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Hello and welcome to New Books in European Studies, part of the New Books Network. I'm Nicholas Walton and today I'm taking a look at a book that examines the ideas that have shaped the formation of the European Union. From the immediate post-war period to this time of stress, strain and probable change.
The book is called The Passage to Europe, How a Continent Became a Union. And the author is Luke van Midler, who in his day job also manages to be a speechwriter for the president of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy. The book has been published in Dutch for several years, but it's only just come out in English. Here's the interview.
Well, joining me here in London is Luke van Middelaar, the author of The Passage to Europe, How the Continent Became a Union. You're in London for a day or two. Thanks for dropping into ECFR's office. And also, can you just tell us about the book and how you came to Europe? write it? Yeah, thanks, Nicholas. Well, The Passage to Europe is perhaps an un-Brussels book about European integration and how it evolved and came about in 60 years, where I try to...
Look at European history from the perspective of experience and historic events, which were major turns in what happened to Europe. like the start 1950s, like 1989, like the current crisis, where each time you see that big decisions are taken as a result or as a response to historic events. And this is a way of looking at it which is fairly normal for a historian anyway, but it maybe stands a little bit apart from a lot of the literature on the European Union.
where either you have the sort of Brussels-focused, EU-prose, acronym-filled type...
of literature focusing on the institutions and the treaties. Almost an organizational chart being put together in front of your eyes. Yes, it's full of diagrams and arrows and how it all fits together. And on the other hand, the more... well, let's say, a Eurosceptical frame, which is quite close in a way, where it's all about them in Brussels and all the events coming about as a result of a Brussels plot of bureaucrats who...
are aiming for power grab and all that kind of prose, whereas what I try to show is that the main moments of passage or the main transformative moments of European politics... in the past decades and we are in one currently have come about also as a result of national leaders sitting around the table and concluding sometimes to their disliking.
that they have to work together to do certain things, to secure the security and the prosperity of their citizens. It's very much a work of political philosophy as well. When I was reading it, I was struck by how different it reads compared to many books that deal with the process of integration and how Europe became a continent. You are a political philosopher at heart, aren't you?
Yes, for me it's deeply a work of political philosophy where I try to ask questions about what is authority, what is foundation, what is representation. and in a way almost have Europe as a perfect object. So it's not a book about... such contemporary issues or in academic discourse about multi-level governance or democratic deficit. No, it's try to ask sort of the underlying political questions. And in a way...
Just like I'm zooming out in time by taking a long-term perspective to get a better grip of what's going on now, it's also a little bit zooming out in the conceptual framework and trying to... the core questions of political philosophy and I prefer to rely on people like John Locke or Machiavelli who still could ask the sort of first
elementary questions when they were thinking about the political realities of their age. And I think we should aim to do the same thing when we look at all the very confusing and complex things that are happening before our eyes. Zoom out also in that respect. Can you summarise?
The type of narrative that you put together in the book. I mean, I've been reading it and it is quite complex and there's a lot of twist turns and there's a lot of allusions to the work of other people, as you've just said. It's quite a complex picture, but I was wondering if you're able to distill it in a way that takes up a few minutes. Well, for one thing, I have not written a chronological history.
of the European Union from 1950 to today. Because for me that doesn't make sense. In a way I tell three different stories.
All of them can be made a little bit simpler. One is about, and they're all about, does European politics exist and what does it look like? But they ask three different questions. So the first question, the first part of the book also is, is about decision-making, and there I focus on the majority vote between member states, which may sound a technical issue, procedural issue, which is also very much an existential issue.
Because when you're a member of a club where you can be outvoted, where you can be in a minority, it is a very different engagement.
from being a member of a club where you have your say, whatever happens. You tie this into the foundation of it. It's part of the foundation. The giving up of sovereignty and you need the mechanism that translates that into... So it was built into the treaties, but to make it happen... was or resulted actually in one of the main, a little bit forgotten, but enormous institutional, constitutional crisis in the early days in 1965, 1966, which is called the empty chair.
crisis because france one of the six then member states walked off the table and did not want to be part of the club anymore six months later they came back But at the time, this was seen as disruptive a moment, say, as Brexit or Brexit of today. People thought it was... the end of the project as they knew it, that it was as bad as anything that had happened in Europe since Hitler, some of them said. And I see that this sort of convulsive moment was very much related to this.
issue of majority voting. So that's the first train of thought to look at. Is this body, is this club of member states able to take decisions? way into the story is and that's the only really chronological part is to look at the developments in relationship with big events in the outside world with geopolitics in a way. So there I look at the moment of foundation as a result of the start of the Cold War in the 1950s.
The Suez Crisis, which at a key moment of the negotiations for the common market back in 55-56, it was actually a fascinating meeting at the day of the Suez Crisis. between German Chancellor Adenauer and French Prime Minister Moulet, that all the obstacles and bureaucratic hurdles were cleared all of a sudden. Because in the geopolitical context... sort of colonial decline as it all of a sudden became clear when France and the UK were humiliated by the US and Soviet Union over Suez.
Adenauer said, and now we must make Europe. And then the train, as it were, moved forward or the decision would take. I talk about 1989 as the key moment. The moment when the Berlin Wall... which was perhaps the most transformative moment in post-war European history, which not only...
resulted in a reunification of Germany but in a way also of some kind of reunification of the European continent with other countries joining the club and when Europeans for the first time again rediscovered themselves as Europeans. in a totally new way and in all these events the question each time is whether the member states as a club were able to react to them to respond to them to this
contingency, frankly or not. Sometimes they were totally unable. For instance in the 1970s during the oil crisis it was just... Disasters, everybody had his own. Say the Iraq war is of course a more recent example. But sometimes the external pressure of events pushed them into the same direction. And this external pressure also had some institutional... changes as a result and in particular the slow coming about of a new institution which is the European Council.
or summits of heads of state and government which was not foreseen in the initial setup of the EU machinery because the founders like Schumann and Monet wanted to keep leaders out, national diplomacy out, because that smelled too much of old-style diplomacy. Versailles in 1919 or the Congress of Vienna after the Napoleonic Wars. They wanted a new start. But that type of diplomacy re-entered, in a way, the scene because...
The national leaders wanted to have a forum where they could discuss jointly, not only about agriculture policy and goat cheese, but also about real issues which mattered for them as European leaders, Cold War issue, what they would do about. Soviet Union, how do we position ourselves vis-à-vis the United States, and that type of questions, and where they felt they could not leave it to Brussels institutions, which they could for agriculture.
policy for instance but not for those matters which were so important in the lives of their states or their own nations now then there is the third part which is maybe most topical today also, which is the question of how can this political... want to be ordered, the European Union, find a relation to the people, to the citizens, taxpayers, students, consumers, whatever. How can you...
create a bond between the state and the street. That's a problem for any political order, but it's more difficult on the European side. There are three strategies which have been tried and tested and some of them failed to find the public or to find... consent or applause or however you want to frame it. That's the German, Roman and Greek methods. Yes, I use three sort of historic references to describe them because you're not referring here to...
to Greece and Germany in the current context of the crisis. But indeed, the German strategy of, let's say, stressing a common identity, a common belonging... in the tradition of 19th century German nationalist thinking or French state building is a little bit the like which Europe has also tried and tested then the Roman strategy which focuses on
on results and it's it's the roman of bread and circuses pax romana and then yes yes exactly that's the way that you frame that you know they brought aqueduct etc peace well so it's basically yeah it's quite and then there's the Greek strategy which again refers not to today's Greece but to to the inventors of ancient democracy. So the idea of making people relate more closely to the whole enterprise by giving them a say, a vote, a voice, and their...
Of course, the very existence of a European Parliament, which is a totally unprecedented thing as a result of that strategy. Now, since the 1970s, roughly, there have all been tried and tested. There have been some. successes in the way the European Union has found the public but it's very difficult you can see it perhaps most clearly with the
the German identity road of how can you make people feel themselves European? Because they all live on this nice little continent here. Of course, they share a history, but... In almost all individual cases, citizens have national or even regional identities, which are much stronger than their European identity. And it's very difficult to...
To define it, it has been tried in the past and there are certain ideas which come back all the time. One of them is, wouldn't it be great if all... students or school children in the European Union would be able to learn about European history in one European history textbook well they tried this 20 years ago and they
As these things go, they put together a committee of 12 historians. This was at the time of the European Union of 12 member states. And they each had to write one chapter. Same, simple. Same, simple indeed. Then a whole sort of...
War of Words started about precise semantic choices. For instance, in the chapter on the history of France, the historian wrote about 5th century Gaul and... the barbaric invasions that took place, which was not to the liking of the German historian who rather preferred the formula of Germanic invasions instead of barbarians.
And the same spat, by the way, a chord in the chapter on... I don't know which chapter, but anyway, between the Spaniard and the British historian about how to refer to the person called Francis Drake. Was he a...
maritime hero or a pirate. Speaking as a Briton, I think he was both, but piracy was almost under the crown at the time. Yeah, well, that's a nice way to frame it. You can see that it's difficult to find a sort of neutral... way of looking at this common history unless you go for the sort of motherhood and apple pie approach of universal values but then again that doesn't really distinguish the Europeans from others.
So it is difficult. Although even on that German strategy road, there have been some successes and one significant one is... is the existence of a European flag. It's just an empty sign. There's no content in it. I don't think there is, at least. Although some stories are around about...
the 12 stars, etc. It is a sign of belonging people can relate to. But even there, it was a hard thought, because there is also, of course... resistance against this idea of a flag because people can distrust the whole idea and see the European flag as a threat to their own national flag.
which is why in institutional terms this flag did not make it into the European Treaty as some wished, but it was opposed by a few member states, including the Netherlands, my country, and also the UK. So some of these... seemingly innocent things like stories or the design of the Eurobank notes, where I have another story about, they reveal a lot about the tensions and constraints of this approach.
Going back to, was it April 1951, where the first people, the first six countries drew up the coal and steel community. What kind of conception of Europe did they have? When it all started. For them it was a political enterprise between France and Germany to start with. to create a new framework to deal with certain vital issues of economic policy. But they did not, they did never think that a cool and still community was...
economic panacea to the problems of their time. It was first of all a political enterprise between French Minister Schumann, German Chancellor Adenauer, for which they found the support of a few. four neighboring countries. And I think that was the spirit of the founders. They did not, even at the time, they did not all agree on all things. I mean, one of the six already at the time. The Netherlands was pretty reluctant to join, but they felt they had no other choice. And so even in this...
moment of birth, you can already see some of the tensions that would play out much more widely later on. But I think, of course, it was also still the age of innocence and where Europe... was a sign of hope. Europe was a promise which very much resonated with public opinions. so shortly after the war. I was about to say, the circumstances of the end of the Second World War, where you had... And this is, of course, one of the glib ways of characterizing it, but the...
The need to keep Germany in, but in a much reduced circumstance, France had its own imperatives because its weakness was not just exposed through the war, but would continue to be exposed in the next 20, 30 years. of colonial decline and Jian Bien Phu and so on. So it was a very, very specific moment that this encapsulated.
But did they have any plans? Were they looking beyond this simple relationship between France and Germany? Did they have any plans for the institutions that would fit around it, where things would be in 20, 30 years' time? Not really, I think. I mean, they had the idea that it would be the start of a great adventure, to quote the movie line. I think that spirit was there, but it wasn't clearly defined.
And when the same six countries found themselves again around the table five years later to found this time a common market, they were already changing the institutional setup. But they reinforced this idea that they were going to be together in a way indefinitely. Because the Corn and Steel Treaty was going to last for 50 years and had an end date to it.
So actually, 10 years ago, it came to an end. Whereas the Treaty of Rome, of the common market, stretches itself out, as it were, indefinitely. So it's a different kind of... commitment it's less contractual it's more a marriage type of engagement which is a difference from the point of view of the political psychology I would say
I think it would be difficult to talk about Europe and its foundation without really bringing it up to date. And this was actually published a few years ago in the Netherlands. It's just been translated into English, which is why it's coming out now. Quite a lot has happened in Europe in those years, and not least, I think in 2010, you became speechwriter to Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council.
which is almost a front row seat at the crisis. What has that helped you understand and what has this changed in the way that you feel about the book and its arguments? Well, it has helped me... My current position, and indeed this sort of privileged position, the front row, as you said, has helped me to understand some of these matters better. But the crisis, I'm...
I must say, has not fundamentally changed the way I look at the European Union. Quite on the contrary, in a way, because what I tried to do in the book, which indeed I wrote in the years before the crisis, in 7 and 8... is to look at how moments of great tension, of crisis, how historic events have impacted upon European integration. And in a way, it's a story about how these countries organize themselves over time in a way which enables them to deal with uncertainty.
And that is very new. Because in the old days, as it were, the Europe of the common market was all about making rules, which are fixed. Well, you can change them, but it's about making rules. for enterprises, for participants of economic life, in a way. Whereas what the European Union is doing in the past 2010, but indeed even more so in the past few years... is also to be able to deal with events and to take decisions which impact on the states themselves, either where they have to act.
or where they have to take decisions on macroeconomic or budgetary policy, which is now very much the center of gravity of the political attention. which are different. So this crisis in a way was almost a unhoopful, I must say, but almost a real-life test of how... the European Union can deal with uncertainty. And it has shown, I think, and made clear to many more people than originally were ready to.
how important the role of national leaders is in European politics, because they have to sit together around European tables to take... and as I said, sometimes to their own disliking, joint decisions to deal with these situations. And that is where you have a vital connection between... EU politics as in Brussels, and domestic political scene. And I think this has never been as clear as in the past three, four years, where the fate...
of many a European government in debtor countries, but also in others, hinged upon European decisions. So election results were... Well, not only influenced, but sometimes even determined by a debate on what position the country should take in Europe, like Italy or Spain or Finland even, where at some point...
The whole issue about the coalition agreement was whether yes or no they should help Portugal. So there's a whole new space of European politics which is... not only played out in Brussels, but more and more in a sort of overall game between all countries and capitals, which realize that they are a member of a club, that it... it matters to their political system, that it matters to their citizens what happens in another country. And that's new. But as that's come back in...
That's emerged as a factor, the importance of individual capitals and individual countries and their leaders. It's also exposed what, for a long time, Europe... perhaps sought to deny you may argue with that and that's German strength the fact that ultimately a lot of it comes back down to Berlin or Bonn as it used to be I think that is indeed true
that people used to quip sometimes, and I quite like that, that Europe served for the French to hide their weakness and for the Germans to hide their strength. And this worked very well because they could both pretend they were more or less equal. And even if Germany was economically stronger, since the 70s at least, French still had more sort of political weight.
member of the UN Security Council and that type of political power but I think this symmetry or this full symmetry this pretensive symmetry is no longer credible and it's now clear to all that that the place of Germany is different in Europe than of any other country. A historic nuance, if you allow me, is not the first time ever that one country is more important in the club than others.
The same was true for France in the early days. Very often it was one against all. I was going to be asking you about this next, but... Sorry, yeah, it was the goal against all the others. But I think this prism of German might, of course, has very much to do with the crisis itself, because the focus is now so much on... on economics, financial strength, it shows more clearly than in other circumstances. I mean, if you look at foreign affairs...
It's really not the Germans who will lead the pack, to say the least. So you mentioned France and the leading role that it played on. In the early years, of course, the other major country in Europe that could have been expected after the war to play a leading role was Britain. France took the leading role.
People would say that the European Union is a very, very different place with France having played a leading role compared to if Britain had actually decided this is the moment that we get involved with our European cousins as opposed to the standing back that it did and joining in much later. on in the process. Can you conceive as a European time traveller of what a Europe would look like if it had been Britain playing that role?
You're doing the nose of Cleopatra question. Yes, if it had been slightly different shape, what would have happened? I'm a journalist. I ask these questions. It's an interesting question.
But I hardly ever do what-if questions. What I try to do is to show that history is open and that many decisions could have... been taken differently or the course of history could have gone in another direction I think that's important to also when you look at the past to reopen that that it's not predetermined and that for the same reason The future is not predetermined either. On the UK, more specifically, I think it would have been really different, yes. It would have been...
I think the institutions would have been set up differently from the start. And the Brits actually did not join for the reason that they were... they didn't like the idea of supranational institutions. And even if that was watered down in the process, there are some elements of it which made it into the treaties, like a court and the... predecessor of the Commission of High Authority in 1950. It's also a pity because when the United Kingdom...
It was at a much more difficult moment also for them. As MP Mark Reckless said this morning, it was perhaps at this nation's lowest ebb. And the UK was then joining in what it earlier on had perceived to be the losers club. Those who had lost the war.
The 50s and 60s worked out slightly differently, didn't they? Yeah. And so I think it not only was maybe a pity for the way... the early years of the European Union, but also it made it much more difficult for the United Kingdom where it had an impact on the psychology of the moment when finally your country crossed. The threshold. Another formulation of the interests of the big three countries that we've just been speaking of was that...
France seeks reincarnation of itself through Europe. Germany seeks or sought redemption and Britain seeks a seat at the table. Now at the minute, obviously, reincarnation of France at a time when it... feels tangibly weaker, especially if you look at the relations between Merkel and Hollande. We seem to be probably past the point where Germany is seeking redemption. And Britain...
at home seems to be weighing up the costs of that seat at the table. Is this a formulation that you think is well past its sell-by date? I think you're partly right that the strong... Initial motives are no longer there to the same extent. It's clear for France that it's now very hard to conceive Europe as a big France. which they hoped it could become, at least until 1989. And I think there the German reunification and the end of the Cold War was a major turning point. I also agree that...
And that's even more recent, that this idea of a seat at the table for London, which even if sometimes some parties in the opposition played with the idea of leaving, never before... has a governing party done so as clearly as the conservatives now play with this idea which is new but you can still feel that the way the yes argument is is framed
here in the UK, is very much of we need to keep a seat at the table. So the frame is still there because surely we're not going to walk out of the internal market and be part of that. like Norway and Switzerland, when the rules are set without us being there. Off the tax machine. Exactly. That model is discarded quickly because you need to be there or you don't apply the rules.
I don't agree with your analysis of the German situation, where I think they still feel very strongly this historic responsibility. of being a democratic successor to a Nazi regime. And I think the crisis, in a way, is a proof of that. Because... I think any German Chancellor feels that it is very important for his or today her country to be perceived by the other nations in Europe as...
And this is still true today. Of course, the memories of the past are further away, but I think the fear in Berlin for all prejudices... which sometimes flare up now in the crisis, I mean, you've seen the cartoons in the Greek press and vice versa in the German press, of course, that this very much is part of the... the political constraints and psychology of how people in Berlin look at the European Union. Is this just a simple...
Question of the seeds of the EU's problems being contained in the fact that once you draw more and more countries in... all of those initial calculations about ceding sovereignty in return for a way of decision-making that brought results, etc. Do you think that that's simply where we are? We've got 27, 28.
members now the euro has got 17 different countries trying to form a single currency zone and you know forming a currency zone between two or three countries is difficult enough but when you bring in Economies as different as the German, the Finnish, the Irish, the Portuguese, the Greek, the Cypriot, the Italian. The seeds of Europe's troubles are in this idea that you can just keep on expanding.
Why? I'm not sure. Because the idea of expansion has also been there from the start. And I think the plurality and the diversity of the membership... is true, makes it more urgent to reflect on how also institutionally the European Union can remain to be something which is not on the way to become a federal state. nor just a club of sovereign states, but which is something in between. And in my book I very much try to explain that this in a way has always been the case.
What makes it work is sometimes difficult to grasp, but it's not only the sort of supranational, proto-federal institutions which... ensure that all can apply or all commit to the same rules, but it's also a sort of invisible glue, political glue of the fact of being a member. And the fact that there are more members has sometimes also made it easier to find sort of internal balances within the club.
Think back of the old days, the Netherlands and Belgium fought hard to get the UK in because they felt safer in a club with three big countries instead of only two. Also, if you look at the way the European Union, in terms of policies and competences, has developed, it has often been as a response to a new membership, even when the UK and Denmark and Ireland joined.
It was decided by the then nine leaders to engage in new fields like environmental policy, which at the time, in 1973, the Danes very much favored, and also regional policy. is an indirect result of the UK entry, even if it's decried today in this country. But the reason being that agricultural funds went not to the UK because, of course, you...
importing food and then some other device had to be found to make sure that at least some of the European money also ended up in Great Britain. So this diversity of membership... is, I think, very much part of what Europe is. It's very constitutive of the European Union. Because even with six, it was never going to be the end of sovereign states.
Even with the six where you had France and Germany, which are totally different countries. I mean, you should not underestimate the French and the Germans. They just don't understand each other. They didn't understand each other after the war. I'm not talking about all these wars, but even... and they still don't, essentially they don't understand each other. And so for me it does not make a fundamental difference that you have more members, because membership was always to be...
category of plurality. Is the European Union, is it fit for purpose for all of the challenges that are going to be thrown out by the next 20, 30, 40 years? In other words, you say that it sounds very complicated. I think undoubtedly, and reading your book only made it... It exposed me to more nuances and complications than I'd ever troubled myself to consider. Well, is it fit for purpose? Sorry, is it fit for purpose?
I think the purpose of the country, the governments who are members of the European Union, in the end is still the same. It is to secure the security and prosperity of their citizens. think that some of that work they can do on their own and some of the work they have to do together that can be building a market or making sure you have
connections between gas pipelines or whatever. And even on the security front, where of course after the war it was very strongly about peace, but in a way that's still... plays a role even if less clearly. Certainly does in eastern countries. It does in eastern countries, it does in countries knocking on the door as we speak in the western Balkans where wars were fought.
very recently, and the others are also aware of that, and it's also in the interest of those in Germany, Finland, and even on an island like Ireland. you would have some form of continental stability stretching all the way to the Balkans and not have end up with Syria is already much too close in a way. But I think to remain fit for purpose, there is more thinking needed in Europe, in all capitals, in Brussels, about how Europeans are going to make their...
money in 10 years' time from now. And there's great revolutions going on. Think of the shale gas revolution in the United States or all the... emerging, now emerged markets, and it still seems sometimes difficult within Europe as a whole to muster the sense of urgency faced with this.
great economic challenge and how are we going to make a living in 10-20 years time for now and I would say that that requires A lot of innovative thinking, and that's one of the things where the European Commission, which is many great things, but which is also a sort of great think tank, should really put the best minds at work. and to come up with proposals which member countries can then look at. But it also requires...
a growing awareness of the Europeans at large, in large speaking, that this challenge is there. Finally, what are you working on now? Are you working on any other work similar to this, or is it all back-to-the-day job? Well, the day job tends to be a night job included. So there's not much time for the night job and for a next book. But of course, I scribble my notes and we'll see what I can do when I left office.
in a year and a half from now. I do think that there is a lot of stories to tell and reflection to do on this very particular moment. which is really unprecedented over the past years, and that Europeans, and then especially those... peoples who share the euro have never been aware as they are today that they belong to this union. And it has been a very painful discovery.
for many of them for different reasons. But it will be interesting to see also in the years ahead how and whether European public opinions come to terms with this fact that Europe is not only a matter of... advantages and free travel, etc., but also a matter of belonging and to some extent of identity. So there are things to write and reflect about. Perhaps even clearer in retrospect than now. Hopefully. Yes. Luke, thanks very much. Thanks, Nick.
And that was Luke van Midler, the author of The Passage to Europe, an intriguing look at the political philosophy that underpins the European project. You can find plenty more books on European subjects on newbooksnetwork.com or subscribe directly to New Books in European Studies through iTunes or other podcast software. I'm Nicholas Walton. Thank you for listening.