The European Mind: Narrative and Identity

ISSEI Conference in Malta, 24-29 July 2006

Workshop: New Ways Towards Europe: Dilemmas and Questions

Chair: Gyorgy Kerekgyarto

Paper title: Which way is Europe heading? Some remarks on the EU debate in 2005

I argue in this short paper that the main tension since the fifties between more Brussels (suprastatism) or less Brussels (nationalism) doesn’t offer an adequate picture if we are to understand the controversies over the future of European integration in the 21st century. Some old controversies are still present and sometimes even reactivated, but at the same time new controversies are added. One can of course view the debate before, during and after the EU summit in June 2005 as a blame game between Great Britain and France on the CAP as well as the British budget rebate. But it makes sense, I contend, to make a close reading and analysis of the debate related to the EU summit as well as to PM Tony Blair’s often quoted speech to the European Parliament in June 22, 2005 from what has been articulated by Hooghe & Marks (1999), Nolte (2005) and Siedentop (2002) among others.

The main dividing line should be interpreted, I argue, as a political fight between the two competing projects that Hooghe & Marks (1999) so tellingly has highlighted in their article: the neo-liberal project versus the project of regulated capitalism. According to the British view the EU needs an alternative model as the French one has failed. Great Britain is the only country in a position to show EU the way forward by her example. The British debate is very much about deregulation, flexibility, modernisation, living standards, economy, competitiveness, efficiency, change, jobs and growth – or in other words how to cope with globalisation – and one can easily notice the difference between the projects both regarding the language (Siedentop 2002) and between those believing in dynamism against those believing in contraction (Nolte 2005).