European identity and the poet-president

Quote
“Heaven in Europe is a place where the British are the policemen, the French are the cooks, the Germans are the mechanics, the Italians are the lovers and the Swiss run the place.  And hell is where the British are the cooks, the French are the mechanics, the Germans are the policemen, the Swiss are the lovers and the Italians run the place.”  Anonymous.

News

Europe has entered 2012 on a bleak note: Chancellor Merkel declared the road to recovery will be long and fraught with setbacks, and president Sarkozy said the crisis is the worst since the second world war.  The debt debacle across southern Europe rages unabated, and other countries round the world are resigning themselves to being dragged into recession by Europe’s demise.

The European project hinges on the strength of trust, solidarity and mutual commitment between the member countries, especially in the Eurozone. Knitting together these diverse nation states is one thing during a time of prosperity, or when faced with a common external or historical enemy.  But when adversity comes not from outside but stems from within, for example from very different attitudes to work, retirement, debt and public borrowing, are the relationships strong enough to weather the storm?

The poet-cum-president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel, who died just before Christmas, understood that nations, like individuals, need to be confident of their identity, purpose and role in the wider world in order to deal maturely with others.  Referring to Russia’s attitude to NATO enlargement ten years ago, Havel said, “If I do not know who I am, who I want to be, what I want to achieve, where I begin and where I end, my relations with those around me, and with the rest of the world, will inevitably be tense, full of suspicion and burdened by an inferiority complex that may be hidden behind pompous bravado.”

Perhaps today Havel would be asking whether the Eurozone countries have sufficient shared culture and commitment to make a single currency work in the long run.  Unity in Europe cannot be brought about mechanically, by adopting a common set of fiscal rules and harmonising EU law.  Ultimately it can only work when the majority of people in each member state are more committed to a shared European identity – recognising the benefits of diversity within that – than to their separate national identities.  This is a far cry from the way countries such as the UK see things today.  Without this, the EU is only held together by mutual self-interest, which at a time like this is in very short supply.

Read on

The arguments for and against a common European currency, and how monetary union can only work in the long run with political union, were laid out in a Cambridge Paper by Paul Mills and Michael Schluter back in 1998.  You can read this timely perspective from two Christian economists here.

 

Walk the talk

Personally or corporately, how deep is our sense of identity, and how do any weaknesses play out?  Consider what you might do in order to celebrate your personal, family or community’s identity and thereby deepen your maturity.

The last word
From the Bible, John chapter 13 verse 3-4, “Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet…”