supporting our nation and there is so much pride associated with it. Our identities are attached to our countries and the most primary form of our identity globally is that we are either Japanese, Korean, Indian, German, French, Russian, Brazilian, Nigerian, African, Turkish etc. It is difficult to detach people from this primary form of identification. Now when we start talking about the European Union, people find the idea to be abstract from the familiar ideas of nationhood. It is easier to look at the European Union as a trade block  and it is also perhaps easier to let people understand the benefits of such a Union conceptually. In practice people are happy when they are able to exercise the right to freely move in and out of 28 countries with the right to work or settle down in any of those EU countries or even as small traders when a merchant is able to come and sell garments from Italy in the Netherlands for a slightly higher price that he could have fetched in Italy itself and doing it all using a common currency. So basically having access to a wider consumer base, access to a larger job market are the immediate benefits that people have received.  And beyond this I am not sure if ordinary citizens in their day to day lives would get to experience any direct benefit of living in the European Union. The farthest common benefit that people could imagine is perhaps that the European Union brought peace and stability in the region. This I think is the first and foremost reason of people distancing themselves from the European Union because of an utter inability to identify themselves with the broader idea of the EU.

Everything was almost good until the financial crisis struck in 2009-10. It is like that saying that if you have to really judge your friend or partner then do it on the face of a crisis. People from different nations within Europe reacted in different ways during the financial crisis. Youngsters in Greece found the idea of an European Union to be great as they could migrate to some of the better functioning economies like Germany and France and find jobs there and settle down. If they had to remain back in their own country they would have been left unemployed and those suicide rates would have been way higher than they were reported in 2009-10. However the picture on the other side of the fence grew to be ugly with time. The youth in countries like Germany, France, Sweden started to face more competition as a result of the influx of immigrants from neighbouring European nations which were not doing well economically and many of the local jobs were being taken up by citizens from EU who could be from Romania, Bulgaria or Croatia. Now this is where the European Paradox  starts. How does the government of a country justify the influx of job seekers from other European Union member countries when many of its own citizens are left jobless. For example, should Germany a founder member state of the European Union put a cap on the immigration of youth from other European union member states to protect the interests of its own country’s youth. This is the point where the patriotic sentiments and the age old notions of belongingness to a nation - I am a German, I am Swedish or I am French starts to take priority in place of broader political concepts of  the EU; which are then really rendered as abstract political ideas in the minds of the common people. Most Europeans believe that they have been coaxed into accepting a “false identity” of Europeanness which can never become a reality. The generation which experienced the wrath of the World War first hand is now almost coming to an end and hence the ideas of protectionism, nationalism are again taking a centre-stage replacing the ideals of tolerism and multiculturalism. A TIMES’ article even mentions that in the words of Nigel Farage, people gravitate more toward tribal notions of identity than to lofty principles of integration.

A manifestation of such behaviour was published in the form of interviews by The Guardian after the Brexit referendum of 18-24 year old youth who voted to remain in the European Union. Many among them were perhaps led to believe that immigration is taking away jobs from them and putting a stop to it will solve all problems. Unfortunately the misconceptions of some has put the majority of the youth there in a lot of trouble. Youngsters have shared how they were hopeful of getting jobs in any of the better functioning economies within the EU but with Brexit they are left with no choice but to fight it out among the limited number of opportunities that UK can provide. This youth now knows that the paradox does not help their situation.  Some of those interviews can be read here. The whole paradox of the European Union unfold through these accounts - that how a certain section of the population especially the job seeking youth find themselves to be more secure being a part of the EU rather not being a part of it. People therefore need to experience more tangible benefits accruing directly to them to identify themselves more with the EU and not only as a nation. In a very interesting interview at the Yale School of Management Former Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero talks about how Spain has become Europe. Spain does not understand itself without Europe, and Europe will not continue to make sense if it does not advance towards greater unity. Coupled with this the constant appeals towards solidarity of the EU made by the German Chancellor Angela Merkel shows the willingness of the political leadership to make the EU even stronger. And this is another aspect of the EU paradox. Its benefits need to percolate to its citizens to make it more relevant to the ordinary people of the EU and not just remain a bureaucratic machinery.

The second and the most compelling reason behind the growing dissatisfaction among europeans regarding the EU is the negative media publicity that is being constantly aired on news channels. Whatever is being shown on popular news channels is what will register with people as true and factual. Hence when the popular media keeps highlighting immigration to be the root cause for joblessness among the youth then the general public also perceives it to be so. Ever since Donald Trump’s election as the President of the United States and Brexit being announced things have become even worse. Populism has almost swallowed EU and all its theories of solidarity that its visionaries had once thought of. France was almost on the verge of following the UK as is also Italy - both being the founding members of the EU. A TIME article also quotes that a recent poll found out that 42% of Germans want a referendum on E.U. membership.

People elect their national leaders based on the agendas that they support and are most important to them which will solve their day to day local problems. While these chosen leaders then represent their countries at the European parliament still the people from different European nations cannot connect with the policies that are being framed and institutionalised by the EU, because every citizen first thinks of his/her own problem and not that of the nation, leave alone supporting complex political ideas like that in EU.

The third bigger problem that I perceive that has resulted in people drifting away from the idea of a unified Europe lies in the differences that exists among all the varied nations of the EU. There is very little that can be found as common between an Italian and a German or even between neighbouring countries like Germany & Poland. Then how will a sense of the common European identity get invoked within the people of the EU.

The fourth hindrance that I see that has been existent in the EU is the fact that stronger economic nations could not in reality accept the weaker newer members of the Union as a true part of it. Hence the Europeans from countries like Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary continue to be treated as foreigners to the original concept of EU. And had cultural integration anything to do with it, then perhaps Turkey would have become a part of EU today, given the number of people from Turkey who have immigrated and have become an integral part of the European culture.