From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Wed 14 May 2003 - 17:25:24 GMT
Combine and Conquer
EURO SPACE: A State of Mind
By Mark Leonard
The European Union's obsession with legislation is usually taken as a
sign of weakness - a foil to the pyrotechnic might of the US military
machine. But take a closer look: The bureaucrats in Brussels have
been busy creating a new political space that has the power to make
the 21st century the European century. The EU's geographical
expansion to 25 countries, which will grow to include a dozen smaller
ones and maybe even Russia, is nothing compared with its increasing
legal and moral reach. The 80,000 pages of laws the EU has developed
since the common market was formed in 1957 - influencing everything
from genetic labeling to human rights - have made Europe the world's
first viral political space, spreading its authority in three innovative
ways.
First, it spreads by stealth. Although the EU legislates up to half of its
member states' laws, most of their trade, and many policy decisions -
from agriculture to economics - it's practically invisible. Take Britain.
There are no European courts, legislative chambers, or business
regulations on display in London. Instead, just as a virus takes over a
healthy cell, the EU operates through the shell of traditional political
structures. The British House of Commons, British Law Courts, and
British civil servants are still there, but they have all become covert
agents of the EU. This is no accident. By creating common standards
that are implemented through national institutions, Europe can take
over the world without becoming a target for hostility. While every US
company, embassy, and military base is a terrorist target, Europe's
invisibility allows it to spread its influence without provocation. Put
bluntly, even if there were people angry enough to want to fly planes
into European buildings, there is no World Trade Center to target.
Second, the EU thrives on diversity. The former US Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger once complained that Europe doesn't have a single
telephone number. When there's a crisis, Americans don't know who to
turn to as the authentic voice of opinion. This is because Europe
possesses many centers of power. Even the splits between new and
old, and the accidental good cop/bad cop routine played by Britain and
France, can be seen as a sign of the EU's strength. The ultimate failure
of diplomacy leading up to the war on Iraq shows that the EU is less
powerful when it doesn't share a common vision of the world, but even
so, the multi-headed nature of the union did force the US to take its
case to the UN. The best way to understand how Europe functions is to
look at a globally networked business like Visa. By sharing control
widely, and by making it impossible for any single faction or institution
to dominate, a networked business can combine its global presence
with innovation and diversity to gain the kind of edge normally reserved
for smaller entities. Visa, though it represents the largest single block of
consumer spending power in the world ($362.4 trillion annually), is a
skeletal organization with just a few thousand employees. The fact that
Europe does not have one leader - but rather a network of centers of
power united by common policies and goals - means that it can expand
to accommodate ever-greater numbers of countries without collapsing,
and continue to provide its members with the benefits of being the
largest market in the world.
Third, Europe "syndicates" its legislation and values, often by
threatening others with economic isolation. Many governments outside
the continent have adopted Europe's regulations to get access to its
market. Even US companies have been forced to follow European
regulations in at least three spheres: M&A, GM foods, and data privacy.
But this model of passive aggression has had its most dramatic effect in
the EU's backyard. Consider some of the dangers faced by both Europe
and the US: drug trafficking, large flows of migrants across hard-to-
police borders, transnational criminal networks. Europe encourages
political and economic reform by holding out the possibility of
integration into the EU, and this strategy has had more success than
the swift military interventions of the Monroe Doctrine. While the EU is
deeply involved in Serbia's reconstruction and supports its desire to be
"rehabilitated" as a European state, the US offers Colombia no such
hope of integration through multilateral institutions or structural funds,
only the temporary "assistance" of American military training missions
and aid, and the raw freedom of the US market.
This new type of power means that Europe effects change from the
inside out. By contrast, when the US engages other countries, it does
so through the prism of geopolitics. Talks with Russia focus on nuclear
weapons, NATO expansion, and civilian control of the military. Talks
with Colombia look at the flow of drugs across its borders. Europeans
start from the other end of the spectrum: What values underpin the
state? What are its constitutional and regulatory frameworks? Turkey
renounced the death penalty to further its chance of admission into the
EU; Britain rescinded its ban on gays in the military; and Italy reformed
its profligate economic ways to meet EU standards. Europe's obsession
with legal frameworks means that it can completely transform the
countries it comes into contact with, instead of just skimming the
surface. The US might have changed the regime in Afghanistan, but
Europe is changing all of Polish society, from its economic policies and
property laws to its treatment of minorities and what gets served on the
nation's tables.
The overblown rhetoric directed at the "American Empire" misses the
fact that the US reach is shallow and narrow. The lonely superpower
can bribe, bully, or impose its will almost anywhere in the world - but
when its back is turned, its potency wanes. The strength of the EU,
conversely, is broad and deep: Once sucked into its sphere of
influence, countries are changed forever. Europe is a state of mind that
cannot be contained by traditional boundaries.
Mark Leonard (mark@fpc.org.uk) is director of the Foreign Policy
Centre and author of Network Europe.
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